Hi Jim, Yeh, your right, I have thought of Woodies, after Yamaha HQ in Pan. City, an 8 hour ride from here, offered to have the rim repaired at a "reputable shop", but when returned 4 week later, looked as if it had been beat on with a brick and big hammer. As we all know, once aluminum has been bent, it needs to be heated to be bent back. The rim was not even taken from the hub. All that was done is the missing spokes were replaced, the tire remounted and returned to Chiriqui Yamaha.
Now Jim, you may be willing to jeopardize precious cargo by using dangerous equipment, but not us. Fear? OK, call it what you want. I think the rest of us, at least those of us with over 60 years of riding experience, would probably call it, "been there, done that" or "I wrote too many tickets for that shit, & put too many riders in Ambulances", to not be safe myself. Fear? Fear is when a young neighbor & his new bride left on an overnight ride using back roads over the Sierras, on rims he took off another bike, straightened them with a hammer & 2x4, then turned up missing for 2 nights before being found by rangers.
Catch up Jim, be part of the team that shares experience & wisdom with the younger riders. Can the youngsters out ride me? Hell yes! Do I care? Hell no! Do we have fun? You bet we do! Rain or shine, we travel on narrow jungle dirt & paved roads 'cuz that's what there is here, we don't have to go looking for it. We chose the S10 because it looked like it would out perform the bikes we had at the time, for our new home of Panama. We bought the first one sold in Central America, (Silver, First Addition) and surprised a lot of US Yam. Dealers, from Coast to Coast, when we pulled in. Most of them had only heard of it, never seen one.
Before I sent the rim to PC, I was asked if I'd consider "a gift of a top box" instead of a rim replacement. We decided a safe rim was probably a wiser choice. We still believe this. Sometimes, losing a full season of long distance adventure rides, to be replaced by short, local group rides with other retired couples that know the hide-a-ways better than us. Come join the fun!
Motopan