The Toll Booth vs. the Motorcycle

Done! She's so pretty!

2007-08-15T17:28:00.000-04:00

Love it, LOVE IT!

One Color Down

2007-08-15T17:21:00.000-04:00

The base color has been applied along with the clear coat. The bike is mostly reassembled, and now the fun begins! Blue, do your magic!

Ready to Paint!

2007-08-08T18:50:00.000-04:00

Blue repaired a crack in the bottom fairing and prepared all the pieces to get painted.

"lower fairing that was cracked"

"I repaired it by plastic welding using only factory plastic. No glues, no resins, just the same material the whole fairing is made of."

"Now I let it dry a bit, wet-sand it and it's ready for paint."

"And by the way....superglue really stinks when you heat it :P" -Blue.
HaHa! It seemed like a good idea at the time! Sorry.

It's great to see this progress, I can't wait to see it Friday!

She's Nekkid!!

2007-08-06T18:54:00.000-04:00

I received an update from Blue today.
Looks like the stickers came off, followed by everything else!

The Drop Off

2007-08-04T22:02:00.001-04:00

I finally decided on the colors and dropped the GSXR at the shop. I left in her good hands, but boy do I miss my bike!

SO many pretty colors!

2007-07-24T20:01:00.000-04:00

How do I choose!? I met with Blue, the painter/artist, tonight and now have 9 color decks and a couple of binders full of colors. From a little half inch square I am to choose what paint I want on my bike...forever! So, tomorrow I will sit in the sun with all my swatches and get this done! Blue has great ideas, and I can't wait to see my bike transformed!

The Painter

2007-07-16T19:15:00.000-04:00

I called around and checked forums for input and decided to use Blue Kustoms to paint the bike. I was impressed by Blue's work, his price and his patience.
We had our first meeting last week and I am SO excited to get started. This week we will meet to pick colors and drop off the bike. I will post pics of the progress!

The Idea

2007-07-16T12:56:00.000-04:00

The amount of the settlement is enough to totally replace all of the damaged fairings and parts, but it is also enough to get the fairings repaired and get a one of a kind custom paint. I chose custom paint. I searched the web for ideas and came up with a design I liked.
I have always felt that God has given me this bike to use as a tool for ministry, in some form or fashion. After all everything I have is His, it would be selfish of me to not use any of it for His purpose!
I didn't want anything over the top so along with the paint design I chose a simple scripture reference that kept the theme of the paint, and had strong meaning for me.
Faith to Walk on Water.

The Claim

2007-07-15T22:11:00.000-04:00

Within one week of the drop, I had made contact with the Toll Authority and submitted all of the proper documentation. I was told it would take a few months, then I should be compensated for the damage. My paperwork would travel from Tampa to Orlando to Tallahassee to be reviewed. Four months later I received a notice in the mail that the Toll Authority was not responsible. I called to find out why and they said that the toll bar operation is the responsibility of the operator, who was a leased employee, so I should contact the leasing company. It sure would have been nice to know this four months ago! Well, they gave me the name of the leasing company and a bad phone number, so I tracked them down (yea Google!). I sent them all the same information and had a check at my door in less then ten days! If you are right about something, document everything and never give up!

The Incident

2007-07-13T22:57:00.000-04:00

On a ride with GirlRiders.net on March 3, 2007, nine of us were lined up at the toll booth to get to Fort Desoto park, the front person paying for all of us.

Well, the operator let half the group through and the gate started to come down right behind one of the girls. He put it back up and as the last two were right at the gate it came down on us! The rider beside me was on the outside and ducked and swerved I was on the inside and ducked and dropped, fell on the 2' curb scratched up my fairings, mirror and cracked the screen. Also scraped and bruised my shin, but I was fine. The toll people called the police and paramedics and it turned into a big ordeal, but they did say that I can get the city to pay for repairs.

Here is a video of the incident, hard to see what happens, but clear that I went down! TOLL BOOTH VIDEO