I'm curious to know what unusual things have happened to you or your bike while riding. I'm not talking about accidents, those are unfortunate, but not unusual. I mean the type of thing that makes you say to your friends when you get home, "you're not going to believe this". I'll start this off.

I went on a trip this pastweekend with my wife to Clearwater, FL to a wedding. We rodeour F3'sand as usual, we strapped our small duffle bags on the back of the seat and away we went. It's about 250 miles one way. The next day, on the way home about 5 miles from home I'm going up the expressway, when suddenly I feel this sudden jerk on the bike, then this thump, thump, thump coming through the hand grips. I'm looking around thinking I've got a flat. I'm on the inside lane so I pull over to the inside railing ( plenty of space to pull over) come to a slow stop. While seated I'm looking around and can't find anything wrong. My duffle bag is still on the seat, but I don't see the bungee cord. By this time my wife pulls up behind me. I put the side stand down, get off the bike and the duffle bag falls off the seat onto the ground. My wife says to me, "I just saw your strap explode into a black cloud of dust".

I look down at the bike and upon closer inspection I notice something in the chain. I can't believe my eyes. There is a 4" piece of 1/8" steel hooked around one of the rollers of the chain. That is what was left of the bungee cord. I sent my wife on ahead home to get the car and some tools to see if we could get it out of there. A few minutes after her leaving, a State Farm Insurance "Road Ranger" pulled up and asked if he could help. He let me use a large screwdriver and pliers, and I was able to unbend the steel enough to get it to let go of the roller and get it off. I took a photo before, because I knew people wouldn't believe it other wise. I was surprised that the chain didn't break, because it was being forced around the sprockets at a fairly high rate. After taking a closer look I couldn't find any damage to the chain or sprockets. It's getting close to the time to replace them, but so far it's still working ok. Take a look for yourself.

As it looked on the chain.


After in my hand.

 

Looks a bit ugly, at least you got to notice it before it did anything.......Only thing that ever got caught in my chain was one of those plastic shopping bags. I thought I'd thrown a bearing or something with the noise it made. Most unusual thing that happened to me on the "Tell your friends" (apart from the near misses etc) I was rolling down the freeway on the way to work on my Z650, had an Arai helmet, all of a sudden, there's this Paper Wasp on the visor, not unusual, except this one was on the inside, So lifted the visor up to blow it away. Gone, whew! then I start to feel this thing crawling around the side of my face with its wings buzzing......Pulled up ASAP, could not get the friggin belt loop undone on the helmet & I knew this thing was getting angry, So I'm like bashing the side of helmet with my left hand, trying to undo it with my right & jumping around at the same time, must have gone down a treat with my fellow commuters.

 

One of the most amazing/crazy/cool things that I ever experienced was on a my motorcycle!

I will remember this forever...

It was last summer witha very good friend of mine (can't say that about a lot of people, that's what makes this story so memorable for me I guess)... anyway, we got our bikes together one day (he lives in another city) and got them all polished up and clean and nice, and we headed down to Zona Rosa and check out some girls and grab a bite to eat.

So anyway we checked out chicks and ate at Chipotle (gawd I love that stuff). As we're sitting there, we see this complete black cloud nothingness coming from the north and the wind is picking up and you can clearly make out heavy *** rain on the MF'ing way. We take a mouthfull of our burritos and run for our bikes. We're freaking out, it's getting ready to STORM and we are completely unprepared. I had gloves, jeans, boots, long sleeve shirt and a helmet. I think he was wearing ALL his gear (can't help it man - when it's hot and I'm not traveling I'll dress light... sue me!).

So anyway, for some reason, maybe it was the fact that we're both hitting 30 and felt like we needed an adventure...

But for some unknown reason we could only think of one thing... outrun it!

We head for the nearest highway and that friggin' cloud is coming fast! As we're sitting at the light, I swear to everything holy, you could literally see this cloud of HEAVY *** rain and wind just drenching the cars sitting at the off-ramp next to us. You could smeel it, it was wind everywhere - and the light turned green...

We gunned it! It was an adrenaline packed, admittedly unsafe but just amazing experience! I can't express how it felt, for some reason we felt like we had to run and man it was fun. That storm ended up chasing us for 52 miles south until we cut over into Kansas and I still don't know how we made it through - never got hit by a single drop of rain. I think we rode around 130 miles in about an hour- no kidding.I guess it sounds pretty wreckless but it was one of those things ya know? Traffic was light, 4 lanes each way - meh, what can I say? Hehe, it was fun and to be completely honest I always signaled lane changes!

This story seems kind of boring after I read it, lol. I don't know, it was an unreal experience that you made me think of...

Really, I'm not a wreckless rider! lol...

 

That's amazing Bill and seems like a total freak thing to happen....chains are made of a really hardened steel...much harder than the bungee hook which is soft in comparison hence the chain won...glad you're ok! :-)

Jules

 

One time my chain tensioner/adjuster came off the end and turned sideways (horizontal) and was all mangled. I think it might of happend during heavy acceleration idk. I actually managed to fix it though without buying a new one....kinda hard to believe. This happened when my sprockets were set at -2, +5....lol.....but now there at -1, +2 (a lil more freeway friendly)

 

went to canada and on the way back my motor bolt (the big long one) started backing it's way out! we were able to push it back in......my bike was in really bad condition when I get her...but she's purty and a spoiled brat now

 

haha same thing happened to me with a yellowjacket..dont know how that sucker got in there

 

Heh, I know how the yellow jacket got in mine... saw the little f**ker in a yellow blur as he wizzed into my face from the left. I had just left the house... maybe doing 10mph in my neighborhood and WHAP... then pull off and yell as the little bastard stung me before I could get my helmet off. My damn temple swelled up to twice the normal size.

 

Thanks Jules, I'm glad nothing happened too. I'd hate to see (or feel) what it's like to have a chain break and wrap around things. I'm sure it wouldn't be a very pleasant ride.

You guys and those bee's makes think. Many times when I stop at a light I'll raise my faceshield. I'll usually lower it after I've pulled away but before I shift into 2nd. Maybe now I'll put it down before I start out. I HATE bees.

 

I got a nail in my tire and road the twisties with it in there. Got home and woke up to a completely flat rear tire.