Cat vs Ryker Rally

[AndyBond]

Last Friday I was coming back home and took a back road instead of the bigger street I normally take. It was at dusk, so I was going at about 20m/h, when a cat decided to run under my Ryker... Cat survived and Ryker didn’t. I honestly didn’t feel much of a hit, so I only slowed down to watch that cat running away at about same speed as I was going at opposite direction. I parked the bike in the garage and didn’t even bothered to look if there was any damage. Next day I decided to go for a ride and as soon as I pulled out of the garage, I noticed a wet trail. When I walked around the Ryker, I saw a coolant shooting out of the radiator. The firs thought was to blame my older boys who were cleaning a space in front of the bike earlier in the day, and possibly ran something into the radiator and decided not to say anything. That was the most logical explanation since there was no visual damage to the plastic covers and Rally’s version of steel radiator protection. I decided to take plastic covers off to take a closer look and what I saw was pretty shocking and very disappointing. I bought the Rally to have extra protection and durability, yet the front end design flaw is just jaw dropping. With all the spacing between the radiator and a front grill, damage was done by the plastic clip that was holding all that useless protection.. since most people are saying that due to high pressure and temperature radiator repair is only a temporary solution, I’m now facing a $273 replacement after a minor hit (and run ) incident. Now i fell like stopping in front of every squirrel. 🙄 Hope my pictures are available to show it. Since the is an easy access to that area, I think it would be logical to put small plates in fort of those clips to prevent any future damage. Hope that would save some of you guys from having the same issue.