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.

Dan's still out and we're starting to think he's not coming back. His tool bag is still on his shelf next to mine, his mail box is still right below mine but he's been gone for four and a half months. I mentioned broken scapula but what was actually mentioned was a broken shoulder. I'm assuming it's probably the acromion which forms the top of the socket.

Dan is back. He told his doctor he had to come back because he was afraid he was going to get fired if he didn't. his bike is still in the shop, 12 thousand dollars of damage. They had problems sourcing the fairings of this one year old bike. The bike flipped front over back, all the fairings were destroyed except the windscreen. The fuel tank was untouched. He's worried about the gear box as the shift shaft was pushed in but I assured him I've heard of that happening in a simple tip over and it's fixable. He was doing 80 and went off the road to avoid hitting a number of deer. The bike went down in the grass. He hit a tree with his shoulder. He started the bike briefly before the tow truck came. I think the bike will be restored to new. Mine will be cooler because it will be turboed.

Glad to hear he's back, Rook! How's he feeling? Such a quick decision that he made. Lot damage to the bike, but definitely repairable.

Yes, his insurance told him the damage exceeded his maximum payout on the bike but they would total it for him if he wanted. He's already had the repair started plus a full exhaust so he's paying out of pocket for whatever the insurance won't cover. Yeah, heck if that motor ran after the crash, it's definitely restorable. Might have been an equally good choice to just take the insurance money and buy a new 2025. ...but he's already started down the road of repair.

Probably similar damage to the bike if he would have chosen to stay on the road. You never know what the injuries to your body will be. Road rash is no picnic but I guess I'd take that over broken bones. You just never know though, take a deer in the head at 80 mph, could be a lot worse than hitting a tree with your shoulder. Dan looks good and seems to be back a hundred percent. LOL we are not allowed to lift more than 30 lbs at work so I'd say it's pretty safe.

Just found this thread looking around on here. I'm glad he's OK also. Been down that road, literally sliding down that road and road rash beats broken bones every time.

Might have been an equally good choice to just take the insurance money and buy a new 2025. ...but he's already started down the road of repair.

12K on a 22K bike is totalled by most insurance companies, 50-60% is usually the upper threshold, sometimes even less if it's not just cosmetic. I would have taken the payout and bought another new one just like it. You can find a few on Craigslist new at dealers for about $18-20K (yeah, I looked around after seeing yours). Or just had the insurance buy me another new one. Many times they will allow you to remove some extra equipment you added to the totalled vehicle, header, shock, etc.

Yours will still be cooler even before the turbo as his will more than likely have a branded title. Hopefully not, but that's a pretty good possibility.

Keep it shiny side up - rubber side down.

* Last updated by: D1GP on 4/21/2025 @ 1:15 AM *

Yours will still be cooler even before the turbo as his will more than likely have a branded title. Hopefully not, but that's a pretty good possibility.

...perhaps. The shop recommended front wheel replacement. The frame was broken but it was the tail which is a bolt-on piece. I think that ZX-14 frame is extremely strong though with the air box cast as one piece with it. The steering and swingarm pivots would seem to be the more vulnerable parts as well as the tail. Even the side rails under the seat look extremely rigid and the rest of it looks like it could survive an atomic bomb.

...but yeah, I believe the thing for Dan to have done would have been to take the payout for a total. Looking at JD Power, the low retail value of a 2024 is 13k dollars. He got the bike new for 14-14.5k, an excellent price. If the limit teh insurance is willing to pay for repairs is 12k, that tells me, 12k is what they would have given him for totaling the bike. He still was only out $2000 from his purchase price. As it stands, he got his bike back restored to perfect working condition and he probably put a couple thousand of his own money into the repair bill. ....thing is, he'd probably never find a deal like $14k on a new 2024 ZX-14R like he did last May. He's be spending his $12k in insurance payout along with another 5k, maybe 4k on a new 2024 bought in 2025. ....I think I'd still have gone that rout though. It would be a net cost of 7 or six thousand bucks after the purchase of the new one. LOL I doubt the poor guy had much opportunity to think it through. He was all wracked up and just sent it off tot he shop. Loosing bikes sucks but keeping one's life is what really matters. Dan's got lots of money with his military pension and we do pretty good at the plant too. He lives a pretty good life, I hear. He'll work a few weekends of overtime and have this all put behind him financially. LOL he has his first track day At Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI planned. That's a large track ideal for the ZX-14. I wish I could go with. I'm just getting back into the bike scene though and nothing is prepared....namely me. I haven't ridden much in a few years, definitely don't want to crash my new bike. I paid full price for mine. $17,000. No sir, track days are for track bikes that are expected to possibly crash. I'd buy a used one already set up for the track and already crashed a few times. Not my perfect street bike. ....just to hard emotionally to let go of my precious bikes. I learned.