I haven’t been riding my Yamaha recently. The chain is dangerously stretched, it needs a tuneup, and it wouldn’t hurt to put new tires on it. Expensive. They’ve been painting the apartment and the bike, along with my Willys CJ2A that was parked in front of it, was covered in plastic. Might as well wait 'til they’re done. Besides, I’ve been lazy.
But with gas prices being what they are, I thought I’d take it in for servicing and start riding it to work again. I uncovered the Jeep and drove it around today, as I am wont to do on weekends. I decided I’d park the bike on the street, put the Jeep in the carport, and then park the bike behind it so that I could hop on it after work during the week and ride it to the shop.
So I went to start the bike. It made a funny popping sound. That’s weird. It’s never done that before. I looked at the engine and something was missing.
Some rat-bastard had stolen my exhaust system!!!
Fuck! It was a nice Vance & Hines four-into-one unit that cost like five hundred bucks! I can’t even ride it the four miles to the shop, so I’ll have to push it!
Okay, I have some money in the bank. But I’m not fucking made of money! I have to pay about fifteen hundred bucks in taxes, the Cherokee needs maintenance to the tune of about $600, and I was expecting about $600 for the bike maintenance. Plus there was the recent trip to Washington and the rest of the balance on my credit card. I’m going to have to spend about what the bike is worth, just so I can ride it again. And no, I’m not selling it. It has a lot of sentimental value to me.
I’m annoyed.
I’m not a violent person, but I sure would like to catch the dog-fucker and scare the crap out of him with a 9mm bogie-man.
Vehicles that don’t belong to you are not a free Pick-A-Part store. Keep your fucking animal paws off of my stuff!
Some complete schmuck stole the rear wheel and cassette from my bicycle several months ago. The damned thing cost me about $150 and quite a bit of inconvenience to replace. What really gets me is that *my bike was parked and locked ** right on my front porch, in broad daylight *when the wheel disappeared! That means that someone had to have some serious balls of steel to even try taking parts off my bike.
My condolences on the loss of your exhaust system. Does that ever reek.
Did you have any motorcycle insurance that would cover theft like this? And do you have any suspicion of who took your stuff?
Unfortunately, no insurance. The deductable would be $500. It’s not so hard to steal an exhaust. Just undo a couple of bolts. The front end is held on by springs.
No idea when it was stolen. I haven’t been riding for about three months. The carports are usually empty during the day (except for my bike and the Willys) so it there would have been plenty of room to get at it (even though it was parked as close to the wall as possible). Sometimes cars aren’t there at night, so it could’ve been stolen then.
I haven’t seen any other XJ 600s in the neighbourhood, so I don’t know who could’ve taken it. No way to identify it anyway. It wouldn’t even do any good to call the police. They’re pretty useless when it comes to vehicle “break-ins”.
Tried to call the cops. Line was busy, so I went down to the station to file a report. They said they’d send someone over. I told him there wasn’t anything to see – just a bike that doesn’t have an exhaust system. He said he’d send someone out anyway. When I told him it would take me 10 minutes to get home, he said someone would be here in about 15 minutes. Yeah, that was over an hour and a quarter ago.
I had a similar experience back in Taiwan. I’d parked my little Yamaha RZX 135 in front of my bldg for the night, and when I started it up the next morning it sounded like an F1 car. The resonator was still there, but someone had stolen the muffler. I rode it to the shop for a replacement on the way to work to the tune of $50.
Like an idiot, I parked it in the same place that night. Started it up the next morning and what do you think I heard? The thief obviously knew that I’d have to replace the muffler, so he came back to get the brand-spanking-new one!
After that, I started parking in the underground lot. Be sure to keep your new can safe.
Not just the can. They took the header pipes too. I wonder if I can have them weld a lug to it so I can chain it to the bike? (Or maybe I can just put the cable through the headers.)
All I’ve ever had stolen was a half dead battery, from a three quarters dead old piece-of-crap car. Assholes ! :mad:
Perhaps some Anti-theft bolts would help; at least until everyone on the block gets them, and the thieves come equipped.
Another tip, John: I have a full cover on my bike, which is fixated by a large U-lock that goes underneath the engine, through two rings in the cover. Takes the view off the bike completely, less dust accumulation, and it makes it harder to pick up and carry off. Of course, it makes it harder to pick up the bike as well, if it happens to blow over in a force 10 storm. :mad:
Anyways, all I need to do is let the engine cool off for 30 minutes after a ride, then toss the cover on. It works for me.
Yeah, that sucks. Years back I had a bike I’d put some money into. Among the upgrades were a pair of six-piston Performance Machine brakes and floating rotors up front. I come out of my building one morning, unchain the bike, pull it out of its parking spot, squeeze the brake lever to stop, and the lever goes right to the handle. I look down at the front wheel, and there’s a big pool of nasty brake fluid all over the place and NO front brake calipers. The theiving fuck left the rotors, I guess 'cause pulling the wheel off would have taken too much time, or he didn’t have the tools.
I’m glad I just have stock cans on my bikes. Then again my Shadow has some holes in it. I wish my cans on the Connie came off so easy since it takes a few minutes to yank them off when I change my tires. Sorry about the loss of your cans man.
On a somewhat positive note I got to ride today for the first time this year. I was able to dig my bikes out of two feet of snow and then it froze again.
Holy fuck! I’ve heard of bikes being stolen, and some fucker stole the seat from my wife’s bicycle, but I thought that thieves who actually needed tools only appeared in movies.
