I'm completely bummed out!  But I didn't get hurt at all so I'm thankful for
that.

Today at lunch four of us decided to go out and do one of the local mountain
roads.  My car buddies have been telling me every since I got my bike that
there is no way I could be faster on this road then them - I wasn't so sure.
This road has about 3 miles of 25-30 mph corners which I do really well on
but the last 6 miles are 15-20mph corners and I really have to slow down for
those.  So anyway me and another bike led out and my friend Jeff with his
twin turbo Rx7 and another friend in highly modified 510 followed.  I was
feeling great for the first few miles and pulled out from the group pretty
easily but in the tight stuff Jeff caught up and hung right on my tail.
When we got to the other end I suggested he go first on the way back and I
would follow him.  That was my big mistake, I have my own level of riding
where I feel comfortable and am fairly safe but trying to follow him I was
pushing too hard.  Anyway I came into this 180 degree turn faster than I had
ever done it before but I was dealing with it until the peg started scraping
really hard, that was the first peg scrape for me and it scared me bad!  At
the same time I noticed remains of some clay that had been tracked onto the
pavement from a side road.  In the next instant I decided that I just wasn't
going to have enough traction at that lean angle to make it through so I
stood the bike up thinking I would just ride it out on the gravel side road.
Here again I did the wrong thing, I grabbed way to much (ok 100%) front
brake and as soon as the front tire hit gravel it went down.  The bike slid
about 10' in gravel and came to rest, I slid, rolled, and jumped to my feet.
I walked over to the bike and grabbed the handle bars to pick it up and
barely budged it, man these things are heavy when they're on their side.  A
more serious attempt got the bike back upright and revealed the damage.
Broken turn signal and pretty much all the plastic is scratched except the
panel under the seat.

So I'm really sad, the bike was pretty much perfect before this.  Luckily I
don't think there is any mechanical damage, just plastic.  And I'm
completely fine thanks to my leather gloves and jacket.  Time to learn the
fine art of plast repair.