I can't believe I'm actually considering washing my bike. My usual philosophy is, "if I have the time to wash it, I have the time to ride it." And I sure as heck know which activity is more fun. But since the bike has been down in the mud, I haven't ridden it other than the remainder of the day I set it down. OK, crashed.

I've ordered replacement gear. I had forgotten how much I paid for that stuff. OUCH! Fortunately I found a discount site on the web called New Enough. This is good because it saves me a bunch of money. Also, my mesh jacket has gone into an upgrade that put it in limbo. The company that makes the jacket is advertising the new version. But the stores all are listing the old version. Well almost. They show the old version but have no links to actually let you add one to your shopping cart.

I'm going with a different color on the jacket (there is no choice on the pants unless you choose black). Rather than white, which starts showing off the dirt rather quickly, I am going with grey. I think this is a more practical choice since gear is another thing I don't wash.

I also tried to order a replacement set of crash protectors from R&G since they have proven that they work (unlike the Rizoma mushrooms that go and bend the frame). Don't ask. R&G is a UK outfit. They don't take American Express. I asked about this and got an amusing reply, "Unfortunately we are unable to accept American Express as there are to many digits!" The number of digits is presumably because they have an international payment system in place through the Bank of Scotland. Also the sales guy used the wrong "too". He pointed me to a US distributor that R&G uses that I will look up. He also provided the phone number. With any luck, I'll order those parts today.

Barring any other issues that I may discover when washing the bike, this should set me mostly back to OK. I'm not going to worry about a portion of the clutch lever being ground down or a bit of the kick stand being ground down. The scratches on my wind screen do bug me. I could drop $100 to replace it (again). But that seems kind of vain to me. I'm wondering if I can polish the scratches out. The screen is acrylic. I've never tried to polish acrylic.

On the whole, I would prefer to have not crashed. Sure, the videos that covered the crash have done well in terms of views, hits, and comments compared to what I'm used to. But I honestly think it is enough that I bought a nice camera and good editing software, both of which are serious over kill for vlogs.