to help you out in understanding accidents, i'm 18, had my bike since the day i turned 16 and got my license. I rode for 1 year perfectly fine on a 250 ninja, bought an old 600 honda hurricane and 2 months later was hit on my way to work. i was doing 50 mph and a guy almost T-boned me but he was only doing about 40 so it was kind of an odd sideswipe. i was wearing almost all of my gear minus my riding pants that day because i was running a little late and wouldn't have had time to change everything at work and not be late, i'd had a few instances where i was late because of changing and i didn't have any chances left, so i was wearing thin work pants. everything gear wise held up just fine, i fell over on my left side and kind of rolled over onto my chest because i hit a curb. i was wearing a padded mesh jacket, and it recieved almost no harm from that incident except for a burn hole by the left wrist cuff, so for you non mesh believers i'll post some proof later. the helmet i was wearing didn't nail the ground too hard but i bought a new one because keeping probably wasn't a good idea, the gloves were some leather ones i had picked up at the local flea market one day. my pants though...well, the asphault ate through it like a mouse would eat through a wheel of cheese, and i had road rash all up my left leg. also somehow during the accident i broke just one rib...i still don't know how that happened but whatever.

main point is if you take care of yourself you'll come out on top, i learned my lesson that day and the pain will haunt you whenever you ride without gear, trust me.and remember, when you get on a bike your chances to injure/kill yourself skyrocket, and for good reasons. using proper gear and protection reduce the risks greatly, but they don't make you invincible. always obey traffic laws and watch out for other people, because 99% of the time it's not your riding but instead it's the other people not seeing you or just driving stupidly.

anyways that's my story/advice, hope it helped.

 

I have been riding for the better part of i guess 15+ years i went down for the first time this spring. I was wearing boots, regular jeans, armored shorts, leather bike jacket with padding, gloves (wrist length), and my helmet. Low sided basiclly at about 45 mph. If you dont know the term basiclly taking a corner and the bike slides out from under you. The bike slid about 70 feet and i slid about 40-50 feet. I walked away no problems, i had a small amount of rash on my left leg where the shorts didnt cover me up, other then that no rash or pain. If i had better pants i probably would not have had a scratch on me.

Gear can be expensive, and afterwords i had to buy a lot of new gear again. But it sounds like you are on the right track, dont just buy something cheap, although there are places on the net you can get good gear cheap. Get a good helmet, good leather jacket, gloves dont have to be $200 for the gauntlets. You can get wrist length just make sure they have palm and knuckle protection of some sort. For boots again dont even have to be riding boots, just some good sturdy leather boots, and ones that will protect your ankles, they are usually in harms way when you go down.

Like everyone has stated, this is a lot of bike to handle, and not gonna beat your brains in over it. Sounds like you are a very intelligent person, and there is a lot of great advice out here for ya. Just be careful every time you ride is all i can add, cause it dont take much to have a bad day of riding.

 

Been riding for 27 years, multiple crashes in dirt, two times on the street. One was some dumbass passing on a double yellow blind curve, running me off the road on a Hawk 650, the other was Ducati v/s deer. That one ended in two surgeries, three plates, and 14 screws keeping my left forearm together. Both times I was completely geared and walked away with no other injuries besides shattered arm from the actual impact with the deer...same as punching a wall.

Good luck with the rebuild and the learing curve. BE CAREFUL! I hate reading RIP threads.

 

*grabs a bowl of popcorn*

 

hurry up pick her up i had the same thing happen to me funny thing someone asked me if my jacket would really work if i wrecked after i got myself in order i called and said yes the jacket works haha for about 3 weeks after everytime i went to the left said it flt like i was goin down but use all kno the saying i got back on her and went ridin **** my roomate did the same thing we fixed the bike and he hasnt been back on it since i clean it every once and a while cause i feel bad for her

 

will be coming up on one year under my belt, No wrecks(knock on wood). One droppage of the bike at a stand still, One piece of advice, dont be lazy and leave your tools all on the floor and under your feet, specially when its icy/snowy out and your moving your bike with brand new fairings. It about made me cry. Now when its snowy out i change my shoes when i come in the garage(i have a set of garage shoes that get used for nothing else now) so that there is not water and snow getting tracked in, and after im done with a tool, it goes immediatly back where it came from(not the floor, the tool box) before i get another one out. its always nice to be organized, I dont know how many times ive gotten to angry cursing stage because i couldnt find a 10mm socket that i was using 5 min before that, and it would be under my rag or id be sitting on it.

 

hahhaha im not the only one

 

thanks for sharing your stories everyone. I enjoy reading them

so yesterday I loaded, hauled and unloaded the bike with no problems. I just used a 3/4 in 8 ft by 4 ft piece of plywood with a wooden box under it for support. worked perfect and didn't cost a dime

sad news though.... i think i'm either going to A: have to replace the whole stator/lower engine, or B: do a little metal welding or just JB weld it. I got under my bike and started taking of the JB weld that was there and low and behold I find what I was hoping not to. It seems the bike was in something pretty bad at some point because the bottom bolt mount on the stator was completely missing and seems to be a big blob of weld. it looks as if a piece of the stator casing was chipped off at some point (maybe 1.5 inches across, including 1 bold mount.) the JB weld was to cover up someones crappy welding job and to fill in any holes they missed... I've done some welding before and it's not hard, problem is i'll have to rip the whole thing apart to do it, or just replace the piece altogether... is it possible to just replace the bottom piece? or do i have to get a whole new engine casing? ie: is it in 2 pieces down there or just 1 solid chunk. it looked as if i could take it apart and replace it if thats the way i want to go, but i'll talk to my neighbor guy up there since he's a mech and knows a lot more than i do. I didn't get a chance to take pictures of it since I didn't have a camera this time, but I'll take a lot next weekend when I work on it again.

Also I got under the gas tank and I'm going to buy a new air filter as well. the oil filter is brand new it looks like, but i'm going to have to drain the bike anyway for the stator, so i'll probably just get a new filter there too. also the tail/undertail/brake lights should all be replaced. the lights are fine, but i think these parts were kind of mix and matched together and none of them fit right. I'll by a whole new fairing set, frame sliders, head lights, mirrors stator gasket (the stator cover seems to be in perfect condition) and new tires.

If anybody has any of these for a good price or sees any please let me know. I'll be looking around and doing my homework on it for the next couple of days.

oh yea... I was holding down the clutch and the accidentally shifted into gear and the bike moved on me and killed... scared the crap out of me...can't quite recall, but I think i shifted into second... my question is, if you shift into second while at a stand still with the clutch in, is the bike supposed to move or not? I sat there and did it again, this time shifting into first and it felt right, the bike engaged, but didn't go anywhere right away. I did release the clutch a bit and move a few feet slowly... and omg this bike has some nuts... the bike seemed eager underneath me. kinda scares me, but i'm eager to learn. it's more of a quiet respect then fear.

 

eww thats bad news about the bottom of the motor..... I think these are aluminum motors(dont quote me i dont do much metal working) and from what my friends have told me its is extremely hard to weld stuff like this because its so soft. Maybe the motor is differnt, i have never brought it up, would be a good thing to find out. I have seen engines epoxy repaired and they held just fine, but they were also done professionally with professional grade materials so that is another thing you will have to check into if considering repairing it and also remeber that your going to have to tap some threads into it after it is repaired, if you do repair it, which doing properly is tricky enough on a flat surface with good support and a good angle.....

and again dont quote me on this but believe that other than the throttle bodies on the top of the motor its one solid chunck and from what i have seen, if you find a motor its going to have the throttle bodies installed anyway so you would just be replacing the entire motor..... I think, im not positive on that, someone else might chime in with some good news and tell me that im wrong, I really hope so! replacing the motor is going to be much more than you bargined for.

If you have the clutch pulled all the way you should be able to shift into any gear without the bike moving or stalling. Thats weird that it stalled when you shifted to second and not first, I would try that a couple more times and get some solid info on what it does and when it does it. Also, your leaking oil so if your going to start the bike be sure to check the oil level before you do so and top it off if its not full. and.... if you dont know what kind of oil is in it you need to replace all the oil before you add any, if synthetic oil is mixed with regular oil it clots like blood and builds up nasty deposits and if done enough(which is like mixing it half and half for a long time) it will burn up the motor. Recently saw a SUV motor where the owner for some reason had been switching back and forth or mixing the oils or something and it looked like and felt like.... clay, thick sticky black blobs of clay inside of the motor, it was nasty.

from the looks of your headlight it appears to be fine, the rest of the plastics and maybe the tail light could be replaced but headlights are not cheap and if you dont need to replace it then save the money there, it looked fine, just had the broken tabs from the upper fairing still mounted to it.

Check out the for sale area of this site and the wera racing forums for parts(called 13X or something like that, google it) I just bought three rear tires from a guy on wera for $40 bucks a piece, used for one track run and then removed, about 90% tread left on them. if you bargin with them they will usualy hook you up, they are not usually worried about making money off of the parts they just want them out of their garages.

 

I guess no one read this post it was the second one right after he asked his question, the first sentence says all it needs to so please stop telling him he's gonna die, the bike is to big. My best friend learned an is still alive today riding better than most on his 03 954RR. Please keep this post helpin out a new biker