Just something to make you chuckle and realise there are some good people in the world.
As you may have seen from the avatar and linky in my signature, me and 'er indoors done a mini tour across California, Arizona and Nevada in July this year on a phat fat Harley. On our second day we decided to go up an aerial tramway in Palm Springs, which travelled nearly 13 000 feet and took us just under 6 000 feet up to the top of a mountain. In the picture you can just see the road to the right of the river:
Anyway back to the story. On the way to the base station we rode up a 4 or 5 mile road to the car park. On finding a space I turned to park and whack. We were over. I'd been going so sedately that by the time we'd reached the car park I'd forgotten we were on a hill and went to park it at 90 degrees to the hill. What a plank. Missus jumped off and I ended up lying down with the bike already imaging the pain my wallet would feel.
I had a little graze but was more gutted that I'd dropped a $19 000 bike on the second day of having it and was liable for the first $1 000 worth of any damages. I'd broken the front brake lever and what looked like scraped up the engine bars which, incidentally, I'd been told were about $500 a pair before I left the hire place. My despair aside, a friendly fella immediately came over to help me pick it up. Then I couldn't believe it. In true Yank style someone from the office came over and took every little bit of any little details I had, of course in case I decided to sue their ass. By this time I'd moved the bike very carefully to the motorcycle parking area which was nice and flat and just then a young fella and his missus pulled up on a big BMW bike. He told me that he'd done exactly the same the week previous and a few minutes later the security guard/anti suing man got a call on his radio that someone else had just done it! My pride was nearly restored. It really wasn't a busy place but we were dropping like flies! After asking why they didn't put a sign up the worker told me someone had knocked it over. So put up another one moron! All the time this was going on a funny old man had pulled up on a Harley and was buzzing round us. It turned out he was a bike spotter and he took the frame number! He was a real character and I wish I'd got a picture with him.
We done the tramway and carried on with our holiday, albeit with the poorly bike in the back of my mind. A few days later we stopped in a town called Williams in Arizona on old Route 66 and I got some tar remover because where the engine bars were scratched there was a lot of tar on them too. Well it wasn't until the last day in Vegas that I used it. The stuff worked like magic and actual took about a 5mm thick layer of road tar off in one shot. No scratches! I was a bit more of a happier bunny now. That night we done the Vegas thing and came across a Harley shop. I bought a top and the shop told us how to get to their workshop the next day to see if I could get the lever replaced. At the 'shop the next day it was amazing. They had probably every different type of Harley in there. The workshop was mahoosive and even the staff parking was filled with big old tractors. When I went to pay for the lever I asked how much I owed them and the man said "oh don't worry about it". I was flabbergasted. I checked and he said "we took it off another bike". I didn't know what to say but thanked him profusely and smiled from ear to ear. Talk about customer service! Imagine that happening here? Not likely. I couldn't even tip him because he didn't do the work and I to be honest I was a bit stunned. I did buy a t-shirt though.
When we took the bike back to the hire place they didn't notice that it had been down and I was as happy as Larry. I could see my Vegas winnings being spent on a very unfortunate occurrence.
Scroll down for the funny picture:
I do hope you enjoyed my little story. There are loads more to come. The hardcore biker feeding chipmunks on the Hoover dam, our Eskimo friends and winning streak in Vegas and running out of petrol in the middle of the Arizona desert at 3:30 in the morning.
This has been Monkeyboy. Signing off.
