The Ape bites back

Ok, so now it's been 2 months on the Aprilia. As I sort of expected I've had to do some work to the bike that cost me about $500-600. But if anything it's been a bit of a re-awakening. I have gotten back in touch with my inner gear-head.

To be honest, the Aprilia (or Ape, pronounced Ap-ay) is pretty close to my personality. It's exotic and possess a very narrow focus (ie: racing) but is not as snooty as Ducatis are but is no less a bike. Not to knock Ducatis: they are some seriously refined machines now-a-days. But there is a certain spoiled rich kid aspect of newer Ducatis. I have a number of fiends who do not fall into this set. They have older Ducs that demand a lot of attention and they reward them with outstanding performance. But there is another set of Ducatisti that expect to get pampered and apparently do not wipe their own arse without a certain expectation of someone doing it for them and unfortunately it's hard to separate the boys from the men (or women from the girls).

I have a new set of friends who bleed racing gas and ride Ducatis and I have a lot of respect for them. The ride beat to hell, 749s with one faring that says 999 and one that says 749. I have friends that ride 748s and 996s and old-ass-Ducs that spend more time in the shop than they do on the road. But there in is the nature of Ducs. They understand that you get what you pay for.

What I like about the Aprilias is the fact that spoiled rich kids (kids or old men) are almost precluded from them since the factory refuses to cater to them the way Bologna does.

So, Aprilia owners are largely on their own and honestly, I like it that way.

I have always had a taste for the road less travelled and this feels right. A few years ago I finally bought a "new" car: an Audi A4 and a good friend of mine that put up with various beater VWs said "I never knew you were so classy. This is soooooo you!"

No one has said this per-se about the Aprilia, but often people gaze upon the Aprilia with wonder and admiration. Mostly, it seems, because most people have never heard of Aprilia.

"Who makes Aprilia?" people say.
"Aprilia does" I say.
"Huh?" they say.
"It's a....like a Ducati" I say.
"Huh. Never heard of them. But that's a cool bike. Kinda of a beater, huh?" they say.
"Yeah, thanks for that." I say.

But truth is, my Ape IS a beater. It's been neglected, it's flat black and now it's been dropped.

Yeah, you heard right. I went down on the Aprilia.

To be honest, I think it was bound to happen. The bike is a dream to ride at speed but give no quarter at downtown speeds. However, I am pleased at how it happened (if one could ever be pleased with such an event). I didn't go down at 100+mph, or 70mph or 30mph even. This happened at the whopping speed of....wait for it....10mph!!!!

Yes folks, I was in stop and go traffic in the on ramp to the 805 after 200+ miles of some serious canyon carving. To demonstrate how benign this was, it wasn't even on Palomar. This was a Southeast county ride with some Ducatisti: the mixed fairing, "I race on a SV650" kind.

It was the end of a very happy morning. I spent a good 3-4 hours having a nice conversation with the Ape. She revealed her steady nature to me and I was able to go faster and faster.

I was in traffic trying to get home so I could take advantage of the rest of my day, but the guy in front of me was quite impatient with the traffic and when there appeared a slight gap in front of him, he gunned his huge SUV and then stood on the brakes. I followed suit thinking "why would someone gun it like that if there wasn't clear road in front of them"....silly me.

All of a sudden saw a beige SUV stopped and my eyes grew as big as saucers. I grabbed my front brake (if you read my first post about the Ape, you should be cringing at this point as I noted that "grabbing" the front brake a recipe for disaster) and....well there was a whole bunch of bucking (a tank slapper is the term, I think) and the next thing you know I am on my right side sliding along for a whole foot or so.

I think I knew immediately that my shoulder was knackered. I got my right leg out of from under the bike and assumed a Muslim prayer stance (I know this since Mom was Muslim) and the pain hit like a frieght train. Bystanders asked if I should maybe lie down. I knew for a fact that would cause misery like only Jewish people know. I sat there and rode the searing waves of pain till the paramedics showed up. As I kneeled there people kept asking stupid questions that I could barely percieve above the horrid din of a broken collarbone.

Some guy who obviously knew a thing or two about medicine started asking the typical 1st aid questions to make sure I didn't have a concussion. He also instructed me on how to keep a broken collarbone stable. That saved me a lot of anguish.

I expected a certain amount of head shaking, finger waving..whatever...since most people consider riding motorcycles as pure idiocy, but the EMT folk spared me that. They were quite relieved that I was wearing full gear. Seriously though, all that gear saved me major injury. The finaly tally on damage was a clean break collarbone, bruised ribs, bruised shoulder and a bashe up hand. No blood or scrapes or lacerations or even concussion. However, based upon what my gear took, it could have been infinitely worse. My helmet is cracked, as are my gloved (complete with destroyed carbon fiber knuckles). Could have been worse. Thank you Dianese and Alpine Stars.

So, this happend the Saturday before last and I am about a week and a half into what is typically a 13 week recovery period. There is not a lot to be done about collarbones, so all the doctors can really do it give you a harness thingy and a lot of pain killers. I started off with about 30 Percocets and in about 3 days I was down to 10. Percocet is a crazy strong narcotic and it barely touches this. Fortunately, I got a 120 pill refill and it's the only thing keeping me sane. Only now can I take a shower by myself and sleep without heavy medication.

So the moral of this story is WEAR YOUR GEAR! The other thing is: other people poor driving is you biggest risk. You must pay attention!!!

The thing about this that is weird is that the primary reason this happened was because the Aprilia has such good brakes...almost too good. People have complained about how excessive the brakes are on the 1098....now I know what they mean.

So, what am I going to do now? I am going to recover and get back on the bike ASAP. I really miss riding, but I am going to pay a whole lot more attention to Ape. One finger on the brakes at most.

What is also happening is that Ape is becoming more of a beater bike. I am going to have to repaint some fairings and in keeping with the trend of the bike, it's going to be flat black. All business, all the time. No fancy fire truck red paint, no fancy decals. The guy who owned the towing yard who had tattoo sleeves looked upon the Ape with much admiration. Most guys like that who are all about the choppers don't even give Italian Exotica half a look, but this was different.

I don't pretend that I am some sort of hard ass, but I know I have spent a good portion of my life with gease under the fingernails and callouses due to wrenching for a living. I somehow think that the Aprilia reflects that experience and that I am not afraid to get my hands dirty and figure sh!t out.

The Ape is a little scraped up, but she reflect her owner.