Dale's Motorcycle Blog

As of yesterday afternoon, I have my motorcycle back!

I’m a little rusty on my timing and technique, but it seems to be coming back quickly.

I. Am. Happy.

Well It finally came.  I received a check from CNA insurance for $6,427.08 to pay for the repair of my motorcycle.  I drove over to North County House of Motorcycles with a cashier’s check, and they’ll be ordering the parts for my bike on Monday.

It’s been two and a half months since my accident, but now, in another week or so, I’ll have my motorcycle back, and I can start riding again.

As far as the larger personal injury claim goes, I had to go in this last week and get an MRI.  As it turns out, I did, in fact, break my leg.  They found a non-displaced stress fracture of the tibia, as well as another fracture to something called the patellar plate.  That would, most likely, explain the weeks of crutch and cane I needed to use.

I still have a few weeks of physical therapy left, but after that, we’ll be looking at the claim for injury, lost wages, and what-not.

But for now, I’m just glad to know that Fidget is getting fixed.

This is a picture of the Desmosedici RR.  And a really hot chick.

Ducati Desmosedici RR and...companion.

I have no idea what they have to do with each other.  But, I like them both equally.

My lawyer has informed me that after two months of stalling, CNA Insurance has finally accepted liability for the driver who ran the stop sign and hit me.  A check for $6,700 is on the way to repair my FJR.  And now that they’ve accepted liability, that means that they’ve accepted that they’re on the hook for my larger personal injury claim for my injuries.

One more week of physical therapy, and I’m done.

I was hoping that by now, I could be looking forward to getting my fixed, and start riding again.  But nothing, apparently, is ever easy.

Last week, CNA insurance sent out the adjuster to look at the bike.  When he was done, I dropped a C-note on a towing compnay to take the FJR to North County House of Motorcycles.  They did their estimate, the adjuster agreed, and sent off the estimate to CNA, the insurer for the compnay whose driver ran into me.

So, on Friday, the shop called me and said they needed approval from me and the insurance company to make repairs.  So, I called the guy at CNA who’s handling the claim and asked him what was up.  He said, “We still haven’t decided to accept liability, so we can’t authorize any repairs.”

I started to get steamed “What do you mean you haven’t accepted liability?  How much of a liability question can there be?  I was on a divided four-lane avenue, and your guy came out of a side street, through a stop sign, and hit me from the side. You have the police report that states that your driver was at fault for the accident and was cited for failure to yield at a stop sign.”

He replied, “Did the police see the accident?”

Screw you, insurance boy.  I called my laywer.  Today, she got hold of the liability supervisor at CNA, and had a chat.  She told him that now, two months after the accident, and after authorizing an adjuster to do an estimate, it’s pretty frickin’ late in the game to be dithering over whether they are gonna accept liability or not.  It’s looking like a stall tactic.  So, if we don’t here anything from CNA by COB Friday, we’ll just file a lawsuit next week.  So the CNA guy said if they couldn’t find anything contradicting the police report by Friday, they’d accept the police report as proof of liability.

She also got my insurance company, Geico, on the phone, and gave them a heads up that if CNA didn’t authorize the repairs, we’d be going through my insurance with Geico, and that they could battle with CNA over getting the repair money.

So, I have to wait for the rest of the week now to see if the bike is going to get fixed by CNA.  If not, I have to pay my deductible for my insurance, and wait until Geico gets the money off of CNA to re-imburse me for the deductible.

As far as I can see, though, CNA is deliberately dragging their ass to put off paying for the damage their insured imposed upon me.

I am frickin’ livid.

North County House of Motorcycles has presented me–and the insurance adjuster–with the estimate for the repair of my FJR.  $6,500.

At that price, I doubt the insurance company will total it.  But the adjuster said that the payment would be coming quickly, so the repairs can be completed within a week or two.

So, finally, after two months, I’ll have a motorcycle to ride again!

I got the call I’ve been waiting for.  The adjustors for CNA Insurance called me to assign an adjuster to my accident.  Supposedly, the adjustor will call tomorrow to set up an appointment to look at my bike.  I guess he’ll do the initial estimate, then I’ll have it carted off to North County House of Motorcycles to see where the hidden damage is.

It’s only taken six weeks…

It sure has seemed like a long week.  I went back to work Tuesday, and, of course, at work I can’t take any of the percosets I was given by the doctor on Friday.  I’m reduced to Tylenol for pain-killing during the day.

Tylenol is worthless.

Oddly enough, it isn’t the broken toe that gives me trouble, it’s the horribly bruised right shin that’s killing me.  It’s still swollen to about 1/4 larger than its normal size, and the hematoma now spreads all the way down to the sole of my foot.  My ankle bones have disappeared in all the swelling.

If I do any prolonged sitting or prolonged standing, the leg starts to hurt like the blazes again.  So, every hour or so, I’ve got to get up and hobble around on my cane for a few minutes, to get things unsettled and recirculating.  Just sitting or standing, and the fluid from the hematoma and swelling start to migrate with gravity towards my foot.  And that, in turn, irritates my leg as it migrates.

Every day, I gotta just suck it up until I can get home and take a percoset, and dull everything down to a mild throb, so I can get to sleep.

My left knee still has a few twinges and weakness, but it’s getting back to normal.

The toe is still really, really swollen, but I got the big splint off of it, and I’m wearing one of those open-toed orthopedic hard shoes.  The toe doesn’t bother me minute to minute, but about three times a day, i still whack it in to something hard enough to see starts for a few seconds.  The toenail is a total write off.  The swelling is so bad that the toenail is just sitting on top of my toe like the cork in a champaign bottle.

Yesterday, I noticed a little blood was seeping out through my sock again.  I went into the bathroom at work, and while I was manipulating my toe, trying to get a better look at it, I must have popped off the scab at the edge of my toenail, and about a tablespoon of blood and fluid came pouring out of the edge of the toenail.  That was kind of icky.  Once it stopped bleeding, and scabbed over again, the swelling came back full force, though, so the toe now is all boated and round again.

So, that’s been my week.  What a joy.

There was some good news though.  I got a call right at 5:00pm today from the police department, letting me know that my police report was finished.  So, that part of the waiting is over.  Now I can go pick it up, and get a copy to my lawyer, so they can begin the settlement talks with the stop-sign-running idiot’s company insurance carrier.

I also went to the local BMW dealership–I’m fortunate enough to have one right here in town–and looked at a K1200GT.  I’m really kind of interested in the new K1300GT as a replacement for the FJR.  I asked a few questions, but they didn’t really know much about them.  They said they should be getting them in in February.

I still can’t lift my leg enough to actually sit on a bike yet, so all I could do was look, but, man, those BMWs have every bell and whistle imagineable on a touring bike.  WHo knows how long it’ll take to get this insurance claim sorted out, and for me to get back to 100% for riding, so a February delivery of the new K13GT might be just at the right time.

“Pilot”, apparently, is the term of art for someone who rides a Yamaha FJR1300.

I traded in the Sportster for one tonight. And here it is, a 2007 FJR1300AE. This was a Yamaha corporate motorcycle that was a factory rep bike.

And, surprisingly, I said “screw it” and picked the AE model for $11.1k. I was worried about the automatic clutch deal on the AE model, but oddly, what decided it for me was a very little thing. I had to drive through a lot of heavy stop-and-go traffic on surface streets, and my hand was aching a little.

I was a bit worried about low-speed maneuvering without a clutch to moderate engine inputs to the wheels, but I did about 20 minutes in the parking lot doing U-turns and figure-8s and decreasing radius circles. It wasn’t that bad. Although, I think I need ,something called a “G2 throttle tube” because the throttle is stiff and…surgey (is that a word?). This G2 throttle tube is apparently an aftermarket add-on to reduce the strength needed to twist the throttle, and reduce the attendant throttle surge.

It’s a different riding experience on the street, but I think my achey clutch hand is actually gonna enjoy the rest.

I was only able to put 18 miles on it, mixed freeway/street, and I never got it above 80. But it got to 80 fast!

I don’t think this a bike I’ll ever outgrow. It’s comfy, and I love the electric shield, although I’m probably gonna need a Cal-Sci shield with a few extra inches in height. I can flat-foor it comfortably, and it’s just amazingly well balanced compared to the Sporty.

Oh, I think I’m gonna have fun…

By the way, remember that 2006-model Triumph Rocket III I was interested in last year? (And am I glad I decided not to buy that!)

It’s still there, on the floor of the dealership.

Well, the dealer called back today, and told me no deal on the FJR. They did offer the same deal, with a $149/month payment, on an AE model that had been used as a demo.

Considering what that means I would be getting the bike for, that’s a great deal, actually. But, I’m not sure about all that newfangled machinery for the automatic clutch, so I turned that down.

The nice thing about already having a motorcycle, is that I don’t feel any pressure to replace it with anything other than exactly what I want.

They’re serious about getting me into a bike, though. That’s “nice” (i.e. desperately greedy) of them.

The only local dealer with an FJR1300 is North County House of Motorcycles in Vista. It’s been a few months since I’ve seen one, so after work, I went over to take a look at it.

Black is beautiful.

The seat height on the 2008 A-Model is perfect for me. My legs were splayed a bit wide, but I could flat-foot it firmly. Unlike the C14, or ST1300, the rider pegs don’t get in the way of my legs. I could pick it up off the kickstand just by nudging it with my thigh. It’s really well-balanced, at a stop, and you can lean it pretty far without it trying to fall over.

The sales guy was begging me to run the numbers, of course. I told him that it was pointless, since I couldn’t reach my preferred payment target with the negative equity on the sporty.

When he ran the numbers, I was shocked. Due to my credit, and some of the current Yamaha promotions, he came in with a number well below my target payment. In addition, we haggled over the OTD price, to the point where they cut $2,000 off that, too. For the remaining negative equity, it would be financed at an interest rate 5% less than Harley charges, i.e., what I’m currently paying.

Well, that deal seemed too good to be true, so…I took it.

The salesguy pulled the sleek, black bike out front. Washed it all up. Then we took the walk-around, and completed the familiarization checklist. The salesman gave me the keys to the FJR, and took my Harley keys and security fob. I called Chris at home, told her where I was, and that I’d be coming home on a new FJR. I even took a picture of it on my cell phone.

I was all ready to unload the bags on the sporty, and transfer everything over to the FJR, when the finance girl pointed out that the deal was, in fact, too good to be true. The incentive programs from Yamaha had an upper limit on the financed amount, and the deal we worked out exceeded it, even with my good credit. So, we didn’t actually have a deal.

But, the finance girl did offer one idea. Despite the “official” limits to the incentive programs, she said that, since my credit was solid, and since Yamaha loves to get people to switch over from Harley, she would call Yamaha finance first thing tomorrow, and see if they could do a one-time extension of the incentives to me.

With that, it was time for me to climb on the Sporty and go home.

So, tomorrow, we’ll see what happens.