Added 1000 miles on a roadtrip

Nice road trip... other than the tip over.
I notice that plastic residue with every bike I've owned with saddlebags or a trunk. I added a thin foam insert in the trunk on my ST to prevent that and also add a bit of cushion to what I put in there. In another thread here I posted photos of the saddlebag inserts I added that are rubber/vinyl tub liner material to bridge the gap over the hinge when the bags are open so nothing gets crimped between the shells when I close them. This material also adds a bit of cushioning. But I still tend to put more solid objects in a soft wrap of some kind, even if it's just wrapped in a towel. All bikes have some low grade vibration. Some bikes insulate the rider from that really well, especially the CTX. But it is felt by stuff put in the bags. Not so much engine vibration but just simply road bumps and unevenness of the road will cause that. Learned a little about that with my GW some years ago and ended up putting a carpet sample scrap in that trunk, but nothing in the bags.

Oh, and I did dump my GW once or twice the first many months I owned it. It was a big jump from a little Vulcan 750 I had before. First time was in my garage and took it off the side stand a little too aggressively. Ended up falling over on the right... and settled on top of the front fender of my Vulcan which I had not yet sold. That was a little more difficult to stand up since I had to get between the two bikes. Second time was trying to ride up closer to a building before a storm and dropped the front tire off the sidewalk into a hole. There was a stone wall next to that and, again had to squeeze between the two immovable objects to try to stand the bike up. That time there were many "friends" to watch and then help.

There was one or two other times as well but those were the most "memorable!"

I remember when I started riding, I heard from everyone that it was inevitable that I would drop my first bike, which was a Shadow Aero. I never did drop it, although I came close on my VERY FIRST TURN out of the dealer parking lot but yanked it back up on pure adrenaline and rode home shaking, then had a sore/pulled muscle in my leg for days.

When I traded the Shadow and had never dropped it in 3 years of ownership I thought I was indestructible. Then when I got my Bonneville, within 6 months these things happened:

• took a left turn too tight in low light and hit the edge of a median with the front edge of the header pipe, didn't go down but really jacked up the exhaust and tweaked the cylinder head
• got cut off by an SUV as I was approaching a turn, braked into a skid/slide and finally had to gently lay the bike down on its side to avoid hurting my ankle due to the angles involved

I dropped it a second time years and years later due to nothing more than putting my foot down in gravel at a stop sign. Zero traction on the foot, leg went away from me, and I dumped the bike in a moment of awareness that if I didn't drop it I was going to severely pull or tear a groin muscle.

I'm absolutely terrified that I might dump the CTX I'm planning to buy tomorrow, as I've never dealt with that much weight on a cycle and can't predict what circumstances I might find myself in that I was able to muscle my way out of before. But it's not going to stop me from getting on and riding and practicing as much as I can.

I was very leery of the weight in parking lots during my test ride, but probably babying it too much (just very conscious that it was a demo I was NOT planning on buying). I felt amazing cornering the bike at speed. In fact I'm quite sure I leaned the CTX over more steeply than I have ever leaned my 200+pound-lighter Bonneville going around a hairpin turn. It felt like it just wanted to lean more but somehow gave me the confidence to roll with it and it came back upright just as I felt a bike properly should.

I'll be watching out for the low speed U-turns though.

Jeff