Harley Davidson Forums - Hello from Simpsonville, SC

I've been on bikes, since...well, my mother says I was conceived ON a motorcycle in Hawaii.

Started riding on my own at 4, a fat tired minibike and I still remember looking UP at the handle bars.

Ridden dirtbikes all of my childhood, teens, twenties and 30s.

Then I crushed the tibial plateau supercross racing in upstate NY.
After that I just wasn't 'fast' anymore.

So I moved onto the street, first streetbike was a Suzuki 1400 Intruder and I put 30kmi on it.

Over the years I'd looked at Harleys but never liked one. Then they released the V-Rod and I was in love. Bought a '03 and immediately took it completely apart. I was one of the first to have a chromed out V-Rod.

An inventor by trade the small fuel tank on it eventually drove me nutz enough that I invented a 5 gallon tank for it. Made a phat tire kit and a few other bits and pieces.

40kmi on the V-Rod and I got the itch again in early '14. My buddy had just sold his CVO Road Glide out from under me - some pal. And I learned that HD had discontinued the Road Glide. Not to be outsmarted I scoured the country and found 1 left, in Liberal KS. Hopped in the truck and 44 hours later I was unloading it in my driveway.

On the first ride my pal said it sounded like a sewing machine. He had some spare pipes so that afternoon, with less than 100miles on it we changed pipes. Better.

Still, coming off the V-Rod the RG felt pretty gutless. Off to the hotrod shop where we did everything possible to the top end and made 115 on the dyno. A few other mods like bars, extended bags, wheels and a seat and I've been really happy with the RG.

Then on Mar 4th while riding on 101 in Grey Court SC a deer popped out of the woods right in front of me, I just slowed to 60mph too.

His head went over the fender and wrapped around the forks and his body went under the tire; and took us down. Stupid deer popped up, kept going and got hit by the oncoming car.

According to the guy right behind us, my wife went flying off, I stayed with the bike well into it's slide and eventually pushed off. Just as the bike was about to stop sliding it caught and flipped - shit!

I popped up, turned around to check on wifey and she's laying in the middle of the road all akimbo. Scared I start run/hopping towards her and she pops up.

Later after EMS, cops, a pickup to put the bike in and a sad ride home we went to the hospital to have my ankle looked at. While waiting on the doc to tell me what's broken I'm talking to wifey and she's lost like 10sec of the accident. I start feeling her head and there's a big bloody spot. After arguing for a few minutes that she's not 'fine' we admitted her, got a CT scan and all's OK. I've got a broken leg and wrist.

It's a darn good thing it was cold that night and we were in full leathers because other than a little bit of road rash here and there and my broken bits we were basically OK. Our leathers are rashed pretty good, that'll happen when you slide at 60. Our dumb azzes had no helmets on though.

Our guardian angels were looking out for us that night, the oncoming car, the one speeding behind us, the twisty road that had one straight section, well, the light damage we took was a miracle. Any 1 of 1000 things could have gone differently and we'd be splattered.

We have revised our gear and no-helmet policy. Gear and helmets for humans 100% of the time in the future.

Now the sad bit, the RG really got it pretty bad. Frame, suspension, motor and wheels survived but virtually nothing else did.
So I'm in rebuild mode. Finally after 6 weeks of screwing around the insurance company ponyed up a check and now it's just an ordering and waiting game.

I hear the call of the wild all the time and wish I were riding...