When I rode my bike to work today it was gorgeous; sunny, 93 or so and medium humidity.
Just as I was shutting things down at the office, the bottom fell out of the sky. So I waited a bit, like 2 hours. When I did leave, there was still water standing in the road. The closer to home I got, the worse it was. I caught myself thinking I didn't want to wreck, not because of getting hurt. I kept thinking about messing up my bike. I guess that sums up which I value more my health, or my bike.

 

Haha, that reminds me of when I layed it down a couple of years ago.

It was rush hour at an insanely busy intersection after a few minutes of rain. It wasn't serious, I probably lost the rear at 10-15 mph. Anyways, I had already converted my bike to a fighter (it was my "acerbis+no side fairings=streetfighter" period). I picked the bike up and it started right away, like I said, it wasn't serious. I immediately jumped back on and rode home.

As I was riding away, I stuck my hand down the side of the tail and felt no rash, I shouted in excitement. I glanced down and saw there was no damage on the engine covers or the gas tank - I was thrilled - ecstatic!

All of this in despite of the huge gash my knee suffered.

 

ive had that same thought several times, most notably two years ago. I had just finished painting my F3 the night before, just got the plastics back on that morning and spent the evening riding with a friend. we were on a backroad heading back to town and he rode past a deer, scared it. It then started to run in the ditch, darted into the road about an inch in front of my front tire. My only thought was "NOT THE PAINT!!!"

 

I'll mend. Quality parts for an old bike are hard to find. :-)

 

A few weeks ago I participated in a low speed low-side. As I crawled to the bike to shut it down all I could think of was how damaged the bike was. Guess we do put important thing first, don't we.

 

Scars are kinda cool. Broken plastics aren't. I still have a scar on the back of my hand from a low side that happened like 35 years ago. I still think of how it messed up my sweet SL 125.