My regular readers will be well and truly aware of my passion for the Shadowfax Kawasaki. If you don’t know the story you can read it by clicking on the link on the right hand side of this page. It has been an on-going job of mine to not only display the bike wherever and whenever possible, but also to keep it in the pristine condition that it has been since its unveiling in March 2012. However, that has changed somewhat so today I spent an hour or so in the garage assessing the damage and removing parts that will need to be fixed.
In January I displayed the bike at a local show and, after again failing to win a trophy in the face of a swarm of boring Harleys, I brought the bike home, rolled it off the trailer and set it onto the sidestand while I went and opened the garage. I should add lest you wonder why a racing bike has a sidestand at all, that it always had one. Dervived from a road bike, the original builders felt that leaving the sidestand tab in place was not going to adversely affect the ground clearance on the left had side so it could stay. And, if the bike had the tab, why not use the sidestand while moving the bike around and in the pits? It was removed for the actual races and the refitted when necessary.
Anyway, the moment I turned my back to walk towards the garage, a strong gust of wind blew up and I heard that most awful of sounds, the sounds of the bike falling off its stand and onto the concrete footpath. On recovering from the shock the first job was to put it back up on its wheels and that wasn’t easy, she’s no lightweight. Anyway, once done it was time to survey the damage and it was far worse than what I had feared. As you can see from the gallery, both the fairing and the tank have been damaged. The corner of the tank obviously hit the ground and it has been ground away, some clever fibreglass work will be required to correct the damage to say nothing of the spray painting and vinyl wrapping that will need to be done.
The fairing has been badly crunched in several places and, as well as grinding away parts of the fibreglass, a long crack in the glass runs vertically just behind the headlight housing. I’m no expert but I think that this, too, is going to be tricky to fix.
It really needs to go back to Paul Campbell and Alan Beavan in Canberra so that they can work their magic on it as they did when they first did the job, but I have yet to talk to them about it and I know that it’s not going to be a cheap fix.
So, what should I have done? I should have made sure that the bike was on the lawn rather than on the path, that’s what I should have done. That way, even if it did fall over it wouldn’t have been damaged. But hindsight is always 20-20, isn’t it? No shows for the Shadowdax for a while, I’m afraid.
TT champion, John McGuinness, has sustained serious injuries in a practice accident at the North West 200. They include a broken tib/fib (which are apparently too badly damaged to be able to be plated), neck and spinal injuries as well as ribs and other fractures. No TT for McPint this year, I am hoping for the best for his recovery. Already some are suggesting that this may bring his career to an end, 40+ year old bones do take a long time to heal.
I got out to Awesome Drive on Thursday night to help out with another MotoStars Training and Coaching night. What amazing young talent we have coming through the ranks. And how rapidly these young kids move on from their very tentative first steps to looking like seasoned professionals! MS boss and mentor, Damian Cudlin is on a jet tonight to Germany along with his younger brother Alex, to compete in the 8 Hours of Oscherleben, the next round of the World Endurance Championships. I wish them both well.
At this stage a Putty Ride on Monday; early start (0600) in order to get home in daylight, think it’s going to be a bit chilly!
Till next time.
small e says
Bad luck mate…we’ve all been there…more than once in my case. Cracked engine covers, bent bars, dinged tanks, mirrors, indicators ra ra ra. You wouldn’t think a relatively minor fall could do so much damage.I guess that’s the only advantage to a Harley..they only fall a few inches before they’re on the deck. Hope the bill for fixing the quacks isn’t too ..err.. steep. These are lean times.
Phil Hall says
Congratulations, mate, you take this week’s award for packing the most puns into one comment!