Countdown…extended…

The bike was dropped off at the dealership on 1/29, for what was to be a 6-week down time while it was prettied up and gotten ready to roll again. 6 weeks. We were in the middle of the worst winter in ages, so 6 weeks didn’t seem like any kind of problem. Ok Mr. Dealership man, here’s the keys. Oh; hang on to all the parts you take off as I’d like to take them with me when I pick up the bike. “Cool, no problem” they tell me. And with that, I’m out the door.

Fast forward to the 5 week mark and I place a phone call over there to see how things are coming along. Well, it turns out they had to have a supplemental insurance review, to authorize more parts. Yeah, I guess that’s not entirely unheard of with something like this, but it means it’s going to run over the 6 week estimate. Whatever, the weather is still pretty much ass, so I guess I can deal with it a little bit longer.

Fast forward a couple more weeks (we're now at the 7 week mark); hey, parts have finally started coming in, but they’re still waiting on the tin. Hopefully within another two weeks. Ugh, it’s getting nicer out there…

Fast forward to the 9 week mark; a call over on this past Friday to check on progress and I’m told all parts should be in-house within two more weeks (WHAT?? “Should” be in??). After that, it’ll be a quick turnaround and they’ll have me up and running, probably by mid-April. Yeah ok, I’m a big fan of the whole ‘up and running thing’, but what’s this about mid-April?!? Says the service guy; “We can’t control when the factory sends parts, so we’re all stuck waiting.” Yeah, great. You’re waiting for your next coffee. Me, I’m waiting to get my sanity back. Anyway, I reiterate my desire for them to save all the parts and the guy tells me the insurance company will probably take them instead of me. Say what? (Never heard of that before??) I told him that sounded odd but he assured me it was normal practice. Uh-huh. I had the insurance adjuster’s number back at home so things had to wait until Monday (yesterday) before moving forward again. A quick call over to the insurance company to verify things…drum roll please; No, they don’t want the parts and won’t take them. In fact, they’ve never taken the parts before, and haven’t heard of any insurance company doing this, either. Yep, thanks, I didn’t think so. So, if they’re not taking them, and I’m (supposedly) not getting them, where does that leave the parts? I’ll tell you where it leaves them; it leaves them at the dealership and listed on eBay to make a few extra bucks! I don’t think so!

Tuesday morning (today); a call over to let them know that I checked with the dealership and the good news is they don’t want them so if they can hang on to them for me, that’d be just dandy. And that’s when the bad news comes. It levels me like a Louisville slugger to the gut; the frame is bent. WTF??? What do you mean the frame is bent?? How can this not have been discovered prior to now?!?!? They claim they didn’t have the rear fender before, so they weren’t able to try and mount it until this past Saturday. (And that BULLSH*T because you can’t tell me they didn’t have a spare fender kicking around that they could have tried fitting!!) They told me they’re going to call the adjuster today and will hopefully have an answer for me (as to where things are going) by end of day tomorrow. Just to be certain that things ARE moving forward, I called the insurance adjuster myself to let them know the latest developments.

So at this point, I have no idea when I’ll be riding again. McCarthy texted me this morning, asking when I was getting my bike back. Jokingly, I said December.

The joke will be on me if I wind up being right.