Not Riding: Crashing, Recovering, Rebuilding

[mr72]

The trick rotor adapter:

With the rotor mounted:

That's going to work amazingly.

And the tabs to mount the fender bracket lower:

Still no tank and fender back from the painter. If I can get an hour to mess with it I'll mount the new rotor and fender brace and then begin to wait for the tank so I can ride it.

 

[mr72]

Stuff is installed. Man I hate putting the front end up with ratchet straps.

Fender brace with my little adapters:

And yes I see that some touch up is needed at the top of the fork. Paint pen y'all. That was paint that stuck better to the masking tape than it did to the anodized alloy underneath.

And the almighty brake rotor. I know not many of you are Bonneville people, but suffice to say, this is a huge win right here. Looks great and works great as far as I can tell without riding.

No word on the tank and front fender. Everything else is ready to ride, aside from a handful of little niggly adjustments (control positioning, headlight aiming, etc.). All of which requires me to have the seat installed correctly and that requires the tank.

 

[mr72]

Well, here we are. I crashed on August 16 and doing the math on how long it would take to recover and get the bike rebuilt, I set a target to be able to ride my Triumph again on my birthday. Which is tomorrow.

As luck would have it, my last day of physical therapy is today. However, my foot is still not really healed. I am told that foot injuries take a very long time to completely recover, and maybe that's the whole problem. But I have almost convinced myself that the PT is no longer really helping. I just need for the remnants of swelling to go away and for my range of motion to return. As far as I can tell, that will all just take time.

I could physically ride my Triumph just fine, except it is not able to be ridden. It's still missing the fuel tank. I went to pick up the tank and front fender yesterday and the fender was good but the tank still needed more work to get it right. I am quite frustrated. It will certainly be another week before I have the tank back and I can finish putting it together. What else remains are some fine tuning of front end stuff. I remembered that I hadn't balanced the front tire, so I need to pull the wheel back off to do that. Also, my swanky rotor adapter works great but as it turns out the rotor is not perfectly centered in the caliper bracket so I may flip the rotor around and see if it fits a little better. Also, through some kind of bad luck and poor documentation, it seems the axle is "too short" when running with a SE wheel and spacers and Thruxton fork lowers. Triumph, a tricky bunch. The only problem here is that the threads don't fully engage in the nut on the axle, so I am considering chopping off a bit of the right side spacer (alloy, stepped part) so the axle can pull through a little more. And my custom fender lowering brackets screw heads interfere with the fender installation, so I need to either install the fender with spacers to make it ride 1/4" high so it'll clear these screws or maybe see if removing the washers from under the screw heads will allow the fender to clear. These things aside though, if I had the tank here I would ride it just like it is, today, right now, no doubt.

As it is about once every 6.75 years my birthday is on Thanksgiving Day this year so I will be cooking and doing that sort of thing rather than whatever I feel like doing all day. But the weekend should allow me time to do the tinkering on the Triumph to get it ready to just pop the tank on and roll, plus I hope to also yank my Suzuki's carbs and clean those pilot jets, hopefully it'll idle.

It seems like Texas is going to skip fall this year, or maybe wait to start fall in late January just for a week until Spring starts on Feb 1. That means the great riding days are likely to be abundant this year so I am not missing much by delaying my return by a week. And after my birthday I should have all of my choice riding gear replaced. I can't wait to go ride again. Almost forgot what it is like.

 

[mr72]

The bike is just sitting there now, everything done that I can do before I can ride it back up the driveway, waiting for the tank. I did discover another undocumented (or I should say, incorrectly documented) difference between Bonneville mag/SE and the spoke bikes but it will just mean I am to run a temporary front fender for a little while and then next time I have some time to fiddle with it, I'll have to make another modification to the fork brace to accommodate what is a wider front fender than it is made for.

Indeed my birthday came and went and included new riding gear. Specifically a new RPHA70ST helmet, this time in a louder yellow color scheme vs my old one which was plain gloss white. There was also a new pair of Alpinestars SMX-Air V2 gloves but it turns out Amazon shipped size M and my wife had ordered L, so we'll get those exchanged. Doesn't matter, it's raining and I don't have a rideable motorcycle anyway. But I do dig the more colorful helmet.

 

[mr72]

Another weekend passed with fantastic December weather for riding on a Sunday afternoon, and yet again I didn't ride.

It's now been nearly six months since I basically quit riding motorcycles. I had only a handful of rides in early August, one of which included my wreck, and then only two or three since recovering. I think this is just a bad time of year to be stuck where I am. My "backup" motorcycle is fully intact but has a frustrating reliability problem that I know how to fix but I am just not motivated to do it. I hate doing this particular job. And I'd need to fix it prior to riding, anticipating a few hours of fine weather that will likely happen several days this week, but during daylight, which would mean I need to not only find time apart from my normal work schedule to fix it, but also cordon off some time to ride during what would be business hours. It would not be unusual for me to just jump on an go on a quick ride around Lime Creek Rd for a 40 minute break from work between meetings, but that was when I had a fuel injected motorcycle that would start and run 100% of the time without question. Now that my good bike is missing a tank, I'm just not motivated to use my limited spare time to work on the old bike, even though I know it would pay off by giving me something to ride. And believe me, I really do want to ride. Just not enough to coax me into burning a few hours soaking my hands in gasoline and fighting with an airbox that seems to have not been designed for the bike it came on.

Plus, with the holiday season in full swing, which happens to coincide with birthday season for four generations of my family, it is quite a challenge to even find any spare time since I have so many other things to do around the house all in preparation for the gauntlet of family gatherings, parties, shopping, etc. Since I was stuck in a cast for four months, these things backed up for half of the year and now I am in catch up mode.

I see rides posted here on TWT that I really want to go join in. I'd love to go explore some of these local gravel backroads with experienced locals who could coach me along and give me much needed practice riding the Suzuki on gravel, but I have to get out of this lurch and actually fix that bike before I can do it.

The fact remains that Central Texas in late fall, winter, through early spring, is a glorious time and place to ride a motorcycle. But you have to be prepared so you can take advantage of these wonderful riding days, and getting over my injuries is turning out to be the least difficult of my preparations. That's why at 8 minutes to 7:00 am today, I am sitting here writing this rather than pulling the tank and carbs off of my Suzuki in the dark while it's 35 degrees out this morning. But if I was motivated enough to get out there and fix the bike, then later today when it's sunny and 70 degrees I could go ride. Maybe this exercise will get me motivated to spend that riding time today wrenching instead, so come tomorrow, I can finally get some bugs on my new helmet's visor.

 

[mr72]

Yesterday I picked up the tank from the painter and put it on. Put the gas back in it. Set the tire pressure. Took a picture.

If you have a sharp eye you might notice the front fender is not right, so I will sort that out eventually. But I can ride it, today!

 

[mr72]

Annnnd.... I did ride today!

Good news: pretty much everything is working just as expected! And boy did it feel good to be back on this bike. I could only do a little short ride but it was great to just make sure the bike was all together and working right and re-familiarize myself with it.

Bad news: the battery is shot, so I need to get another one before I really ride it. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll have one in stock somewhere that I can pick up tomorrow. Weather promises to be awesome tomorrow and I'd love to go do some real miles.

 

[mr72]

The psychology of this whole affair is interesting to me. In many ways, my efforts at repairing and rebuilding the motorcycle have been symbolic of my own healing, the healing of my body and also the time it takes to learn from this and get my head right. I think if I had crashed but not had injuries that kept me off the bike, it really would have caused me to rush back ahead of my mental health. But in this case I rebuilt the motorcycle while my body was healing up and it allowed my mind a chance to get all the way ready.

After riding again yesterday, it's clear my mind is ready. Not only that, but with COVID and being stuck at home along with being unable to do the normal things in my life due to injuries and other things this last year, I was rapidly reminded of just how much stress relief I get from motorcycling. This has been missing for six months.

I ordered a new battery on Thursday and was hopeful it would arrive sometime during the midafternoon Friday, so I could stick it in and go for a real ride with my dad. I was also hopeful that as a backup plan, the weak battery would have enough left to start the bike on its own after being freshly charged, so I could go ride as long as I didn't shut the bike off during the ride, and bring along my LiIon jump pack as a backup. Turns out neither of these plans worked out, and I needed to get the bike back up my steep driveway to park in the garage ahead of the rain that's coming today so with great effort I got it to jump start with the jump pack, discovering in the process that the jump pack is also basically worn out. Since it was running, I went ahead and rode it for 20 minutes or so before parking it. Glad I did.

During this ride I discovered that the brakes are really not right. At first I thought the pads just needed to bed in with the rotor, since both were used and from different bikes. But after testing yesterday with a number of controlled hard stops, I can pull the lever all the way to the bar and it won't lock the front tire or even get close. It's not safe to ride at more than about 35 mph in this condition. I think the cracked left fork leg must have dumped oil on the brake pads. Today during the rain I will take the front end apart a bit to do the last bit of work getting the fork brace to fit correctly with the original fender, and while the wheel is off I'll clean the rotor. I'll clean the old pads with brake cleaner and scuff them with 400 grit (EBC HH) while they are off, as well as clean the caliper, but I also ordered a new set of brake pads. I won't be riding today but I would like to ride tomorrow, at least a neighborhood ride, so the cleaned up brake pads ought to be an OK backup plan in the event the new pads don't come in.

I also discovered over the past week that my foot still is not right and this doesn't seem to be something that's going to heal any time soon. At least with my motorcycle, I am in control. I can discover what's wrong and actually take action to repair it. But with my foot, I just have to wait and allow it to heal. Some actions I can take, like trying to rest, letting the Dr. do what he can do, but the biggest hurdles are overcoming my own impatience and stubbornness. My foot is in fine shape for motorcycling right now, just not for day long hikes. But it is a constant reminder that I am not in control of everything, and sometimes I just have to be patient. With the motorcycle, I am god. I can break it, I can fix it, I can decide what's good enough and what needs work, and I set the schedule. But with my body, I am not God. He is in control of my healing and what's good enough, what still needs work, and He sets the schedule. My efforts to take control just slow it down.

So I'm blessed today with a rainy day to do some final repairs. And tomorrow may be a nice day and perhaps I can ride, or the next day, and the bike will be more complete and safer to ride and my foot may even be 1% better for the day or two of rest. And then I only have to work two more days this year and then I'll be off for what looks like a week and a half of glorious weather and great opportunities for more rest and riding.

 

[garfey]

^^^^^
There's nothing wrong with your thinking.

 

[mr72]

Alright everyone, I think the purpose of this entire thread may just be over.

A couple of days ago, I got a new battery in the Triumph, and the day before yesterday, the new brake pads came in. While the brake pads were still in an Amazon truck in my neighborhood, my dad texted to see if I wanted to go ride. I test-rode on my cleaned up brake pads and the problem was still just as bad, so we delayed another day. I installed the brake pads yesterday morning and then in the afternoon we went on a ride.

The bike was fantastic. Can't believe that I fixed all of this myself! Well, all except the paint work. It was almost exactly as I remembered it from before the wreck, even though that was over four months ago. Only differences are that the springs in the replacement forks seem to be a little softer (I will put my old springs into the new forks), and my tricky brake upgrade has made a really noticeable improvement in brake performance. I thought a 10mm larger rotor would only be a subtle change but this is night and day.

We left from my house since I wanted to be sure the brakes were truly and properly fixed before getting out on higher speed roads, but ended up taking a 1.5 hour long route. We went up 183 to 1869, turned and rode back to Liberty Hill and then took 1174 back over to 1431 in Smithwick and home to Cedar Park from there. Once I made the turn onto 1869 everything just felt so familiar, even down to the construction traffic while they were striping 1869 up near Bertram. That's when I remembered that this very ride is the last one I did before the wreck. In August I had cut out for a long lunch and rode this loop from my house, and riding yesterday it just felt like it had only been a week ago and not over four months. The same roads, same turns I have run a hundred times, same views I slow down for, same road patches I avoid. Every facet was just like home. The bike felt just exactly right.

I wondered if my mind would go to any kind of apprehension about riding again at highway speed or on the road where I had the wreck (it was a different section of 1431). But it didn't. I wasn't at all bothered by the memory of crashing, and I did think about it a little bit, mostly reminding myself to keep an eye out for the unexpected things like what caused my wreck and to leave a bit more following distance so I could avoid that kind of thing. But it wasn't any kind of bother or concern. I rode like I did in the summer, like I was born on two wheels, and in a way, I almost was.

And speaking of that, a funny story. At my house, we have a very steep driveway leading up to the garage so I can't really get the bike in and out easily, I park it on the street when I am going to be riding. My grandson who just turned one year old a few weeks ago was over for a few hours yesterday, and this kid just loves trucks. And tractors, and any machine that makes sounds and moves. My wife and I were out in front of the house walking with him up and down the sidewalk with one of his trucks and he noticed my Bonneville parked on the street. He made a "vroom vroom" sound like he often does, and made a beeline for the bike. We went over and I picked him up and he sat in front of me on the tank and held the handlebar, looked at himself in the bar end mirror, made motorcycle sounds, played with the gauges; the little boy was smitten it seemed. Several times while we were out, he kept looking back and made the same beeline for the motorcycle, so we had a couple of these visits with it in the half hour or so we were out there. My mother tells everyone that my first word was "ky-cle", that from before I was one year old I was in love with motorcycles and I remember when I was very small riding on the tank of my dad's TY250 around the front yard. I guess it's in the blood.

 

[WFO75080]

I guess it's in the blood.

Well said and yes, its in the blood. Glad your back at it...

 

[cdc]

Great ending of the saga as you called, with the grandson's story.

 

[bwdmax]

Glad you and the bike both seem to be better than before the crash.

 

[greeneggs&ham]

Just wondering what kind of foot wear you are riding with to protect an obvious fragile foot, at least for now.

But after reading the whole thread I have to agree with Garfey, your whole attitude and thought process for this ordeal is what I think I would have had. It's done, learn from it and fix what I can then move on.

Sam

 

[mr72]

Just wondering what kind of foot wear you are riding with to protect an obvious fragile foot, at least for now.

Well this is the challenge.

BTW, I did get my Triumph now to about 98% complete. Nobody knows what's not perfect now except me.

Anyway, my foot has issues. Not just recovering from surgery and being broken, but after the surgery I seem to be developing some other issues and of course the post-fracture is not completely healed. The bones are healed but even now 4.5 months later my foot is still swollen, I have limited range of motion, an annoying combo of tendinitis and bursitis called a "Tailor's bunion" and something called a plantar fibroma. As a result, I still can't just wear any old shoes. Even with my best walking/fitting shoes with orthotics (I have Brooks, Keen, a new pair of LEMs, some Columbia and Timberland hiking boots...) I still have a lot of pain after three or so hours on my feet.

So the point is, I can't wear moto boots that are protective of my feet. If I did, I couldn't walk to the bike or tolerate the pain of riding on it. So I am usually wearing my Keen "The 59" which is a tough leather "moto-styled" boot. It's a compromise. I can either walk and risk my foot in case of a wreck, or I can't walk and so I can't ride anyway.

But after reading the whole thread I have to agree with Garfey, your whole attitude and thought process for this ordeal is what I think I would have had. It's done, learn from it and fix what I can then move on.

Sam

Thanks for that. I'm just trying to keep everything in balance. I have enjoyed being back on my motorcycle. I'll probably ride again tomorrow.

 

[mr72]

here's the Bonnie all done, or at least more done than she was before the wreck.

Much like my foot and my riding experience, through the rebuilding process the bike turned out a little bit better than it was before the wreck. This is a nine year old motorcycle with a touch of character, hard fought modifications that nobody knows about, and in better condition than 95% of other bikes it's age on the road. I can live with that.

 

[bwdmax]

Looks good. You are definitely detail oriented and it shows.

The foot will likely always give you some discomfort. I’m 30yrs post ankle break and is still have pain almost every morning. I can only wear certain shoes and sometimes changing between them is uncomfortable at first but after a bit I conform to them and am able to get around. I find my alpinestars moto foot wear to be the best fit for my foot. I have tried other brands and can never get comfortable in them. I would try to find a shop where you can try on several brands to see what might fit closer to your favorite hiking boots.

 

[greeneggs&ham]

I have a pair of Sidi Trial Zero Trials boots here. Low on the calf, great for walking in (but I don't have your obstacles). I wear a 10.5 in a US size these are Euro 45. I ordered them several years ago when I thought trials riding would help with my declining skills. Posted them up here after I sold the Gas Gas. No takers. You are welcome to try them if you feel they may help. They are just taking up floor space here in the computer room now. Just a bit concerned you may hit a wet spot at slow speed and down goes the foot, or some such occurrence.
Your bike looks great. Stay safe.

Sam

 

[mr72]

I have a pair of Sidi Trial Zero Trials boots here. Low on the calf, great for walking in (but I don't have your obstacles). I wear a 10.5

Thanks for the generous offer, but unfortunately those would be quite a bit too small for me. In SIDI mountain bike shoes, I'm wear a 47. US sizing, 12.

I do plan to look for some boots that will work, but until the swelling goes down and my foot generally calms down, which may take many more months, it doesn't make any sense. I have a pair of Fly Racing street/moto boots here that fit but are not as protective as trials or off-road type boots, and I may wear them on long rides and they don't hurt when on the bike but before I had the foot surgery, I couldn't walk in them more than a hundred yards. Since the neuroma surgery, I can probably walk in them much more but right now I don't think I could even get my swollen left foot into the boot since they are unlaced and not particularly roomy in the toe box. I doubt they are much more protective than my Keens anyway. They have an ankle protective spot on them, but that's about the only difference. The Keens have much stiffer sole and more solid toe box.

I still have the boots I crashed in, and they are in pretty good shape. Only thing that got torched was the laces. I am going to keep using them as work boots. But they are barely even scuffed. Given my foot injury, and the fact that I really don't know what happened to it, I don't think any boot could have prevented it. Clearly somehow my foot was crushed; that's the only way to get it broken in 5 places like it was. There was an unexplained deep scratch on the left side cover on the bike, so my guess now is maybe my left foot was sort of "pinched" between the bike and the truck bumper as I went over the bar. In any case, it's no more injury prone than it was before. It's just still painful since the soft tissue recovery is still in process. Mostly I'm dealing with the foot being immobilized for nearly six months.

 

[greeneggs&ham]

Just FYI, trials boots are much easier to walk in than Moto. They make great adventure riding boots since you can get off and walk normal, rather than clod hopping around as with Moto boots. But they have the sole protection to cushion abrupt hits. My first thought is they would be too big as that is most of the reply's I get. But I wear an 11 in a Sidi mountain bike shoe. Italians don't know what WIDE is, so I have to go a bit longer to get the width my double E foot needs. I don't have that problem in their boots.

Hope your foot starts cooperating soon, let me know if you are ever up for a western RTE. I like to find little restaurants in small towns away from traffic.

Sam

 

[mr72]

I was reminded of this thread since sitkatri liked some of the posts and I showed up in my notifications.

If anyone wants an update: my foot is not 100%, but it's probably as good as it will ever be, given that my 50th birthday is exactly two months away. I spend 45 minutes of fast/high incline walking on the treadmill 5x a week, and did a few trade shows with 8-10 hours on the floor a day this past year, and I couldn't have done this kind of thing for nearly 20 years before the surgery and the wreck. It's fair to say, even with the wreck screwing up my recovery, the surgery was a great success.

My Triumph is still brilliant and I ride it often, and even though I have added a scooter to the garage which gets nearly all of my short errand duty, I found time to figure out the puzzle of making my 30 year old rarely used Suzuki run reliably.

My grandson who was 1 in the prior post is now about to turn 3, and he is even more in love with motorcycles than before. It helps a lot that mrs72 also got her M endorsement and rides her scooter as often as possible too. His little brother is about to turn 1 in a month and doesn't seem to have picked up his big brother's love of mechanical things, but there's still time.

 

[sikatri]

Thank you for the update. I’ve been reading through some of the threads like yours with interest. At 62 things creep up. I was about 56 or so when I had my spinal stenosis, losing strength on one side and just falling over was an eye opener. I’m still working on getting some of my former flexibility and movement back, but strangely I feel better on a motorcycle than off it and walking. LoL. I got started pretty late in motorcycles. License at around 49 or 50. Had some experience as kid on trail bikes, not my own, a friend’s. Hadn’t bought a motorcycle yet before my spinal stenosis and was concerned if I’d ever be able to get one again let alone own one. Finally decided I’d buy when the right one came along, figured I could always just tinker with it. I build and fix thing, have my whole life. Therapy helped, but I still need more flexing. I doubt I’ll ever be a hundred percent. Encouraged reading from y’all’s experiences, thank you again!

 

[mr72]

I realize I didn't address the sort of mental health results of this. I think it's fair to say there are some people who are "get back on the horse" types, and others who are "give it up" types when they have a crash. I'm obviously the "get back on" type. My opinion is that these type of people are either the "just do it" type or the "look before you leap" type. I mean, some people go try things like motorcycling because it looks like fun or they like the social element of it or whatever, then continue doing it while it's fun, and only consider the risks when they have a wreck. Then they realize, wow, there's risk, they quit that, and then move on to the next fun thing, often times without considering the risks of the new activity. On the other hand, there are those who, like me, tend to carefully consider risks before they start something, so when they have a wreck, well they knew ahead of time that was a potential outcome and had already considered it and still decided to do it. The risk/reward calculus hasn't changed, so why change the activity? Oddly enough, my persistence in motorcycling is sort of a part of my low-risk personality type.

Anyway, I have changed my motorcycling habits somewhat since the wreck. Mostly due to unrelated things like a job change, COVID, and acquiring a pair of scooters for free and my wife taking to riding one, I now do a lot more low-speed, lower-risk motorcycling on my scooter, and pick and choose when to ride my big motorcycles with a higher emphasis on the upside of the particular ride. It has nothing to do with the wreck, but just a natural evolution considering my changing life circumstances. As a result, I spend a lot more of my limited travel time on two wheels, even though less of it is on my Triumph.

 

[sikatri]

Risk is involved in everything we do in life. I’m cautious, but not someone who avoids activities just because there is danger. It make take me awhile to work up my comfort levels, but I do get there. I don’t really speed on the Thruxton, I tend to follow speed limits more on the motorcycle than in my MINI. LoL. I was intrigued by the boot discussion too. One of my concerns was getting a good boot that would have ankle support and good traction. I’ve been happy with the recommendation made by the Cycle Gear salesperson. TCX boots.