Monday, July 28, 2008

New Toy


This is the new toy/economy vehicle. It is a Kawasaki Vulcan 900 Classic. I bought it with 0 miles. This one is fuel injected, that means no choke, no warm up, and 55mpg on the highway.
It rides like your sofa up to about 75mph, then it will set your butt cheeks to tingling something fierce. The shop says they will look into that at the 600mile service. The vibration, not the butt cheeks.
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At 253 miles I was involved in an accident while on the bike. That's about as close to getting the new look as I care to come. I was riding in the right lane, in a 45mph speed limit, with no one ahead of me in my lane. The Explorer in the left lane was fifty or so feet ahead of me in moderate traffic. An elderly hippy in a white Prius almost made a left turn across two lanes of on coming cars, but was jammed in the rear by a stripper, in a Saturn. The Prius, apparently motivated by the unexpected goose from the rear, came into the left lane of traffic, on my side of the road, in the wrong direction.
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Bedlam ensued.
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I was surprised by a loud "BAM, BAM" (was that Emeril?) and tire smoke, and solid wall of junk, blocking my lane.
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Bummer!
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If I could write down everything that went through my thoughts in that fraction of a second, it would take me an hour. I was on the brakes, and looking for a hole to ride through or crawl into. I only had time to decide to go right or hold on. I've had a bike down a couple of times, and there is something special about that impact against a large object, and I don't mean that in a good way! I saw it coming and had time to think about how bad it would hurt, and hope that this wouldn't kill me, just let me suffer for a while. Then I was stopped, with my front tire touching the rear tire of the Explorer. The only damage to my bike was a turn signal pushed off its mounting bolt, it didn't even break the lens!
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Talk about shocked! I was speechless!
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The stripper chick and the Explorer driver descended on me to see if I was in need of scraping off the road. They were as amazed as me. The bike was leaning on the right floor board. They helped me set it up and I backed up a couple of feet to clear the back of the Explorer. We helped the hippy out of her car and I cleared a lane of traffic of junk to allow cars through.
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I got out for a hundred dollars of damage that the hippys insurance will have to pay.
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We won't mention the pinch marks in the seat, and I deny all alegations of stains no matter how minor!

2 comments:

Murphy said...

Purdy bike.

If it were me, it wouldn't be just pinch marks on the seat, I'm guessin' the whole thing would be gone and I'd be walking funny...

Ambulance Driver said...

Nice bike, DW. Glad your encounter turned out better than mine.

I may have to look into a Kawasaki Vulcan when I get my settlement check...