Dropped the GZ

[Maggie]

:retard:

Clearly, with over 30,000 miles (not counting my years riding when I was a teenager) among my 3 bikes I am not a completely "green" rider...however...

Sometimes those :retard: moments DO occur! I was just leaving a very fulfilling sign language interpreting assignment yesterday, had all my gear on (including overpants because I had nice slacks on) and experienced that power loss issue I had posted about recently. Each time this has happened has been shortly after starting off, maybe within 300 yards of starting point).

I pulled over to the curb and saw that there was no fuel sitting in my inline fuel filter. So, I put the petcock on prime and started shaking the bike a little. I hit the starter and got a response and was trying to work up a nice idle, meanwhile becoming conscious that a truck had come up behind me.

My :retard: issue was that I was starting up while in gear (I have NO CLUE why I didn't put it in neutral for this operation!), had the clutch lever pulled but somehow just let it out while I was stressing about the truck behind me, etc. The GZ surged forward and my hand on the throttle didn't help! But I was not properly seated and the bike was going out from under me. So I didn't even get to hit the kill switch but just turned the key when she was down.

The good news is that the end result is only a scratch on the end knob of the clutch lever. The left turn signal was only slightly bent and easily went back into position and the left hand assembly was moved back into place as well. I will go over and tighten up tomorrow. The bigger damage was to my ego. :blush: Humbly yours, Maggie.

P.S. Think I am going to replace the vacuum hose on the fuel tank tomorrow. Probably should have done that when I installed the fuel filter and cleaned the petcock. Several lessons learned!