I don’t want to write this post. I don’t want to be honest in this post. But I am going to do those things. Today, I was headed out to Chaco Canyon, and was making decent time to get there early and get up to Farmington for some tasty Navajo eats. I need to make a fuel stop, and as I was turning in, I found a patch of loose pea gravel that wasn’t bonded with the road, and my rear brake locked while in the lean of the turn and the bike rotated away from my preferred riding position. Bluntly, I crashed. It was a 5-10 MPH lowside, I smacked the hell out of my helmet, roughed up my leather jacket, damaged the bike, and really beat down my pride.

It may not be obvious in that picture, but the bar is pushed back to even with the brake lever. Barely drivable.

In falling, I also smacked the hell out of the back of my helmet, but it did exactly what I wanted it to do.

I limped it to the local Indian dealership, Indian Motorcycle of Albuquerque and they fit me in. (they were really really awesome, and got me back on the road today. I still haven’t heard from my claims adjuster.

You can see the bend in the bar mounts in the picture above. The inset in the upper right is how that piece is supposed to look.

A few hours later, they got me out the door and added a new farkle for the long ride home.