Silver gets black and blue.

Aiiii.

Where to start. After a couple phenominal days of riding the best roads yet, and cruising through Mexico with our eye on the border to the USA, we stopped just east of Monterrey for some lunch and a last look at a Mexican town. After snapping a few pics and checking out the local market, we headed just a few blocks looking for a taco stand. After all the crazy roads, stray dogs, donkeys, night rides, cattle horses and everything else that should have hit us, I get tuned by a Ford F-150 while heading for lunch.

I was almost stopped, with my turn signal on when from outta nowhere, I get glimpse of a grille in my mirrors. I tried to maneuvre, but really had no time, next thing I knew I was punted forward, flying, then grinding into the tarmac. I got a good look at the under-carriage of the Ford and when I came to a stop, the Ford still seemed to moving forward. I sprang up right away (I think I did, but it seemed like right away) and did the bike-racer reaction of getting the hell off the road to avoid getting hit by anything else. That was the second panic moment, as I had no idea what else was coming and knew I just had to get the hell out of the way. I ran (stumbled??) to the side of the road and sorta fell over and grabbed onto a pole and mentally took stock, wiggling toes (obviously working, but hey, the brain works in funny ways) and kinda did a checklist of things that could or should be broken, smashed or missing. All seemed OK, so I only had one more thing to do while still wearing my helmet. I let out an impressive string of expletives that shocked even me, and I eat F-bombs for breakfast.

Then, I looked over at Silver laying on her side and saw Tony coming arounf the front of the Ford. From there, it is kind of a blur, but people came running out of the taco stand, sirens were ringing, and the greasy fuck that hit me got out of his truck.

Silver starring down her attacker. The bike was facing this way, Tony just stood her up. Notice the greasy fuck's snake skin boots.

The cop, some witnesses and me holding my ouchey.

Those are my tire marks on the road, all kinda random knobbie scraps. The bike flew and tumbled, then dragged. Notice how far he rolled forward before he stopped. His skid marks were about 20 feet long.

Bent, bruised, battered, but not beaten. The whole ass-end of the bike is moved over about 6 inches, including the exhaust, cases, fender and luggage rack. This is gonna be expensive.

Hardly a fair fight.

Bent wheel. There is a good ding, and the whole thing kinda wobbles. Kinda feels like a KLR now. Ha!

The crashbars, doing their job.

So, once the dust settles and I calmed down a bit, then the nogotiations started. See, in Mexico, they have Napoleonic type law, where you are guilty until proven innocent. The greaseball started going on about how much I will have to pay for his truck and what the hell was I doing and blah blah blah. Everybody who saw it was on my side, but turns out the cop that shows up was friends with the greasy guy, and it also turns out that the greasy guy was the mayor's son or something. Even though he was clearly in the wrong, we could tell that things were not going our way. I was pretty optimistic as I called Allstate insurance to go through the motions, since I was assured prior to departiure that I was covered. This went from bad to worse when five minutes later, Allstate called back and informed that I wasn't covered and that the best thing for me to do was get the hell outta there. Nice agent, eh ? I will deal with then upon my return....

So, not letting on that I just found out that I am uninsured (an offence in Mexico, unless you are buddies with the cops), I was finally I was faced with a decision. We could either impound both vehicles and wait for the insurance companies to come and inspect them, or part ways. The translater (a German fellow that was also a biker - clearly on my side) looked at me and said " I would get the hell outta here if I were you; this could get very ugly for you". Nuf said, so after a couple hours of "negotiations" we headed for the border as fast as possible.

The bike was crooked, but rode OK. It kinda has a hitch in her hip as it rolls down the road. It has since developped a small coolant leak and some new rattles, but seems to be holding up. I smashed my head pretty good (good helmets save lives) scrapped my arm up, jammed my wrist pretty good (clutch hand - now skipping 2nd, 4th and 5th gear...) and have various bruises on both sides. Tony was great as he dealt with stuff while I was dazed, pumped me up with advil and cleaned my wounds.

We crossed back onto US soil later that evening at Laredo and got a hotel. I followed Tony the whole way to Laredo as I was jumpy and nervous and all I could do was follow his lead. It was a horrible ride as I am usually confident on the bike. I don't even like thinking about it.

Back at Hank's in Texas, we gave the bike a good going over. New tires and an oil change (we actually planned that) and lame attempt at straightening the bike...I am gonna need some hydraulics or somehting once I get her home. It was great to see Hank again and we hung out there all afternoon. Hank listened to our stories and we listened to his (he has been hit there a few times) and we met Pat at the shop, who ended up putting us up, feeding us and letting us watch hockey and do laundry at his place. It is cool meeting these great people on our travels, they totally make up for the very few arseholes out there... All's well that ends well, I guess!

I felt better on the bike today, but I am still a bit jumpy. Hopefully that will work itself out.

All for now. Toodles.

Pedro