When I woke up Monday morning, I started thinking of metaphors for how my body felt. Beat with baseball bats, played football without pads… but eventually, I settled on "I feel like I was hit by a truck." Which is, I think, a stunningly apt metaphor.
Conveniently, Sunday afternoon, I swung by the Vespa boutique on First & Denny. I went to get a new Halo reflector for my helmet–my current one was so stretched, that it kept falling down around my neck on the Monkey Run ride. At the same time, I figured I’d get the name and number of the "official" Vespa repair shop in Seattle. I had no idea I would actually need that information just six hours later.
Big People Scooters–the recommended Vespa shop–gave me the bad news this afternoon. See the circled gap in the photo to the right (click to enlarge)? That’s a weld point on the frame. Apparently, this is irreparable. To repair my bike, the shop would first need to buy a new frame and get it painted ($2,800). Then, they take everything off my old bike–from engine and wheels to seat and mirrors–and put it on the new frame. That would probably cost another $750. With the towing charges ($300) and 11,430 miles, it’d make more sense to get a new bike.
In short, my little scoot is TOTALED.
So unless the parents of the kid who pulled left in front of me can cough up $3,500 to buy me one of the two used ET4s currently listed on Craigslist, I get to file the police report and have my insurance company sue them. If I don’t hear back from them by mid-day tomorrow, I’ll send in the report.
Filling out the report, I had to measure how far the accident was from a landmark. Google maps is SO useful. I just searched for 520 2nd Avenue W, Seattle WA and zoomed in on the satellite pictures. One-hundred and seventy five feet from the intersection, according to the scale.
God, that kid must have been stoned or something not to have seen me. Take a look at the attached map I shamelessly stole from Google. I was the red line. He was the green line. No other traffic, straight road, and he turns left right in front of me. He even used his turn signal.
Duncan from the VBClassic team summed up how I feel perfectly today. "They took your stuff, and you want it back." It’s true. I mean, it wasn’t theft, but my stuff was taken from me, and I want it back. That’s it.
Then he told the story of how he trashed his wife’s parked car pulling out of his own driveway. 🙂
Two last pics: my little scoot in the red rock desert, and one from the last time I’ll see it.
