Dropped By a Previous Owner

I now reside in that group ( Dropped by a previous owner) I dropped my Viffer while repositioning it in my garage. I had removed the grab handles on the rear part of the bike and installed the seat cowl. I did this to give the bike a cleaner look for the Lunasee video. So as I was moving the bike around, I had my right hand on the seat and was steering with my left. I slipped, and before I knew it, my bike went crashing to the floor with a gut wrenching cracking sound. With no grab handle, it was either this or tear off the rear section as she fell. This reminded me of why I have rode naked bikes for most of my life. One would not think that dropping your bike would cause so much damage.

Luckily for me, the VFR fairing comes in several sections. And the damage was confined to the section between the main side faring and the section where the headlights reside. It is a small section as far as the fairing goes, but is in a very prominent part. I have three options as I see it.

1. Buy a new replacement part from Honda.
2. Search eBay until a suitable replacement pops up.
3. Repair it myself.

I will do two of the three things listed. I plan on repairing the damaged section and I am going to get a replacement section as well. Whether it is new or used depends largely of what pops up on eBay. I figure the new part will be there if I need it, in the mean time I can search eBay on a regular basis and hope one pops up. There is a product out there called PlastiFix, it looks as it work pretty good judging by their YouTube tutorial.

The thing that worries me the most though is, matching that sixteen year old paint. One thing on my side is, the bike has been stored most of it's life indoors. Only taken out for riding. The guy I bought it from kept it in his basement in the winter and under a cover in his garage during the summer. I park in my garage and in a garage at work as well. Although it has been kept indoors most of the time, it's spent it's fair share in the sunlight. Those of you who paint or have had an older bike or car's crash damage repaired knows the old paint is a few shades lighter than the paint in the repaired spot. For naked bikes this not too much of a problem, there is a bit of real estate between the painted parts so no one notices if they aren't an exact match.

There is hope, I could luck out and find a replacement panel on eBay that is about the same condition as the one it's replacing was in before some Jackwagon dropped it. I'm pretty sure the ones from the factory are not painted, so painting a new one is a crap shoot as well. Then there is always the option of painting the whole bike black. I'm kinda partial to black cars and bikes and every bike I own, stands a chance of getting painted black. I'm still riding as the weather 'round these parts has been on the mild side. But I'm sure it won't be long before the snow flies and the roads are treated with salt and calcium chloride. That is usually the point the bike gets parked, don't want any of that nasty corrosive shit on my bike. I'm hoping that I have at least two to four weeks of riding left. When the snow flies I will turn my attention to fixing the panel. The paint job will have to wait for spring though, no place that isn't warmed without an ignition source to paint in. Am I bummed out that I broke my fairing, not really, while I'm not crazy about it, I can't turn back the hands of time to prevent it. No use getting all worked up about something that is now history, all I can do is deal with it and fix it. I did learn something from this though, the frame sliders have already been purchased.