Circular saws and parties

Date: 05/07 – 08/07
City: Modesto, California
Miles ridden: 21
Cumulative miles: 8954

We used the next couple of days to do some housekeeping, follow up with both insurance companies, get in touch with the bike shop and go to the doctor again. Other than that there is the pool, hot tub and warm weather. The bike shop ordered all parts and they were all on the way, except the left luggage bracket from H&B, which might take 6 to 8 weeks….

We said there is no hurry since my hand isn’t ready yet When we were talking to other riders and motorcycle mechanics, most of them thought there was probably something wrong with the front/back tyre alignment, either a spacer not fitted or some problem with the newly fitted back tyre. So I ask Chris to have a closer look at it when he starts working on my bike.
So we had a brief look at my back tyre pressure, it measured 50 PSI. Suzuki says the tyre pressure for maximum load should be 29 PSI and Bridgestone states it should not be over 39 PSI. With 50 PSI after 4 weeks in the workshop, it would imply that I left San Francisco with even more. I’m not sure if this was a contributing factor to the accident. Just in case we measured Sigrid’s bike a couple of days later, it had the expected 36 PSI.

The next day I had a doctor’s appointment. I did some ‘mouse lifts’ with a heavy mouse, to keep my left arm muscles strong.

The first thing that the nurse did was to remove my lovely pink cast. I was a bit reluctant when she rocked up with a power tool, pictures of me cutting big bits of wood flashed from my eyes. I made sure that we both agreed on what to cut, so that she doesn’t cut my arm off by accident. The next thing was the cut depth, there is no depth gauge on the tool, she explained that she had never cut someone and if she would cut me, I could take home the prized title of the ‘first cutoff’. Hmm, did I have a choice ? Could I run? While I looked like a deer startled by headlights, Sigrid quickly took a picture as proof that I arrived with a left hand.

As the song say, the first cut is the deepest 🙂. Well not yet, I didn’t get a cut so far, but it’s not over yet. And then it just popped open.

Turns out that there’s life after a cast! Dr. Tracy Bigello gave me the good news that I can be a pillion and that I won a free month of torture! Well she called it “Physio therapy” but I knew what she meant 🙂

With physio for the next 4 weeks, twice a week, the distanace we can do on our bikes is minimised. We will have to have a look at the closer surroundings. But before we can do it, we have to sort out some things, what I wear as jacket, which luggage boxes to take and what we do with the other ones and how to pack the tent and the sleeping bags. After the doctor’s visit we went straight to the rehab centre and booked an appointment for Monday morning.

Date: 07/07
City: Modesto, California
Miles ridden: 0
Cumulative miles: 8954
Sigrid had a brilliant idea! She’s often got those. Ever since accepting my marriage proposal, she’s had them.

Anyway, until my motorcycle jacket arrives, we could ask Tony if he would lend me one of his older jackets. In addition we could ask him if we could store the tent and the sleeping bags at his place until I’m ready to ride. So we did, and he kindly lent me a motorcycle jacket and allowed us to drop our stuff off, when we picked up Sigrid’s bike. Now we could get rid of the car!!! It was nice to have it for the time but it drained our budged every day. We rearrange the side panniers and put the tent into its new home, a 50 L watertight bag. When that was finished it was time to meet Keith -Pats husband. You might remember him from previous blogs were we met him in a pub. If you don’t feel free to go back, read that chapter, and then return and continue reading here 😛 Anyway, He invited us to have a beer with him on Saturday at his favourite place.

I was geared up and almost ready, with only gloves missing. That was the moment when I realised that we had a problem, the new BMW gloves and the removable splint didn’t fit together. We tried everything to make that work, well, at the end we took a taxi. All the mucking around with the gloves and then waiting for a taxi (30 min) took much longer than we thought, so we arrived much later but Keith was still there. We had a nice afternoon and were talking about the bike, what we did so far and what our new plans are.

That’s when a parrot arrived in the pub. The owner was sitting at the bar and the parrot was sitting on his lap. After talking to him he offered that Sigrid could hold him, so she did.

After Keith left we went to our next appointment, to Doc’s inn restaurant which is famous for its large meals and ribs. The taxi driver told us that the neighbourhood would be not the best – so did Tony – but when we arrived it looked ok. Maybe it’s only not so great at night. This time we were the first ones to arrive. Tony was playing and we had brief chat during his break. He plays the blues harmonica, it was really great to listen to live music!

Seeing all that food around us, we got hungry and ordered before the others arrived. I was looking for a meal for a one handed man so the waiter laught and suggested something.

Not long after we had finished our meal, Jane- the birthday girl- her sister and her daughter with her two kids arrived.

They ordered food and we listen to Tony play. The daughter and her kids left after the meal, and Charles and Rita arrived. Around 7PM Jane invited us to her house for her birthday party. We got a lift with Charles and Rita 🙂

We talked about motorcycles and it turned out that everybody was riding a motorcycle. Dirk, Janes husband, had a BMW R1200C, a bike that I had my eye on before I bought the ZZR1100. I really like the looks of this bike.

We talked about our mishap today and that I couldn’t fit the glove over the cast, so Dirk went out and came back with some gloves for me to try. I ended up borrowing one left glove from him that fit under the removable splint. It was a great evening and we departed only around 12:30 AM.

We took the next day off and did nothing other than hanging out at the pool. Well over lunch we went into our room and enjoyed a nap in our air-conditioned room. In the afternoon we went out again and when the weather cooled down a bit we also used the hot tub.