This is my bike as it appeared shortly after I bought it new in the Summer of 2003. Today was an office day, so I was gone. When I pulled into my driveway, I saw that my bike was on its side. Did a tree branch fall on it? No. There’s a walkway in front of the house, and it’s parked in front of my bedroom window. There’s foliage on the other side of the walk, and it was trampled. The kickstand was retracted, which cannot happen if it just ‘fell over’.
Both mirrors are snapped off. The windscreen was in the foliage in a position toward the middle of the machine. The front fairing had bits torn off. The fairing aft of the gas tank, which runs from there to the tail light, is broken in the middle. A kid broke the left side fairing a couple of months after I got the bike. (Fifteen years old, no license, driving mom’s car around the parking area, backed into it. Didn’t tell me.) That was $300. I’m thinking it’s closer to $500 for the front fairing. Plus the windscreen ($100?). Plus two mirrors (I think they’re over $100 each; maybe only $85 or so). Plus the center fairing.
[ul][li]Possibility 1: Neighbourhood kids wanted to sit on it. They retracted the kickstand and lost control of it. Maybe they were frightened by a spider. The orb weavers are out in force this time of year, and I saw a big one on the tree next to the bike. It weighs 175 kg (385 lbs – the bike; not the spider) dry, so perhaps they couldn’t lift it. They tried to lift it up by the fairing and mirrors and broke them.[/li][li]Possibility 2: Someone tried to steal it, could not overcome the lock and weight, and broke it in a manner similar to Possibility 1.[/li][li]Possibility 3: Someone decided they’d jack it up just for the hell of it.[/ul][/li]This is a quiet area. Sure, there was a meth lab a couple of blocks away four or five years ago. And someone nicked a wiper arm off of my Jeep last Christmas Eve. And someone hit the Jeep with a couple of eggs over the Fourth of July weekend. But still, it’s pretty quiet.
A couple of teenaged kids came by on Saturday asking if I wanted my lawn mowed. We agreed they’d come over Tuesday, but they never showed up. One of them asked if he could buy my bike. I told him it’s not for sale; I like it too much. ISTR the same kids asking if they could buy my bike last Spring. I have no evidence whatsoever that they are the culprits. It’s just that they’re the only ones who ever expressed an interest.
I called the Sheriff, and he said that with the budget cuts and whatnot, and not having any suspects, they’re not coming out. They took my statement over the phone and gave me a case number. I called the insurance company, and got a claim number. The adjuster will call me on Monday.
You know, there’s a Guy Code: You don’t mess with a guy’s car. It’s Just Not Done. The rule goes double for motorcycles.
Major property damage and the cops won’t even come and dust for fingerprints because you can’t or won’t do their investigative work ahead of time and name suspects?
Isn’t this what the police are for? Am I missing something?
In this city, and in the next big city (Dallas), the cops don’t usually come out for stuff like that. They’ll take the report over the phone, tell you that’s too bad, but there’s really nothing to investigate. In a way, yeah, they’re probably right, there’s probably no evidence that they could use. But it’s sure aggravating to be told that the loss or damage of your property is basically just gonna go unresolved, without any attempt to even look at the problem.
I didn’t click on the picture at first. For the first few sentences I was picturing a ten speed. Complete with a kickstand (reasonable), mirrors (okay)…and a windscreen?
It’s amazing how much that plastic costs. As I said, the side panel I had to replace before was $300. The front fairing on my '94 XJ600 (a much cheaper bike) developed a stress crack. Fortunately it was still under warranty. That bit of plastic was $500 – over a decade ago. One bit of good news is that my deductible is only $150.
If it fell, it seems like only one of the mirrors would be broken off. You know as it falls on one side. What did they pick it up and then it fell over the other way?
The mirror wouldn’t have broken anyway; or at least it’s not likely it would have.
As far as falling the other way, it was right up next to the house. Couldn’t have done. I suspect they dropped it, and then tried to pick it up by the mirrors, snapping the cast-metal spars. Then (or concurrently) they tried to right it by pushing and pulling on the windscreen, breaking it off. The center fairing either broke on the first drop, or when they (presumably) dropped it again. At least the frame sliders protected the side panel.
Just got off the phone with the Yamaha shop. Of course they won’t know how much this will cost until I get the bike down there, but just from my description the guy said I’m looking at about $1,200 in parts. Plus ‘several hours’ labour.
At first he gave me a ballpark figure for the parts without the stickers. I told him I wanted the stickers, and he was like, ‘Oh. You want the stickers?’ YEAH, I want the stickers! I want it to look like it did when I bought it, which is how it looked on Friday morning before I left for work.
U-Haul has a motorcycle trailer, and I’ve reserved it for Saturday morning.
When I low-sided my VFR a few years ago, I found online sources for all the bodywork that charged about half what the local guys wanted. Of course you’re dealing with insurance so I guess that doesn’t matter in this case.
In an odd twist to your situation, my replacement panels came with stickers, which was a pain in the ass as I had de-stickered the rest of the bike.
Awwww, Mannnn, John! That sucks big-time, buddy. Your bike looks beautiful. I only ride a scooter, but I sure can relate. Good that you had it insured, although that’s still a chunk o’ change.
Sorry to hear about your bike. I’ve had my bike knocked over and stood back up in my absence too, while parked in the street in Manhattan. I always park at the end of the street (in the direction of traffic flow) to avoid having cars back into it while parallel parking, but some schmo must have clipped it while making a very narrow turn (my guess is a very large truck, I’ve seen drivers mis-estimate the necessary turn radius to make a 90 degree turn onto a one-lane street with parked cars on both sides and run up on the corner curb).
Fortunately I have no fairing to damage, but when I got back to my bike I noticed the handlebars were misaligned, my right mirror was scratched and out of whack, and the front forks were leaking oil. :mad: I also realized a few weeks later that my front brake lever had been bent. It wasn’t obviously bent to the eye, but every time I used it I felt strangely awkward, like I had to reach just a bit farther out with my fingers than I was used to having to do. Finally I got a replacement lever for about $8 and compared it with the one on my bike – yep, bent by about 5 degrees.
So make sure your clutch/brake levers are OK, you don’t want to find out while riding at speed that your front brake lever is not working right or bent in a way to make reaching it difficult, or see your clutch lever snap off or something :eek:
Also, since you seem forced to park your ride in a public street unattended, do you have a centerstand for it?
I park during the day in an area with a lot of pedestrian traffic (midtown Manhattan) and I’ve decided it pretty much unavoidable that there will eventually be people who sit on my bike. I’ve heard of riders (especially owners of Vespas) catching people having their friends take pictures of them in the saddle, or who put their kids on the bike for a “cute picture”! I haven’t caught anyone in the act, but I have found detritus left on my bike (both scooter and motorcycle) more times than I can count, be it a coffee cup, newspaper or magazine or paper/plastic bag of some kind… So there is Stuff Happening while I’m away, I have to deal with that or else fork over the $$$ to pay for parking in a garage.
Given that, I’d consider removing at least one possibility for some estupido accidentally rolling off and dropping my bike by parking it on the centerstand. Unless you’re on a hilly incline and park with the kickstand facing downhill, then a centerstand would not be so good.
“Leads, yeah, sure. I’ll just check with the boys down at the crime lab, they’ve got four more detectives working on the case. They got us working in shifts! Ha ha ha!”
Sorry to hear about the vandalism. When you find the perpetrators, make sure to go to their house with a crowbar and vandalize their cars while shouding, “This is what happens when you f**k a stranger in the ass!” at the top of your lungs. It may get you arrested, but we’ll all appreciate the great film reference.
If this seems to be happening repeatedly, why not go to a sporting goods store and get a Game Camera, they’re triggered by motion and some can even capture images in infrared, no tell-tale flash to tip off mischief-makers
Sorry to hear about the damage, my gut instinct says it was some idiot who tried to sit on the bike, and ended up dropping it, then tried to right it, but gave up
hope your insurance makes things right, do they have “stupid idiot wanted to sit on my bike and dropped it” coverage?
