Thank You for Not Bleeding

Updated: Parts are on order for the bike; less than $180 to put it back together myself. Unfortunately, I can't do the same thing for my shoulder. Reconstructive surgery is scheduled for next week. Woohoo.

They say that there are two kinds of riders: those that have crashed, and those that will crash.

I am now among the former group.

I have a dislocated shoulder (AC Separation, Grade 3, to be exact) and the Gixer has a few scars as well. Fortunately, both of us will mend.

Special thanks go out to my guardian angel who stopped his SUV in the lane to stop vehicles coming around the corner from running me or the bike over.

With a little help, my reading on how to upright a bike paid off. And, as I rubbed my sore shoulder and wondered about whether I was in shock or not, I debated about whether the bike was in good enough shape to ride home. (It was, almost, I wasn't.)

Wisely, I chose to nurse it back to a parking space in the garage at work, and called The-Best-Wife-Ever(tm) for a ride to the hospital.

Waiting in the ER seemed to take a long time, but was actually pretty brief. Thankfully it was a quiet Wednesday night in Ashburn. The triage nurse appreciated my wife's exclamation when my shoulder was revealed. "I sometimes want to do that, but I'm not supposed to," she said.

I was back at work this morning, running a little slower than usual, but not totally out of commission. (I've even learned to type with both hands with my right elbow properly supported. ;-)) We stopped by the bike this morning. It was a relief to us both to see that the damage to the bike was relatively minor.

This is the second time I've had to learn that cold tires don't grip well when turning. The first time, I totaled my BMW M3. With only two wheels, motorcycles are less forgiving. Cold tires on a cold road, always a bad combination in high-performance vehicles with lots of torque.

My new rule of thumb, which The-Best-Wife-Ever(tm) heartily endorses is: if I have to wear three layers of clothing, it's too cold to ride.

Hopefully the bike and I will be back in shape soon -- just in time for more nice weather!

Oh, and The-Best-Wife-Ever(tm) says, "Thank you for not bleeding."