noahdog
Been Around the Block
I learned a painful lesson about cold tires on cold roads today. About 10 minutes into our weekly ride I apparently went into a big looping right curve too hot and wound up lowsiding the Nighthawk into a ditch. I felt the tire slide out on me so I corrected for it and got the bike going straight to slow down but I was only half way through the curve and heading straight for a ditch so I had no choice but to lean it hard to the right again. Sure enough the ass end slid out on me again and I went down doing about 40 mph. The gear held up great and the only injury to me was my pride and a sprained thumb. The Nighthawk wasn't so lucky. :'( After it slid into the ditch the front wheel must have caught and flipped the bike over and bent the left handle bar in half. It may have tweaked the forks as well since the front fender is now running on the tire and the brakes are dragging. I also bent the left foot peg so the shifter is now hitting the linkage and tweaked the sissy bar trashing the back rest pad. I also blew out a zipper on one of my saddle bags but the bags themselves came out pretty unscathed. Thank god I installed some crash bars a couple of weeks ago or the right side of my engine would be toast from the slide.
On the plus side there's hardly a scratch on my armor leather jacket and I was wearing the matching leather padded pants under a pair of Carhartt pants so no road rash on me at least. I wore a small hole in the side of my gloves as well so there's more skin saved. The helmet only has a couple of scratches by the visor hinge. All in all not bad for a 20-30 foot slide. :winker: I had to go search the ditch for my cell phone which was about 10 feet away from the leather case that came off my hip in the crash. :ImaPoser:
Here's some crappy cell phone pics of the damage...
Miraculously most of the expensive parts were spared. No damage to the tank, Corbin seat, side covers, tail piece or even the new Rifle fairing that I'd just got done installing right before the ride. :bugey: The biggest issue is the forks. I'm really hoping I just tweaked the triple T and the forks aren't bent. If thats the case I should have less than $100 in fixes.
On the plus side there's hardly a scratch on my armor leather jacket and I was wearing the matching leather padded pants under a pair of Carhartt pants so no road rash on me at least. I wore a small hole in the side of my gloves as well so there's more skin saved. The helmet only has a couple of scratches by the visor hinge. All in all not bad for a 20-30 foot slide. :winker: I had to go search the ditch for my cell phone which was about 10 feet away from the leather case that came off my hip in the crash. :ImaPoser:
Here's some crappy cell phone pics of the damage...
Miraculously most of the expensive parts were spared. No damage to the tank, Corbin seat, side covers, tail piece or even the new Rifle fairing that I'd just got done installing right before the ride. :bugey: The biggest issue is the forks. I'm really hoping I just tweaked the triple T and the forks aren't bent. If thats the case I should have less than $100 in fixes.
