The BUTTERFLY EFFECT AND The POWER OF THREE.
In Hindsight I should have just the sunglasses go. They weren’t that expensive.
But, I can’t go back now.
Just before we left Prince Rupert I took a drive around, and In my opinion, the leaders of that town have no vision at all. It is a major hub for all transportation for the area and the whole downtown area is nothing but industrial. No place to really get down to the water and enjoy the sights. Everybody seems too busy working to relax and enjoy what nature has worked so hard to supply them with. They could do so much with the town, but at this point it would be a major undertaking.
I had told John about a couple of spots that I wanted to stop at on the way out and take pictures. He said, that was fine, he would hang back with the Go-Pro camera and video us riding.
We get a couple of pictures of the cannery and the local waters and we headed out to go see a couple of waterfalls. About 45 miles out there is a rock wall with multiple waterfalls on it that I saw on the way in.
As we approached I turned on my signal and started to slow down and the disaster struck. The beautiful scenery has captured Johns attention and he was trying to get it on the video. When he looked back down the three of us in front had slowed and he was still going 60. In the video you could see that he was drifting right and with the rain soaked roads he was committed to the right lane. He tried stopping but only managed to get to about 30 as he tried to squeeze between Gina and the road barrier, be glanced off of the barrier and into Gina. Lori and I had by this time stopped and we heard that awful sound that once heard can never be unheard. The crunch and scraping of steel on asphault.
I looked into the mirror and saw Gina’s bike crossways in the middle of the road and John’s bike on it’s side on the shoulder. No John or Gina to be seen.
Lori and I got off our bikes and we could Gina getting up from the shoulder, but it took a few seconds to find John. He was about 8’ off the road in the brush and he was trying to get up, but having a hard time of it. As it turns out, he was just disoriented, with no major damage to his person. Gina had a sore hand from where the bikes had hit, but otherwise she was Ok.
The bikes on the other hand were not so good. Johns had the right footboard gone and the brake lever bent and the fairing destroyed. The gps had come off and his Go-pro camera that was attached to his helmet was gone. It too 20 minutes of searching to find that.
Gina’s bike was a little better. The Lindby bar has bent severely and came off the frame at the top. The exhaust was scraped up where the bike had slid on it. The right side footboard was also off and it had sheared the bolts that held it on. Both the saddlebags had matching scrapes now. I was surprised how well the saddlebags hold up when a bike slides on them.
We took a few minutes to catch our breath and assess the damage and see what parts we had to put it all back together.
It took about 2 hours, but we removed all the damages pieces and straighten what we could. We found some bolts in my toolbox and managed to reattach the hwy bars and both of the running boards. The only thing we couldn’t save was the Fairing on John’s bike.
We did a quick test drive and found the bikes to be mechanically sound, so we talked it over and decided to continue and just be careful and see what happens.
Again, we played hide and seek with the clouds and the rain, but we made it into Stewart by 6PM with everybody and little sore and tired.
We did get to see a few bears alongside the Hwy going into Stewart and stopped and got some pictures of the Bear Glacier just outside of town.
We all know that things happen in three and that it will not be denied. If you screw up it’s pattern, it will come back at you. If I had only just let those sunglasses go…
(for those of you that are confused, you need to go back a couple of days on my blog to see what happened and it will all be clear.
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