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So about 3 weeks ago, I was on my second break at work, hanging out in our receiving department at a warehouse here in the bay area. A coworker of mine would regularly ride my bike on break. I handed him the keys on my way across the warehouse to talk to a buddy. As soon as I walk outside 5 minutes later, I see the bike fly by at ~55 mph, and he's locked up the back tire. 20 feet later, he dumps it, 5 feet after that, the bottom of the bike plows into another coworkers shins and he goes flying backwards while doing front flips. The guy that got hit went ~15 ft, the rider went ~150 ft, and the bike went ~200 ft, accompanied the whole way by the pedestrians shoes.
Well as you can imagine, bad times ensued. Fire department came first, after about 15-20 minutes. We're on the edge of town, so instead of the neighboring city's FD coming from half a mile away, they came from about 3 miles away. Not cool. Luckily, when the pedestrian landed, one leg was crossed over the other, which it turns out placed pressure on his compound fracture, which didn't really start bleeding until emergency crews moved his leg. The guy riding the bike was not wearing a helmet, and managed to get away with just a minor concussion, some scrapes to his face, and a heck of a lot of deep bruising.
The bike is not doing too hot. Fixable, yes, but I need to find an engine. The left engine mount as well as a huge chunk of the casing on the cylinder stayed with the frame, while the engine decided to move to the right about 2 inches. I did a thorough inspection on the frame, and it appears to be in good shape with no cracks or tweaking, so I figure this is worth putting back together. This bike has been awesome to me for the past 70,000 miles, and I bought it with 42,000.
Another interesting thing about the situation though is I had just replaced my damaged left nylon frame slider about 3 days before, replaced my left hand napoleon mirror with a huge bar end mirror 2 days before, and replaced my side stand about a week before as the old one was bent back in. Other than a tiny scrape to the tail piece, the bike slid strictly on those 3 parts. I credit those with saving the guy's leg that was riding it. I can't count that as coincidence, just like with the pedestrian's leg putting pressure on the other leg's open wound. Clearly the Big Man upstairs was looking out for them, making the best out of one guy's stupid choices.
Anyways, being 3 weeks later, this is just about resolved. I've talked to the company attorney, insurance, and whatnot, and things are going smoothly. Since we were on break (not clocked out), the company is going through with worker's compensation for the guy that got hit. It involved quite a bit of pressure on their insurance. The pedestrian has 2 new titanium tibias, and should walk without crutches in 5-6 months, and work in a year. The rider was just fired on Friday morning, even though he was the receiving lead. The company attorney says it is highly unlikely I will get sued, given that I wasn't actually on the bike, and mostly because I don't have any money or assets.
Yep. It's been a bad month.
On a lighter note, if I can get a motor that has taken a minor hit on the front cylinder (meaning it's got a slightly broken valve cover), should I count it as just not worth buying, or can that front cylinder be torn down and rebuilt most likely with no damage to the rest of the engine? Thanks.
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Originally Posted by brendanp
