So for the first time since buying it four years ago (has it really been that long?), I dropped my bike.

Timber!

I always knew it was a matter of time. Pretty much everyone, at one time or another, drops their motorcycle. You just hope it's not in traffic. Or in front of a group of sorority girls.

I was pulling out of a gas station with C on the back, and it had been a couple months since I had gone riding. Somehow I had screwed up the position on the clutch, and in my attempt to go slow and smooth and not to scare the shit out of the girl, I stalled the bike.

More importantly, I stalled on a steep, downward slant to the right - the same direction I was turning.

Embarrassing, yes. But not nearly as embarrassing as slowly sending her, me, and a big mess of bright red Honda to the pavement on PCH. Which is exactly what I did.

I stalled five hundred pounds of bike plus nearly three hundred pounds of riders in mid turn. On a hill. And there was no way in hell I was holding up that bike. I put it down as gently as I could, but I snapped off my right rear view mirror and put my first scratches into the fairings.

Sheepishly (and rapidly - we were on PCH after all), we picked the bike up and got moving. I spooked the girl. I banged up the bike. But in the end, I laughed about it. Like I said. A matter of time.

No blood, no foul. And I got a shiny new mirror for Valentines Day.