So this would be the silver lining?

[lilredmachine]

Man buys bike for £995. Man happy. Bike is vandalised by wankers at college, repairs result in bike not being saleable to a dealer or even being worth £600. Man sad. Bike is written off by wappy bitch in a S.M.I.D.S.Y incident. Man even sadder (and hurt). Insurers say bike is worth £2055. Man perks up a bit.

Christ, that brightened my day up. Apparently that's what a nice condition 1999 SV with 11,000 miles goes for these days. Was not expecting that. Thank fuck for book prices.
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Bikes: too many, too much for one man to maintain anyway.

[Mooncatt]

well at least you can buy another now huh?
there are some right prats out there, you cant leave anything lying around can you?
do you have any idea who did it then at all?
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current bike...CBR400RR
"you always need more chicken"

[lilredmachine]

If you are referring to the original vandalism then no, i don't have any idea who did it. They messed up the gear change, and when I started the bike it came apart inside the crank case and went through the bottom end. It messed up the crankcase inside, which we patched up with steel plate instead of buying a new engine (they're not that expensive, but with living on the island you're looking at £200 just to go pick it up, or a mahoosive courier bill) It rode and ran fine, but because of the do it yourself nature of the repair dealers wouldn't touch it, and it wasn't worth much more than £600 in a private sale.

I was pleased when it got written off in the accident, I thought I might get £1200 back for it. Never dreamed it's book value would be anything like it was.

Gonna splurge on something real nice now. I've always had ratty bikes that needed doing up. My first MZ sm I bought for £600 and sold on for £950 after a lot of work. I might put it with the personal injury money i should be getting and get a brand spankers bike.
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Bikes: too many, too much for one man to maintain anyway.