I wound up pulling the bike down to my basement an dspending the winter totally going through it. I had all the body work repainted, and totally went through all of the carb/throttle stuff. I replaced the lights with LEDs and did a frame tail chop in with a sawzall. I replaced the tires and installed a 14/41 set of chain and sprockets. In all, I put around $800 and lots of hours into getting the Monster cleaned up and mildly customized.
This is the way the bike looked when I finished:
(Not actually my bike, but it was exactly like this except for having black carbon fiber exhaust canisters and Corbin tricolor logo saddle)
I rode the bike nearly every day starting in March and really loved it. It wasn't my first fast bike, as I had previously owned a KZ1000, a Katana 1000 and then a Suzuki Bandit 1200S, but the combination of the around town torque, light weight, and intoxicating sound was awesome. After the carb work, the bike started perfectly every time and idled smoothly with great throttle response.
On the night of April 25th, I was on my third date with a girl I had met a few weeks before. It was such a nice evening that I asked if she wanted to ride the Monster instead of taxicab or subway. We went out to a great little place downtown for dinner and after dinner I suggested that we take a ride all the way around the island of Manhattan since it was warm and there was no traffic. We rode down the westside past ground zero and went into the tunnel and roared out from under the Brooklyn Bridge. We continued uptown past all of the lights on the waterfront and took a deserted Park Avenue all the way up. We were having a great time: I wasn't going particularly fast but the free flowing exhaust made it sound pretty exciting. My girlfriend let me know she was really enjoying the ride and that we should continue all the way up to the tip of the island. I made my way back towards the FDR Drive along the East river waterfront and when I was almost there, things changed drastically.
I was going through an intersection with the light, while at the same time a midsize sedan proceeded through in the opposite direction. It swerved into a no signal left turn, putting her bumper directly into my thigh above my knee at about 40 mph. My passenger was ejected overhead and the bike went into some parked cars (I found this out later). I tumbled until I came to rest under a parked car, with my helmet wedged under the chassis.
I don't really remember much, but FDNY medics were on the scene fairly quickly. We were transported separately, but once in emergency room I was told that my girlfriend was relatively ok. I found out later that she had sustained a broken collarbone and some pretty bad bruising on her legs. My spare HJC helmet really did its job for her, and had been totally destroyed, with most of the damage right where her face would have been. She was released that night and had outpatient surgery to fix her collarbone the next week and was back to work in 2 more weeks.
I had a shattered femur, tibia, and fibula (basically all the bones in my left leg) in addition to a cracked pelvis. After I was stabilized, I had a surgery to drill and insert long titanium rods into the remnants of my femur and tibia bones. These rods should come out in a few years, along with the dozen bolts that are holding them in place. I spent another two weeks recovering and am still in physical therapy.
Here's an image of my upper leg:
My recovery has gone much quicker than anyone had hoped - I was hoping to be able to walk by the end of the summer, but was out of my wheelchair and using only crutches by june, swimming in a pool by July, walking with a cane and riding a bicycle by August. I can walk without a cane for short periods now, and have made bone fairly quickly in the areas that were destroyed in my lower leg.
It appears that I've lost about 1.25 cm of length in my upper left leg, which is causing some problems with balance and walking. I have a lift in my shoe to compensate and I'll probably need leg length correcting surgery before I can walk without a limp, dance, or ski again.
By the way, I did wind up with a great girlfriend through whole ordeal - she stayed with me through the hospital and then took care of me while I was still highly disabled through the summer. We got an apartment together downtown this September and things are going quite well.
I ride my bike around an hour every day, and have gotten back in shape for the most part. I am not sure if I'll be wanting to have another motorcycle for awhile, but I do miss that desmo sound...
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