Parts started falling off my bike today!

[primal]

Don't worry, it's not as bad as the title makes it sound. I was riding to class today and was coming up to a stop light. I went to downshift and lo and behold, my toe only encountered air! I pulled the clutch in, pulled into a turning lane, and then turned into a Toyota dealership (trying to take off in 4th from a complete stop is interesting -- good thing bikes have wet clutches!). When I got off the bike I saw that my shift lever was dragging on the ground by the shift linkage. Close inspection showed that a c-clip that kept the shift lever on its bar (or whatever you call that part, basically a pipe that the shift lever slips onto and actuates on) had fallen off. I went inside and talked to the service department at the Toyota dealership to see if they had any c-clips I could buy. They didn't, but they did give me a couple zip ties for me to try to rig something up.

I managed to temporarily secure the shift lever with one of the zip ties. It wasn't a great solution by any means, but it worked well enough to get me 5 miles up the road to NAPA. A few trips in and out to size up the c-clip and $1.05 later, my problem was fixed. I also lost a washer, but the c-clip seems to be working fine for now. I ordered a new washer from BikeBandit ($0.89 for the washer, $5.99 shipping). Luckily, I had just bought my tires from them so I had almost $9 in reward bucks, so it didn't cost me a dime.

Long story short, I jury rigged a repair, performed a proper side of the road repair, and got my bike operational again. All while only being 20 minutes late for class!