So, Dear Ole Dad (Me) gets a call early one Thursday
morning in June 2003. It's Todd. "Uh Dad, can you come up
to Skyline and Hwy 9 and pick me up? BTW, bring the van and a
ramp to load my motorcycle with."
Todd and I had bought identical bikes, the 2002 Yamaha
R6 sport bike. Todd was using his a lot to commute back and forth
to his workplace in North San Jose from his home in Boulder Creek.
On this particular morning, it was foggy and wet on Hwy
9. Evidently foggy and wet enough to cause a motorcycle to lose
traction. After losing traction, the bike slid for about 75 yards
and rammed into a berm. Todd slid behind the bike and ended up
catapulting over the berm, further upstream.
The net of it is, when I arrived, the bike was not drive
able. It had lost a lot of oil and dirt had been scooped into the
engine. Todd was ambulatory but his right arm was dangling.
Later we would discover that he had tore up his shoulder socket pretty
badly. Enough to require surgery.
How badly damaged was the motorcycle? Take a look for yourself. After we got
down the hill with Todd and his bike, I dropped him off at the hospital
to get checked out and then I unloaded the bike and took pictures.
This is the corner 
where
Todd went asphalt surfing. I took the picture from the point
where his bike came to rest. The corner off in the distance, is
where he lost it.
This is what the oil pan 
looks like off of an R6. It was necessary to remove it in order
to get all of the gravel out of it.
This is what his bike looked like after I repaired
it. 
Not as good as new but pretty darn nice.
Well, Todd's shoulder was way to messed up to really
ride anymore and he got himself a new toy, a Subaru WRX STI. This
made the motorcycle sort of second string and I ended up selling it for
him to another crazy kid up in Petaluma, this past summer of 2004.
End of story? I would certainly hope so. I
never ever want to get a phone call like that ever again.
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