I had ridden with my pal Roger to the British bike rally in New Ulm, Texas. Roger took his FJ-1100 and I was on my FZR-1000. Thankfully, the buffoons who chose to ceremoniously destroy a "rice-burner" didn't choose one of ours. (BTW, what's up with that whole "destroy a motorcycle at a rally" mentality? What idiocy.) We were set to meet up with our buds Phil, Dave & crew. Phil has so many nice scoots that I can't recall what he'd brought to the rally. I DO however remember a bike that Dave brought along... I'd seen the newly redone SS in various magazines, but had yet to see one in person. Wow, there was Dave's SS in the flesh complete with its paper tag. I knew the very second I saw it that I'd found my next bike purchase. In fact, the picture at the upper left of the table below, "donedeal.jpg", was taken right then. This is a very special pic. That's my pal Dave in the Triumph T-shirt. Check out that face! Can you tell he was smitten as well? After a very eventful weekend (Sorry, can't elaborate!), I went back to Houston and spoke to my bud Denny who owned House of Wheels at the time. He was becoming a Ducati dealer and we placed the order. After months & months of delays, confusion & phone calls, THE phone call from the shipping company finally came. It was early in the week and the lady said the crate was at their distribution hub near downtown Houston. She went on to add that if I'd not received it by the following week, I could call her back and check status! WHAT? THE CRATE'S 30 MINUTES AWAY AND I MAY HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER WEEK? NOT! I asked if I could come get it myself and we ironed out the details. Good thing too. At that point I may have stormed the compound. Minutes later, I'm in our shop's one ton shredding towards relief. In what seemed like hours, the truck was backed up to a loading dock and I was walking through a giant warehouse. We found my crate stacked on top of several others. As I approached, I noticed a large, apparently forklift induced gash near the bottom of the crate's side. (See "new6.jpg" below.) AAACCCKKK! The forklift guy brought it down to eye level and I peered into the puncture, I could see the bottom of the fairing. Awwww man! ... After waiting for months & months, now this? Of course the shipper denied any responsibility, claiming the crate was picked up that way in Italy. Yada, yada, yada. I shot the place up and made my getaway with the loot. With the crate on the back of the truck and a lump in my throat, I sped over to Denny's shop. We carefully looked further through the opening before cracking open the crate. It appeared as though the forks had passed through a space about 2" high between the fairing's lower edge and the crate floor all the way through to leave small marks on the other side! Whew! Man, was that ever close. I happily freed the little SS from its confines, snapping pics all the way. We re-jetted and de-baffled right off the bat and the rest is history. One of the crate's sides was intact and now hangs on the garage wall as a constant reminder of that most excellent day. Below it is parked the first bike I've owned that I can't ever imagine selling... Hope ya enjoy the pics!
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