Crash = bent forks, bruised ego and a severe reality check

[X-ray]

Well yeasterday I finally happened.  I was exiting the highway and took the turn too wide where of course, there was plenty of sand.  In stead of freakin' out I leaned straight up and hopped the curb.  Luck for me there wansn't a guard rial.  I  was on the grass between the exit ram and the entrance ramp using my rear brake for fear of falling over(should I have used both brakes?) I was slowing and got her down to about 15-20 mph i think when I noticed the landscape forming a V for the drainage.  I kept an eye out for rocks and a stom drain when, WHAM , dead stop.  The storm drain was covered in grass and the storm drain was two feet out of the ground.  Also there was a 20 in hole just before the drain into which my front tire fell.  I hung in some how.  The bike didnt fall completely over and before I could attempt to stand her up there was two guys, one from a minivan and the other from an ambulance!  After asking if I was all right 5 or 6 times the ambulane driver let me go and the other fellow helped me haul the bike out of the hole still running.  I really appreciated the help . Needless to say the forks are bent, the front brakes don't work, it won't turn left, the metal guage holder is bent, and who knows what else.  AND I drove home the last 2 miles, albeit at 3-5 mph, but I was too shaken up and angry to care.
     What do I do now?  This is my first season and my first annivesary was a couple of weeks ago.  Should I leave it be of have fun fixing it.  How much labor would it entail etc.  Words of wisdom would be very helpfull.

[Dwn4whadever]

Damn that sucks man. Glad to see you are ok though. If you are sure about what is worng with it i would fix it myself. Something you could have some fun with. Let me tell you workinbg on your bike and learning how it works makes you feel 10x more comfrontalbe with owning it. Now if this is your daily commuter and you are SOL if you dont have it. I woould see how much it would cost to get it looked over and fixed. Poor GS keep us posted.

[Aerospike]

Man what is wrong with this month?  I just wrecked mine too!  Glad to hear you're ok.

[scratch]

Too many become complacent with the consistent weather, and unchanging conditions.

Testing oneself is one thing, best done in small steps; baby steps.

Glad you're allright X-ray.  What did you learn?  Sleep on it and reply tomorrow.  After you've played it over and over in your head.

Give us a picture of your forks.  Hopefully they are only twisted.

Patience grasshopper.

[rangerbrown]

get so pictures up, only then can we tell you what you rteally have ahead of you.

[CirclesCenter]

The GS's frame is pretty robust so you're probably alright there. But do check it over.

Yeah basically the whole front end.

Wow, either you are lucky or incredibly good, or both. I don't know if I would have been able to stay up.

Maybe a little front brake, but in the case laying it down might have been a better option for the bike, and being on grass you probably wouldn't have been hurt either.

But being as you didn't have a bunch of time to examine the landscape and consider pros and cons I look at it this way?

Are you alive?
Do you have all of your arms/legs?

If you can answer yes to both these questions then you did well.

[X-ray]

Sorry for the delay but I don/t have a digital camera and had to get the film developed.  Also I never posted pics before so I got by brother to help.  Needles to say, it took a while but there here!

These 1st two show how off the front wheel is compared to the handle bars.




The fork bends from the left and right




Is there any thing wrong with the fork braces or triple trees or whatever the're called?




The Handle bars are straight in this pic!



The front wheel is as staight as possible here.



















What's your (you all) opinion.  Should I give it a go at fixin her or should I ship her to the scrap yard?
Now that it has been a few days  In leaning towards the fixin' but with shcool and work time will be short. 

BTW the weather was outrageously beautiful today for a ride here on the north shore. Whish I could Ride

[tussey]

you should ship me your handlebars 

[Oni]

Sorry about your incident.  I'd start hitting up the board and ebay and getting it fixed up.

[werase643]

well,
front forks....if you can feel a ripple where it is bent....junk....they look junk
look for flakey paint on the frame near the fork area... if flakey....frame is bad

parts probably needed....
front wheel....annuygen(sp?) has one cheap
forks
lower tripple tree
rotor?  can you spin the front wheel and see if bent?

[plusultra]

Sorry to hear about what happened man, fortunately ur okay and thats what truly matters.  Btw, what kind of handle bars are those?  they don't look stock.

[hmmmnz]

the frame looks ok to me,
this sounds like a good excuse to do a front end up grade,
basically any front end from a suzuki will fit with a spacer at the bottom of the stem(the gs stem is shorter than most others out there)
or you could press ot the head stem from what ever front end you buy as well as the gs one and swap them over that elliminates the need for the spacer.
im just about to change mine to a gsx front end so ill let you know the details if you want...
failing that you could try and find some more gs shocks(which are like hens teeth, and are crap any way)
or you could use kawazaki gpx 750 or 600 forks they are exactly the same size as the gs so will mount into your triple clamps without having to change your clocks or ignition or headlight
and you get the added bonus of there electronic anti bottoming gadgit on there forks (the only problem is there forks are spaced wider apart, so im not sure how you'd get about that, they use a 220mm disc so you could probly use a gsxr or bandit wheel on the front with the gpx 4pot calipers)
well enough of my waffleing glad your ok
good luck with the fix

[Affschnozel]

Three years into having my GS I was caught by surprize when cager cut me of in merging lanes in intersection and just stopped in the middle of the road, I just had to give him a push in the behind sending his cage couple of meters forward.
Aftermath was similar to yours X-ray:
bent fork tubes
bent fork sliders
destroyed fender and bent bits here and there
I had to buy new fork tubes but went with donor sliders from another GS,everything else was intact to my surprize.
It gave me the opportunity to upgrade front suspension at least
Disassemble the front and check every part thoroughly for damage,there is a good chance that tripples are OK and most likely the frame
isn't damaged,the wheel can be fixed if it's not too damaged check axle too.
It's not that hard to reassemble,just be sure it's all straight to spare oil leakage and of course unsure stability

[ukchickenlover]

Seems like a pretty easy fix to me. Get on ebay a look for some forks and a new wheel. Just a matter of replacing the parts. Maybe need to change the steering bearings too.

[GSRider]

Did you bust off the steering stop too?

I had to replace the inner tubes on both front forks over the winter...probably cheaper just to buy the full assembly, but it cost a pretty penny.
I'd scrap it....or better yet, keep the bikes for parts, and get a replacement! 

[gsmetal]

As someone who has fixed many crashed bikes the advice I would give you is to parts out that bike and get a new one.

You simply don't know the extent of damage to the frame neck (if any) and to plow all that money into a bike that is worth $1100.00 just doesn't make sense. I'll bet you're going to spend a good $900.00 to get it back to street ready.

Let's face it, you'll have to replace just about everything from the handle bars forward (you can probably save the brakes).

IMHO I would buy a new / used bike and either parts this one out or look at eBay for parts and slowly rebuild it.

Either way, consider yourself lucky to be alive and thankful there wasn't a guardrail (it would have cut you in two).