I joined Dave (a coworker of mine), and his friends and aquaintences on a great two-day (06/30 - 07/01) ride through the central Colorado mountains. Over the course of two days we put in a leisurely 400+ miles, passing through Evergreen, Conifer, Fairplay, Buena Vista, Leadville and Copper. I returned on I-70, while the rest of the group continued home to northern CO.

But I Almost Didn't Do It

The tour was almost scuttled, for me anyway, when I dropped my bike after hours of washing, waxing and other preparations. I had the bike on our front sidewalk to do the work. Our sidewalk is narrow, we live on a hill, and the road is strongly crowned. When the bike is on the sidewalk, I always take the bike off the centerstand very carefully due to this combination of factors. Well, I guess I wasn't careful enough this time, because when I took the bike, which had been warming up, off the centerstand, I got leaning just the slightest bit the wrong way (into the road). The hill, narrow sidewalk, and crown, combined to make it impossible for me to get the bike righted, so it went crashing to the ground, with me jumping off at the last second. I got to watch the right mirror/turn-signal pod explode under the weight of the bike. What a bummer!

Once my neighbor and I had the bike righted, I picked up the turn-signal pod pieces, and inspected the bike. No real damage other than a deep scuff on the plastic cover of the bar-end weight and a few scuffs on the right-side saddlebag (which had popped off, but popped right back on), and of course the pod. The fairing was no more scratched than usual, which I suppose is a blessing.

As I was doing the damage assessment, I became aware of a burning sensation in my left calf. I looked down to find that I had several burned spots on my leg. Apparently, the bike had turned over far enough that my leg brushed over the header pipes as I jumped off. What another bummer!

With the turn-signal pod in pieces and my leg burning like hell, I was pretty depressed and decided I wouldn't do the ride after all. I really didn't want to ride without the turn-signal and mirror, and I couldn't imagine pulling boots up onto this burned calf of mine. So, with heavy heart, I called Dave to let him know not to expect me at our rendezvous in Idaho Springs.

With nothing better to do, I iced my leg and worked on the turn-signal pod. It turned out that the pod had actually broken apart at natural join lines, so making a long story short, I was able to glue it and the turn-signal lens back together with airplane glue. The next challenge was to mount the pod back onto the fairing. Unfortunately, the mounting plate had bent, putting one of the mounting studs at an impossible angle for pod attachment. When I tried to bend the stud back into place, it popped out of the hole in the mounting plate to which it was riveted. "Now what?", I thought, "I'm really screwed". However, it occured to me that I could straighten the mounting plate now that the rivet hole was exposed, by inserting a screwdriver shaft in the rivet hole and applying appropriate pressure to the plate to bend it back into alignment. That done, I was able to twist the stud's rivet-end into the hole it came from. The twisting caused the stud to bind back into place; I found that it was surprisingly strong after this manipulation. The pod went on fairly well, except that it cracked in half again on the glue seams as I applied pressure to it in order to snap it onto the mounting plate. So, I glued it back together, in-place on the motorcycle, and used a thick rubber band to hold it together while the glue dried.

A few hours later (at night), the pain of my burns had subsided a great deal. I took the bike out for a 40-mile spin over rough roads, and at speeds up to 80mph to test the pod installation. The pod assembly held, and I'd been able to wear my boots comfortably over my burns. I was back in the ride!!