A few weeks ago I pulled up to work and saw a real Sharp 1200 suzuki bandit sitting outside. I was on the 919 hornet so of course I was admiring this bike.
I always go home at lunch and while I was on my way back to work and I see the bandit and it's owner sitting on the gravel road just north of our work. You could just tell the kid looked confused. I was kind of watching him in my rear view and decided to turn around to see if he needed help. As I got turned around the kid revved that bandit up, dumped the clutch spun it around on the gravel and promptly dumped the bike. I pulled up and helped him stand it up and said "first bike huh" which he replied a weak "yeah".
Well when he dumped it he busted off the left rear view and the clutch lever but luckily someone with a vice grip saw it. I told him that bike is probably too big to learn on (both on CCs and in seat height. I rode it back to work for him and the whole bike had a shimmy, like bad, coming from the front. He wad riding it on a flat front tire. I get to the parking lot and reach for the front brake... nothing... no lever...
I get off and tell him he broke his front brake off too. He said he bought it that way. I told that kid get air in the tire and to get a fricken front brake. Told him he had no business riding that bike with only a quartet of the braking power. Turns out that's how he ended up on the gravel was he rodded up that road and couldn't stop so he ended up on gravel.
Told my buddy that dude doesn't have the mentality to be on a bike. Told him that kid was gonna die on that bike. He told me I was over exaggerating (same buddy that dumped my Bike, this was before that though).
A couple days later I overheard him talking about ordering something from Partzilla and I saw him buzzing around town a few times as well. I chose not to ride with him as I didn't want to be a contributing factor to him killing himself. Finally Wednesday before our Colorado trip I did some overtime at the plant and saw his bike there. Kinda looked as I rode past... STILL NO FRONT BRAKE!!!
Unfortunately that first night on our trip I got a Snapchat of a ball of fire on main street. Buddy said a biker was hauling ass through town and smoked an SUV. Hit it hard enough to turn it around 180degrees. The city blocks in Wayne are only 300ft and they were estimating that he was nearly doing 100mph... with no front brake. He succumbed to his injuries that night. There's still a mass of burnt plastic and chopped up pavement where it happened. You can tell he tried to swerve left to avoid it but the SUV kept coming.
He was a good kid and I wish I would have done more to get him off that bike...