Someone brought my bike to work!

So I’m walking out of work this morning and I see my brand new ZX-14R in 40th Anniversary colors parked in the lot. This couldn’t be, is this some kind of a joke? I’ve never brought my bike to work. I’m certain I’m the only one in this town or anywhere even nearby who has ever owned a ZX-14 of any kind. Well, I could tell by the license plate this was not my bike. I still had to check the garage when I got home to make sure my brand new baby was waiting for me.

Where I live, there are two towns side by side with a combined population of 12,000. Everything else for seventy to a hundred miles in any direction is forest dotted with whistle-stop towns you’ll pass through without knowing if you blink your eyes. Some guy in my town who works at the same place I do bought the same bike. That might be within the realm of possibility if it were a Hayabusa but a 40th Anniversary ZX-14R? What are the chances of that? I found out his name and that he is training on day shift like I did. He will be coming to my shift and also in my department. There's about a thousand employees at my place of work. Crazy coincidences.

What would be even weirder is if this guy is a member on this forum and I don’t know yet.

* Last updated by: Rook on 8/7/2024 @ 6:22 AM *

Have been a member here for a while, but sitting on the sidelines and browsing. This one caught my attention and decided to reply. That is a very strange coincidence and I would have freaked out, as well. Great if you could meet him.

Hey there, Big! Welcome!

I'm going to wait until the end of their kickoff meeting in the morning as I'm leaving. I'll ask which one he is and I'm going to walk right up and introduce myself. He'll probably freak out too when he finds out someone else in town has his exact bike and has been riding a ZX-14 for 15 years.

* Last updated by: Rook on 8/7/2024 @ 10:32 AM *

Thanks for the welcome! I'll be posting up more in the future. Know you haven't ridden it much, but now you should ride yours to work. Think you are working the late shift, so not sure how possible/comfortable that is?

It's mid sixties when I leave at 6 am and that's fine for a casual ride home. I've always been anxious about leaving my bike parked in a lot though. Maybe I'll chance it just once to see them parked side by side, both with stock everything.

Ha Rook that's funny. And cool.

My first car was 79 Camaro Rally Sport, that year RS's had 2 tone paint jobs mine was black/white. Obviously being a new driver and not really thinking about it, I was used to seeing other Camaros but never one like mine. One day leaving work, I walked out to my car only to see sitting next to it, another identical Camaro. This was odd, and cool, the couple that owned it saw mine and thought it would be cool to say "hey".

At any rate, in 97 I leased a new Frod Ranger, red, a nice little truck. It was really weird though, driving around and seeing other trucks just like the one I had. It never really occurred to me that would be the case, and it just seemed weird for a while.

But what can I say, what's better than 1 40th anniversary ZX-14Rs? 2 of course!

I love it Vic!

LOL yeah, I owned an '85 sand drift Toyota Corolla for 20 years. Any place I would go, I would find at least two other identical cars parked. I actually got in somebody else's car a couple times. One time the owner came walking up and said, "yeah, I know." Another time there was a large dog in the back seat and it wasn't mine. I got in and tried the key and heard this panting noise in the back seat. There he was in the rear view looking at me and wondering WTF just like I was.

* Last updated by: Rook on 8/10/2024 @ 11:12 AM *

oooooooo---bad news. Not me I'm cool but my work buddy that bought the same bike as me wasn't at work last Thursday/Friday morning. Today, we're told he had a motorcycle crash. He came into work over the weekend but he's off a while, nursing injuries I'm sure. Apparently no broken bones but undoubtedly some road rash. I'll have to wait to hear the fate of the bike. Most likely scenario is he hit a deer on the highway and if that's the case, that bike is totaled. 2024 ZX-14R, two months old. I'm glad the guy is walking. Hope it's just bumps and bruises and road rash because that is certainly bad enough to go through.

I'll update when I hear more. I'm really considering future directions to go with motorcycling. I'm not giving up bikes but it's just too dangerous to go fast on the road around here.

I didn't see Dan all week. He just started, he's running a deficit on sick days now. Thirty hours of PTO left and according to company policy, he's supposed to get shit canned. It's not that bad, he has a military pension and he just works for extra money. He's in a lot better financial shape than I am so I have no reason to pity in that regard but I wonder about his injuries. I was basically an invalid for three days after my crash. Then I got my ass up and started doing what I needed to do even without the skin I used to have. I was older than he is. From how he described his rides, I'm thinking he took himself one hell of a long slide. He said he found himself doing 130 mph without even knowing it. One thing about this bike, you keep an eye on the speedo because 100 mph is no big deal. My money is still on a deer strike.

I'll avoid the expletives but there's so many deer here in town, I even see great big bucks with ten or twelve points roaming the back yard now and this isn't exactly the boonies. I have no doubt whatsoever we will have wolves and coyotes and maybe a few cougars following their quarry into town within ten years. Get some damn sharpshooters out there with some bows and kill those mofos off. I'll pay for the meat. I'd sit on my deck and kill them myself. I'd kill the fawns. I don't care but it's completely absurd to have deer like this walking the streets like they're somebody's dog. They almost are because a lot of dumasses feed them.

Swear to god, I'd like to get an old truck and weld armor all over it and just go out and hit deer.

Week 3, Dan's still not at work. Does he have skin grafts or something? He must have been flying. He told he he was doing triple digits very frequently. This made me a little uneasy. I don't think he had ridden a bike in quite a while.

Week four. I don't bring up Dan's absence anymore at work but I'm still concerned about him. His tool bag is still on his shelf so I presume he's still employed with us. At this point, I'm hoping it IS skin grafts because if it isn't, it's something a lot more serious. I hope not a brain injury. Maybe muscle tears? Four weeks is a long time to be out of work from a motorcycle crash. I imagine skin abrasions would be healed at least to the point of having delicate scar tissue by now. That goes on a long time so might as wel deal with it and get back to work. I hope he's ok.

A month and still no word from him. That doesn't sound good.
Like you said, I hope he's ok.
You've been through this scenario. You know what it's like.

If I was lucky about anything regarding my crash, it was that it happened at the start of summer and I didn't need to go back to work for two months. I'm sure I could have after a couple weeks though. I just checked my records and I had something close to skin grown back after 19 days. It didn't take much to tear it open but it was skin.

That's unfortunate on so many levels. Hopefully Paul will recover fully, and maybe even be able to get another 14.

It's Dan. We have a Paul on the night shift too but he's not into bikes. Yeah, I hope Dan is ship shape soon. I'd like to see him get another 14 too. There's a chance he actually came out ahead with his insurance. He got the bike for $14,000 and I think that was drive out. If insurance goes by MSRP, He'll get at least 14 grand for a totaled 2024 with 500 miles on it. Nobody even knows if the bike was totaled but I assume it was. I don't think I'll ask too many questions when he gets back to work. I hope he'll give all the details but I'm sure this has been a traumatic experience. He might not say much about it.

I hate to be like some kind of vulture waiting over a carcass but I was thinking I'd give $500 for a totaled ZX-14R and keep it as a a parts bike. I don't know what the insurance company does with totaled vehicles if they're in really bad shape, I think they'd go to the scrap yard and that might actually cost money. The tow truck driver who picked up my wrecked 14 offered me $300 for it. I was going to let him take it but I couldn't find the title. I guess I'm glad for that because still owning it leaves open the possibility that it will run again.

One of our coworkers was texted by Dan. He did hit a deer as I expected. He has broken ribs and a broken scapula. I guess he wasn't aware of that right away. He has road rash of course. He expects to be back to work in 2 months. No idea of the speed he was traveling but the bike is kind of ok, he's getting it fixed at the dealership where he bought it. ...so I guess there will still be two 40th anniversary Ninja ZX-14Rs about town but mine will be cooler. Just needs a lot of work and a lot of go fast parts.

Glad he is alive and well and looking forward to getting back on the horse.

Me too, Big. I was trying not to be a knowitall to the guy about the bike. He told me he'd owned sportbikes in the past so i kind of backed off on the advice. One thing I'd tell him is to put the bike away at the end of August. The deer are starting to get active, the roads are starting to fill with leaves. Also, I feel better changing the oil while the air is warm and dry enough to avoid condensation. Mine is parked for the winter.