Yesterday morning I was IN for DIMBY West.
Mr. AJ was cool with me ditching him for the weekend (he and many friends had plans to play guitars, banjos, mandolins, fiddles etc. at a 3 day bluegrass festival, I was not enthused)
I could stay with an SB friend who'd help me imbalance the gender ratio further.
But how to get there? Of the three bikes I could ride down: Mr. AJ's M900 won't start, his fugly SV is still in parts after 3 weekends of wrenching (fix 1 thing, discover 3 more issues), and my itty bitty 250 is too small to make the 600+ mile journey.
Well, yesterday afternoon I picked up a really nice SV650, great condition for an '06 bike, less than 5,000 miles, garaged & babied. And for an SV, it was easy on the eyes & ears, with Yoshimura pipes, bright red (black frame), rear seat cowl & no grab bar. Not bad for a non-Ducati.
The first thing I did was add frame sliders, despite Mr. AJ saying I was being ridiculous and wouldn't need them.
Given that I like to get accustomed to bikes before I throw myself into high speed situations, given Mr. AJ has years more moto experience than I do, and given that we had over an hour drive on the freeway in the dark to get the bike back, he offered to ride it.
We almost made it to my house.
On the upper deck of the Bay Bridge, where the views of San Francisco below you are spectacular, everyone started braking, and somehow, he has no idea why, Mr. AJ lost the front end. Issue with the bike? Shitty driving? Who knows.
Lucky for him, he only bounced around the road. No flying into vehicles, no getting run over, no concussion, no major damage to anything other than one arm. Unfortunately for him, he did a great job fragmenting his dominant hand and arm.
So this weekend he won't be playing his guitar. I won't be riding down the PCH and making chocolate covered bacon. He'll be getting several plates, screws and pins put into his arm, and I'll be taking care of him. And fixing my bike.
Please have some bacon + peaty scotch for me, and hopefully i'll make it next year!
p.s. SacDuc - i'll email Elizabeth and tell her thanks but I can't make it. I'll spare her the blathering drama.
