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Yesterday I had the unfortunate experience of dropping my bike , but I'm thankful for the minimal damage to it. I dropped it onto it's left side and broke the casing for the left front blinker (blinker light still functional), scrapped the clutch lever/end of handle bar (nothing a little black sharpie won't fill in), and might have messed up clutch lever. The clutch pulls inwards ok, but is loose and will now go towards front of bike. I'm hoping it is just tightening it up and it will be ok, but will understand if it is more than that and have to accept.
Definitely pissed off I dropped my bike as it was a mistake I made. Went riding with a friend of mine and he went down the wrong road so we went to turn around. He chose to back into a driveway and turn around this way, while I chose to make a u-turn in the road as it was a back country road with almost no traffic. The counter-balance rule from the motorcycle safety course should have kicked in, but it did not as I have not done it since taking the course 14 months ago. So I'm in middle of road going under 2mph, if that, and stupid me leaned/looked into the left turn. Immediately I felt the bike going to the left and tried to sit up quickly, but knew it was going to work. So then I put my left foot down hoping if I can keep it one two wheels my friend Jim would be able to come over to fully straighten me back up. But when I put the left foot down I placed it too far away from the bike and had no grip on the asphalt and nothing to hold up the weight of myself or the bike (which was basically still now). As I was going over, I tried to slow up the momentum before the bike hit the ground and think I was able to do so based upon the lack of major damage. A few teaspoons of gas came out, but bike was still running when it hit the ground and I hit the kill switch to kill the engine and turned the key to off position. Jim came over to help me right the back and I moved it to the side of the road to check out the damage, regain my composure (I was fine, just super pissed off), and get ready to head back to another friend's house who lives nearby to use his toolbox to fix the blinker. We would have been able to fix the blinker on site if I had previously checked the toolkit provided when I purchased the bike last summer as I would have realized the screwdriver heads were not the correct size! So I take off the blinker and hop on the bike to head to my other friend's and the bike doesn't start. Hmmmmm, I had to kill it when I dropped it so I didn't expect it not to start. Head back into the toolkit to pull side fairing off and take a look and yet again not the right tools. So I called the friend who's house we were headed to and he brought a small toolbox with him. While waiting, I called a good friend from TN who deals with bikes on a daily basis because we couldn't think of why the bike wouldn't start. Figured there was some safety we were missing and it was true. My friend from TN said my bike has some tip/drop type sensor that needs to be reset when the bike is dropper. So she saved me some frustration as we took off side fairing, unplugged the positive on the battery, and then plugged it back in! Bike started right back up!
So I'm thankful for 3 awesome friends for being there to help me out and not judging me for my stupid mistake. It will be one I don't make again and makes me want to just get even better each time I'm out riding. My friend Jim made me go for a ride once we got things straightened out to make sure I didn't lose the nerve. It was during this ride I figured out the clutch may have an issue so hoping to fix that this week and get back out there!