Yes - it finally happened - I found a corner I couldn't get round. There were a selection of contributory factors which I'll try not to bore you with. Main reasons were a corner, brain fade, over excitement, a white hatchback and excessive speed - basically my fault.
The bike ended up, literally, upside down (wheels in the air) on a grass verge leaning against a hedge I had gone through to land in a ditch. I was basically OK. The bike was less well although I did ride her home with only the back brake and an indicator not working.
Damage was mainly to the left side of the fairing and the rack on the back, although there is some scuffing to the front mudguard, the tank and the exhausts.
Inevitably the left indicator was trashed. The left side of the fairing was cracked as was the left internal fascia panel between the firing and the clocks.
Triumph only sell the fairing complete and painted. £289 + VAT (Sales Tax - 17.5%). I found a blue fairing in a breakers with damage to the other side for £50. The fairings are quite easy to separate into their 3 pieces - with patience. Late ones have the melted spots to hold them together. These are easy to separate. The earlier ones are glued as well - these take a bit more care and time. This has been sprayed up to black to match the rest of the bike. This cost £70. The breakers is in South Wales and Sandy specialises in modern Triumphs, shipping used parts and rebuilt engines all over the world. His website is listed in the Useful Links page.
This is quite a complex piece of welded tubular fabrication which supports the fairing, lights, clocks, mirrors, indicators, horns etc. It is quite strong so it resists bending quite well, but also resists straightening. I attempted to straighten it over the course of a week. In the end it was almost, but not quite, there and I could not see what was then bent. Everything seemed to line up in itself but when it was on the bike and the fairing attached it became clear that was visibly out of line. After a week of evenings working on this I admitted defeat on this and bought a new one. £160 + VAT. Ouch! I gave in because I wanted the bike straight again, and matching the replacement fairing panels to a less than perfect framework seemed to be a recipe for disaster. Needless to say the brackets are almost never found in breakers & it could be difficult to decide whether it was truly straight if you did find one.
This attaches the fairing to the cylinder head. It was much the same story as the main bracket above, with the same solution for the same reasons.
As mentioned above the paintwork on the tank and front mudguard was slightly damaged. The mudguard just needed a good polishing to remove the marks but the tank was a different matter.
There were some scuffs where the left fairing panel had moved up the left side of the tank but there was a small but deep scrape right through the paint on the top right line of the tank.
It was HUGELY noticeable as would be any less than perfect repair!
I took it to the paintshop with the fairing panel in the hope they could just touch it in and polish it up for a few pounds.
That wasn't possible but what they did do was fill it in, rub it smooth, mask around and respray the immediate area black, and then relacquer the entire tank to ensure it all blended perfectly.
The result is a tank that looks like new - better than before the accident as all the other small scuffs, stone chips and other marks that a motorcycle tank is prone to picking up have all been fixed as well. This cost just £60.
Fairly obviously!
I have found a major advantage of the sports rack. It makes a useful 'crumple zone'. As the bike ended up upside down the rack was trashed - see the picture. When I took the bike to bits and assessed the damage I realised that if the rack hadn't been there then the tail end of the bike, including the side panels, rear light and various pieces of the electrical system (fuse box, flasher units etc) would have taken the brunt of the impact. As it is the very end of the tail section of the frame (the bolt on piece the rear light fits on to and the rack / grab handles mount to) was slightly bent. Off it came, in the vice, and it was as good as new. Really, it was. I have high standards and deep pockets if it means getting it right. Rack = £90. Side panels etc. would have been a heck of a lot more.
This is the plastic that covers between the clocks and the fairing. Fortunately and surprisingly (to me, anyway) Triumph sell the 2 sides separately. This really ought to be available from the breakers but at the time he couldn't find one. Maybe they break quite often in a fairing crunch.
Overall I would say that the bike does not crash too badly. She rides perfectly and the total repair bill was only about £500. This may seem a lot but if you had seen how sad the bike looked after the crash (I couldn't bear to photograph it before I took it apart) then this really isn't a lot, especially considering the number of genuine new parts I used. It has also left my insurance unscathed so a new Daytona or Sprint ST is still a possibility. I would have no conscience about selling the bike and not mentioning the crash as I honestly believe it is as good now as before the crash.
Of course I'm not the first (or will be the last) to have such bad luck.
I think my prang was slightly unusual in that the bike didn't go down the road on its side, so I got off quite lightly in that respect. If this happens you'll be seeing damage to the bar and lever ends, cracks in the fairing around the mirror, cracking and possibly a hole in the fairing around the indicator where it has broken off or been pushed through and, of course, scrapes in the plastics themselves. In this case you really are looking at replacement panels as so much material has been ground away that filling would be a seriously second rate repair!
From what I've seen this picture shows typical damage in this situation.
