Motorcycle Vandalism

It hurts, it sucks, and it's surprisingly difficult to deal with. I would like to share an old story about my first motorbike.
We are all very attached to our bikes, and maybe even more so our first ride. My first bike was a 1988 Yamaha Riva scooter that I purchased from a seller on craigslist.org, the bike was 1 year older than me and at the time the only thing that I owned.

My old Yamaha was the victim of some DBAGs lack of respect and thirst for trouble. The damage to the bike was very minimal and yet I felt very victimized. There was never a confrontation, confession, or closure in the classic sense.

With the intention of a prework ride around town I geared up and headed to the scoot for what was probably going to be the highlight of my day. As I walk through the apiartment complex parking lot I immediately notice beer bottles placed on one side of the bike, close but not too close. I hate litter, grab the bottles and place 'em on the floor board of the bike. Start her up, vroOOMM! I let her idle on the center stand, tighten my gloves, gas gauge says were good, turn on the brights. Pushing off the stand I notice nothing unusual, driving towards the dumpster I notice nothing unusual. I throw the bottles in the bin and zoom off, still in the lot I CHECK MY LEFT MIRROR and something isn't right. I'm not seeing what I usually see when I check the mirror. Still driving I reach out to make the proper adjustments, no mirror in my hand just air, somethings not computing. Stop the bike, take a good look the mirror that I just tried to adjust and its ******** hanging off of the mirror mount! I quickly look at the right side mirror and it's the same ******** thing!!! Sitting there I can't believe that I didn't notice sooner if not immediately, wt*. I consider the situation. Fortunately the mirrors easily remount, and all is quickly back to normal. I drive back to the parking spot and it all quickly begins to add up. My bike is really old and uncommon, my mirrors are surely specific to scooters. Pillaging my mirrors probably wasn't the goal, at least not to sell or place on another bike., maybe as a story or trophy. Ok so the beer bottles enter the equation... ... Did this ****** sit on my bikes throne and drink 2 beers while trying to take my mirrors!?! What else did this unscrupulous person do to MY precious piece of crap!?

I skipped the prework ride and went straight to work, frustrated and dissapointed. In my experience scooters get more attention than standard style motorcycles, good and bad.

Has your bike(s) ever been messed with? How did you act, or react?
if there isn't a thread for this topic then I guess this it.

People suck. Don't let the ^&&**#@s get you down. More than likely it was nothing more than some drunk randomly being a jerk.

kurt said:

People suck. Don't let the ^&&**#@s get you down. More than likely it was nothing more than some drunk randomly being a jerk.

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Yeah right on. Punks, man!

I agree, scooters get less respect than real bikes. A daddy that would never think of putting his child on the seat of someone else's Harley Road King, will readily put said child on the seat of a scooter or small unfaired bike. My pet peeve is friends that think it's OK for their little one to play with my helmet.

Last summer, I rode My Then Came Bronson replica Sportster to lunch. I dont ride it a lot, and never to a place where it will be out of My sight. However, I eat at this place a lot, and although out of sight, I was close by. The Buffet was nearly empty, with only a group of 3, that appeared to be a Father, Mother and daughter. They finished eating, and got up, paid and left. The Daughter, who appeared to be about 40 stood at the door, and looked back at Me for a few moments as the older two went out the door. I didnt think anything about it, and finished My food. When I walked out to My bike, I saw that someone had apparently kicked it, bending the right front fender bracket all the way into the spokes. The people were gone, and I was stumped as to why anyone would damage My bike. I was grateful they didnt knock it over, or damage the autographed gas tank, or the rare pipes. I wonder if it was the ASE (all seeing eye) on the gas tank. Some people seem to be under the impression that it is a masonic symbol, or the Illuminati image, or some kind of racist symbol. The Family that I saw was a black family, so I can only assume that they thought it was some kind of racist symbol. At least, the damage was minimal, but it would have been very ugly had I seen the damage done.......

I had theft issues back in early-marriage apartment living days (1977-78). I had a Suzuki 185 chained outside the apartment. My wife was trying to get me to buy a house, and I was resisting. That is, before the petty theft issues began.

One day I came home & a mirror was missing. Another day, the foam handlebar pad (remember those on dirt bikes?) had been taken. The zinger was when I went downstairs and somebody had stolen the drive chain off the bike. I went upstairs, threw my helmet, threw a temper tantrum, then announced to my wife, "That's it! We're buying a garage!" She said "You mean a house?" I replied, "Whatever it takes!"

Had just ridden 500 miles in the rain on my EX250 in the middle of December wearing a mesh jacket and jeans. Got to my destination, and parked the thing outside, not removing my soft luggage because I was about to freeze to death. Come out in the morning and all the luggage straps are cut (they also had clips you could just remove) and the bags were all sliced open (they had no sort of locks on any of them either, just plain zippers, and were empty) - someone probably wanted to steal something, didn't find anything, then decided to vandalize my luggage out of anger. Well, thinking back, they did steal a $15 Sirius receiver I had in my tankbag (but not the antenna or its power supply)

Now I use hard luggage :P

Oh, and yes, I did have an EX250 with satellite radio, GPS, and a full complement of luggage - I miss that bike :P

tshelfer said:

I had theft issues back in early-marriage apartment living days (1977-78). I had a Suzuki 185 chained outside the apartment. My wife was trying to get me to buy a house, and I was resisting. That is, before the petty theft issues began.

One day I came home & a mirror was missing. Another day, the foam handlebar pad (remember those on dirt bikes?) had been taken. The zinger was when I went downstairs and somebody had stolen the drive chain off the bike. I went upstairs, threw my helmet, threw a temper tantrum, then announced to my wife, "That's it! We're buying a garage!" She said "You mean a house?" I replied, "Whatever it takes!"

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No respect! Your last major incident in the late 70s huh? Environment makes all of the difference I suppose. Don't be surprised if that chain shows up in a box in the attic

DominoTree said:

Had just ridden 500 miles in the rain on my EX250 in the middle of December wearing a mesh jacket and jeans. Got to my destination, and parked the thing outside, not removing my soft luggage because I was about to freeze to death. Come out in the morning and all the luggage straps are cut (they also had clips you could just remove) and the bags were all sliced open (they had no sort of locks on any of them either, just plain zippers, and were empty) - someone probably wanted to steal something, didn't find anything, then decided to vandalize my luggage out of anger. Well, thinking back, they did steal a $15 Sirius receiver I had in my tankbag (but not the antenna or its power supply)

Now I use hard luggage :P

Oh, and yes, I did have an EX250 with satellite radio, GPS, and a full complement of luggage - I miss that bike :P

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I like your style, music but no rain gear! Prepared for the ride but not the road. It sucks that your bags got trashed, but in my opinion that's the only part of your story that sucks. Riding any distance in the rain is what it is all about!

Riding v. - Adventure on a motorcycle.

mtthw said:

No respect! Your last major incident in the late 70s huh? Environment makes all of the difference I suppose. Don't be surprised if that chain shows up in a box in the attic

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Oh man. Thirty-four years later I suddenly realize I got fleeced by my wife!

34 years? But it was a GOOD fleecing

It was a GREAT fleecing. And I read mtthw's crack to my wife and she laughed till her sides hurt. That made our evening. Thanks.

Vandals are the same kind of low life as a thief, motorcycle vandals are the lowest of the low. Even most low life have an appreciation for a bike.

I don't know, I was down in Galveston Tuesday for breakfast with some other riders and a mother with a toddler in diapers, picked her up and plunked her down on my velour seat. No big deal, but I just am amazed by what some people think is OK! It made me wanted to jump up and get in their Suburban just to try it out.

jfink said:

I don't know, I was down in Galveston Tuesday for breakfast with some other riders and a mother with a toddler in diapers, picked her up and plunked her down on my velour seat. No big deal, but I just am amazed by what some people think is OK! It made me wanted to jump up and get in their Suburban just to try it out.

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I had to explain this to a buddy. He sat on someonee's bike at work, and they got pretty ticked off at him.

I had to explain it to him, that you always ask first, and seen as a big disrespect if you dont.

Not to mention the purps putting scratches on the bike!

I've been lucky. The worst anybody has done was draw on my bike with some kind liquid stuff in bright colors that dries hard. I'm guessing it was something for arts and crafts. It cleaned off easy enough.

What ever happened to respecting other people's stuff?

I once saw a woman change her kid's diaper using the seat of a motorcycle as a changing table then toss the dirty diaper in the bed of a truck next to it. She apparently didn't understand English when I approached her about it.

Elaine: per your post above; I think that is why there is so much road rage now!!!!!!!! Or just rage in general. When folks were making a living wage one hardly heard of this type of action.

wanabeguru said:

Elaine: per your post above; I think that is why there is so much road rage now!!!!!!!! Or just rage in general. When folks were making a living wage one hardly heard of this type of action.

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Actually, I think that whether or not people are making a decent wage is probably only secondary if even that. The real problem is a general lack of respect for God, who created everything and everyone. People at least used to acknowledge that God exists, and even if they didn't personally worship Him, they lived according to some kind of moral restraints on their actions. (Except for the obvious criminals of course). After Darwinism became the accepted principal of how we all came into existence, the value of human life, not to mention the respect and value of other people's stuff, went down the tubes.
When you subscribe to a theory that devalues human life(abortion, euthanasia, etc.) as Darwinism and his theory of evolution does, then why should you respect another person's property? That person is just something that evolved from pond scum and his stuff really should be shared by all the other pond scum out there. After all, it's not fair if I have something nice and you don't, right? Just my two cents!

Your first paragraph is so true. That's back in the day when parents taught such things and made their kids EARN what they wanted. Mine did to me, and I did to my kids. But somewhere in the translation it got lost i.e. I want it now! Be it money[steal], a buzz[beer aint gud enuf its gotta be drugs], etc. We have an alcoholic at work that cheats on his time card, how he mis-bills repairs, doesn't charge properly for freight, ad-infitum. Bosses response "that's so-and-so" What's with that????????
rant over