What did you do on or to your other bike part 2

[Gone in 60]

Well, I guess the old saying is true.
There are those who have crashed a blood bike in the boss' driveway, and there are those who will.
Today, I joined the former. Ugh.

I had some parts I had finished working on and there were more to pick up, so after my delivery runs I swung by the boss' house for the exchange.
His driveway is ludicrously steep. It has to be at least 45 degrees, and possibly steeper in a few spots. It's a very hilly area, and his house is up on a rise above a street that's already at a fairly steep angle. There are two narrow, very steep driveways leading up to a somewhat level landing at the top, with room for two or three cars and the fleet of bikes lined up. You can't see anything from street other than the two driveway entrances. It's so steep that Mrs. G came to pick me up one evening, and her front-drive CRV wouldn't make it up the hill - it just spun the front tires. 

I've found the best approach as getting up some speed, and not letting off the throttle or touching the clutch or brakes till you get to the top. As the cars come into view, aim between them to get to the gaggle of bikes at the top. I've done an admirable job so far, on the various BMWs as well as Suprbird and my CB1100 - I wanted to make a great first impression, so I showed up on the CB for my initial evaluation ride to see if I was proficient enough to join. The boss kept commenting on how lovely the CB looks - brownie points! 

Today, charging up the driveway, one of the cars was more askew than I was used to, and I tried to course-correct half-way up. I felt the bike lean over to the downhill side, and realized that if I stayed in the throttle, I'd hit a car. I made the futile effort to stop to get a better approach, but she was already leaning too far over, and the steep hill didn't give me a place to put my left foot to stabilize. I kept a grip on the throttle and the clutch until right before I did a tuck-and-roll to get away in case the bike rolled over completely down the hill. From inside the house, the boss heard an engine zing to the moon, followed by a loud THUD.

I rolled and stood up, but my neck was frozen and I couldn't move my head. I thought surely I had hit my head on the ground, hard. The boss came out and after a chuckle, said "So, how do you like the airbag vest? Pretty effective, eh?" I didn't even realize it, but rolling away from the bike, I yanked the tether for the airbag, which puffed up on my chest and back, and put a solid tube from my shoulders locking into the bottom of my helmet. I hadn't hit my head, the airbag kept my neck from moving. Happened so fast, I didn't even realize it. 

He said "just wait a minute or two and the vest will deflate to normal." It did. The bigger problem was the bike. The big yellow mammoth was on it's left side, which was facing down the hill. So it was a lot more strenuous than lifting it from level ground. We struggled a bit but got her up and pushed her to the semi-flat area. She leaked a few tablespoons of coolant from the reservoir, but that was it. I felt dejected, but he said that everyone had done it, and that it was just my turn. We then went inside so he could show my how to replace the CO2 cartridge in the vest, along with the clip and pin that gets yanked out by the bike's tether cord to deploy the vest. He said he'd deployed his vest a few days earlier when the bike he was riding tipped over while he was practicing near-stop maneuvering between some tightly spaced dots in a parking lot and lost his balance. 

So no big deal to fix the vest, and thanks to the jungle-jim of hooped bars surrounding all of the bodywork on the police-spec BMWs, there was no damage to any of the bodywork on the bike I dumped. Good thing too, as I just finished all of the decal work, and if any of them got scraped up, I'd be pretty sore. The bars themselves are very scratched up on all of the bikes, and it's clear that they've all been over on both sides. The only plastic that was on the ground was the left mirror, which is hinged and spring loaded, so it just folded in and popped back out when the bike was  upright. 

I'm sure that left mirror was already scraped, but I suffer from "conditional visual perfection syndrome", meaning even if a bike has existing damage, if I cause something new, I am compelled to fix at least what I did to it. I told the boss I'd fix the mirror. He asked why, as they're all scratched. I said "because I have to." 

When I got home, I sanded it smooth, and used my technique of hitting it lightly with a spray can of matte black from a distance to replicate the slight textured pattern of the original plastic finish. Now I can sleep at night.