Well this sucks butt big time. Two weeks ago as I was commuting to work on my 2000 ZRX1100...sweet ride, a guy in a minivan jerked in front of me from the right lane because his was coming to a stop and he couldn't make it, and slammed his brakes on. I had no room to stop, about 10 feet. I was able to just jog to the left trying to get around him and clipped his left rear bummer with my right fork leg and went down. Gear saved my butt, however, like most numb-nuts, I was only wearing thick jeans and my right knee cap had a chunk of skin taken off the size of quarter or so. Like a cookie cutter, you could see right down to the bone and stuff. Also left hand was smashed or bent, right arm bruised with a huge hematoma, shoulders banged up and bruised, left arm bi-cep pulled and sore ribs. Also my face smashed inside my helmet on the right side causing my teeth on the upper right jaw to be numb. As shitty as this was, I was lucky, had I hit straight on into the van, I'm not sure I would be typing this now. I tribute my 30+ years of Offroad racing and riding for giving me the instinctive reaction to at least try to go around it.
So now I have ANOTHER project bike...the repairing and possibly modding of the ZRX. Damage was not too bad, handle bars forward toast, right fork lower toast, radiator & shroud, fender, bars and tank. What I was thinking, and even before this, was upgrading the meters to a more modern set, and changing the fairing to a ELR type for greater wind protection. It would give it just a little bit more nod to the original ELR. OR, go for a full race bike look of the 1981 KZ1000 S1 that Lawson raced. With the number plate for a fairing and integrate the headlamp into it. Finding a real ZRX fairing is next to impossible that matches my bike color, ebony, that was a rare color.
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