Highsided, Looking For Advice

Question.  What were the  circumstances of your high side.  Road condition, corner speed, how much weight was in those hard bags ?  We can learn from this...  Glad your not seriously injured !

I came here to say have Majesty send you a new sticker too...

It really only looks like your front fairing actually broke. The other fairing is just scuffed. Paint job is cheaper than a new fairing. Check to see how straight your forks are, any dents in the wheels, warped rotors, and damaged radiators. Those will be the pricey ones, and if they are all good, then damage might be less than you think.

Last Thursday I was riding with a group and went down in turn.  Thankfully I only broke my collarbone, which is quite painful but I'm able to get around and do my job.  I've never crashed anything before, so I've never had to file a claim for insurance and I was wondering if anyone here could offer some advice.  I realize I'll have to just call my insurance company and ask them most of these things, but I thought I'd ask here as well.

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• The EMTs cut off my jacket, and I figure I'll need to replace my helmet since I slammed into the ground.  Should insurance cover the cost of replacement gear?
• Apparently replacement parts for all I damaged will run close to $3000, or so I'm told.  Add in labor on top of that and it's getting close to what the insurance company might call a total loss.  How does that work?
• Is it worth stripping naked and riding streetfighter style?

First,  I am glad you are not seriously injured.

My advice...Let them total the bike.  I would even encourage it.

Take the bags off and stick 'em in the garage, you probably won't get anything extra for them.  Remove any aftermarket parts such as power commander, after market seat, GPS etc.  Hold out for fair value, should be somewhere between $3.5K and $4.5K (NADA - nonABS) and replace it with another used VFR if you are so inclined.  Have your local dealer give you a cost to repair estimate including labor and a resale estimate (not trade in).  I would not give these to your insurance company unless their estimates are lower. Your claim will of course be reduced by the value of your deductible.  I wouldn't take it with a salvage title, it dilutes the value too much if you go to sell it.  Also, you don't really know what it is going to cost to repair from the estimate.  There could be other hidden damage that won't show up until later. If you try to buy it back it will be at what the insurance company determines is the salvage value, so parting it out might not be worth the effort.

Hold out for the replacement value of the gear.

Don't sign anything or agree to anything until you are completely satisfied.  You are in a better negotiating position as long as the claim stays open.  Once you sign a release they won't talk to you again.  Since it looks like you have it home they won't hit you up for storage charges if this drags on.  Don't sign a release on the medical cost for the collar bone even if it is not covered by your insurance.

Oh, and don't ask the insurance company for advice on how to process the claim.  They just might be biased.

That's just my advice...I am in MA,, your insurance coverage and laws might be different.

Well, having just low-sided mine back in June (first crash of my entire life as well - I'm 42 and riding since 6 years old), I can give you my experiences and advice. Given what I see, I'm 95% sure your insurer will likely declare your bike totalled (from a financial, not mechanical, POV). Given the year, condition, cost of labor/parts for repair, and the potential liability of "unseen" damage (like the fork being mildly off), they probably won't want to fix it but cut you a check for the salvage value. That's what happened in my case and to a couple of friends as well a few years back.

My advice - if they do offer salvage value, take it. Buy your parts of FleaBay and/or ScamList, do the repairs yourself and have a qualified mechanic double-check your work, alignment and generally go over the bike. 

In my case, I didn't have full coverage. The dude who boxed me in and made me go down contested fault. His insurance company offered me a 50% liability deal which means they cut me a check for - what they determined - was 50% salvage value. What a farse. It was $2300 BTW. Knowing this would never cover the cost of new parts and labor, nor be able to replace my bike, I bought the little new replacement stuff from BikeBandit (broken shifter, lever, 1 sticker, front fender, etc). I managed to buy (believe it or not) new-to-me RWB fairings in great condition from FleaBay for less than $100 bucks. I bought the nose cowl in Silver (which you'll need too) from there as a set with both large left/right fairings for $91. I kept the nose cowl and re-sold the 2 fairings just this week for $70. 

My driver radiator collapsed on to the fan and kept it from spinning. Fixed and flushed cooling system. Right as rain now. Awaiting delivery of ground-down passenger foot-peg assembly and such. My bike is now once again, road-worthy and will be cosmetically back to excellent condition this weekend when I have a chance to sand/spray the nose and slap on the RWB fairings.  

My entire point is: your damage doesn't look extensive from this corner. If you want to keep the bike, you can fix it for not all that much money and effort. I was lucky too and had only a headache, sore shoulder, and road-rash on my hips/legs. Trash the helmet. It's not worth the risk in a (gulp) potential future spill. Good luck and ride safe. 

-Freddy

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Question.  What were the  circumstances of your high side.  Road condition, corner speed, how much weight was in those hard bags ?  We can learn from this...  Glad your not seriously injured !

Dry road, corner speed was about 35mph, and I only had about 10lbs of weight in the bags.  I passed a car on a straight, but did it too close to an impending turn.  Applied the brakes to slow down before the turn but didn't get it down low enough, also was too near the inside of the lane prior to the turn.  Started to panic and braked instead of giving it throttle, rode outside the turn, hit grass, went up and over.

You pay for full coverage - USE IT! Glad to hear you're relatively ok.

Dear Blue,

I'll throw in a big "Glad you can heal this one"!, and urge a re-entry to riding when the time comes by way of a good riding school. Getting over the willies of a bad reaction to a stressful moment is tough. My first wake-up call came in a violent highside when I hit a turn too fast for my brain to figure. I rolled off the gas and hit the rear brake, sliding the rear till it caught and flipped me into the next county. I broke my collar bone, too, and got a concussion. Fortunately I was on a track with perfect run-off, so I hit nothing but gravel and grass. Trashed the VFR  clear of all red plastics, though, but it started me on the way to become a good rider. 

What I saw then was that I didn't even know what it was that i needed to know. I was befuddled by my reactions that totally took me by surprise. I had thought up to then that I was decently competent and not the type to panic or loose cool. Wrong. It's in all of us.

During my and the bikes healing, I read everything I could get my hands on about turning a bike. I was most struck by Keith Code's book, "A Twist of the Wrist II", in which he described my exact experience as completely normal and expected for the unwary and under-trained rider starting to push limits (on purpose or accidentally). I had the "aha" moment I had wanted, seeing that once I knew what to expect, I could learn to dial out the unwanted reactions and replace them with actual skills! The hard way was not necessary.

I took a formal school (Freddie Spencer then), such as Nick Ienatsch teaches at Yamaha Champions now, and found the riding breakthrough that I had wished for. It lead me to do lots of local schools and trackdays, ultimately making my road skills phenomenally better. Getting the mechanics of riding solidly under you allows the rest of road riding awareness to mature much faster. Surprises drop to a minimum you can mostly control. 

So, heal, restore, ride whatever you decide on, repaired (I did it), or newer, and learn from the lump in your shoulder how not to earn those. 

Talked to an agent today.  He took 3.5 hours to go over everything on my bike and marked it as a total loss.  With all my gear and accessories, they're offering me $7k.  Seems like a fair number, and is pretty close to my calculations of what everything is worth.[image: Screen%20Shot%202013-08-28%20at%202.31.5]

The gloves and jacket are 5 years old field armor vest can probably still be worm, so a ~$200 loss on everything isn't terrible.

Gloverleaf, thanks for the advice.  I think I'm gonna do exactly what you did.  I'm already looking for a riding school to attend in the summer and hope to increase my skill level before getting back into the saddle :)

$7k seems like a decent offer. Did they say what they want as a buy-back for the bike?

If you are going to be buying a new vfr instead of buying this one back, see if they will let you keep the accessories and take the hit on the check.