Riding back from my vacation home and noticed a forest fire, pulled over made the call. when I was leaving the road is on an angle and rounding a corner, I should have gone up the road and turned around but decided to just turn the wheel and go. wrong plan stalled the bike and it was a tree falling in the forest from that point on. pinned my leg under the bike so had to kick it off to get it back up right. was pretty pissed off being i've only owned the bike for three weeks oh well have to dump them or drop them sooner or later




lets here some more stories, just so I can feel i'm not alone

 

A girlfriend of mine decided that she didn't want to only be a passenger anymore. So she took classes, got her license, bought a brand new 600rr, and put it in the back of her truck and brought it home. I helped her unload it and we all admired the pretty new bike. It became time to put it away, so she jumped on it to pull it into her garage. Started it up, put it in gear, and dropped it right there on the street. Less than .1 miles on it....

Then 500 miles later, she was out for a ride and attempted to stop on the side of the road, in sand, and went right into a fence. $1200 to fix the nose fairing....

Thankfully, she sold it and went back to the back of a Harley.

 

Had a lapse of concentration when i was taking the f3 i had off a rear stand. lowered the bike off of it and just forgot to grab it. fell to the right onto a milk crate. Fortunately thats the only time ive dropped one of my bikes, however my dad has dropped or knocked over them as well. In highschool i had a honda vf500f, he was working on a neighbors lawn mower and had a battery charger hooked up to it. went to return the mower, the extention cord got caught on the mower and the sidestand of my 500 was conveniently in the middle of a loop in the cord, cord grabed the sidestand and down she went...right onto a jack stand. left a real nice gouge in the tank.

 

rode oldschool trials when i was a kid. had a bunch of various street bikes. never dropped or crashed a bike in my life.

i've hopped off, rode into lakes by accident, skidded into the ditch, but i've always held those bars when i landed, and i was proud of that.

probably i've put 200000 miles into two wheeled machines and i live on an island, so that's saying a lot.

then i got an f4i. first day riding it... im a bit scared of it obviously, so as i'm just playing in town, im treating it like it's a scooter.

i pull up to a stop sign.

cautiously.

i roll to a stop, while checking my mirror to make sure the giant truck behind me stops as well. i feel like a super good rider as i make the check, because most people dont. it does stop, so, so do i...

bike starts to tip over as i'm slowing.... i go to put my foot down

something feels wrong.

bike is falling!

i panic and kick my leg out

my shoe comes off.

me and the bike fall right onto the pavement at zero miles per hour

...shoelace caught the bike

only time i've ever dropped a bike. cost me a brake lever.

 

I dropped it within the first week of riding... Pulling into a parking spot, on the brake - friends watching...... Locked the steering and down I went.

Ugh...

 

Wow, where does one start?? 40 years of riding there have been a few 'offs'.

Amongst the most memorable was a track day with a brand new, one month old 1997 Suzuki TL1000S V-Twin. Man I loved that bike, you could loft the front wheel in 3rd off the throttle. Well, track day at Mallala Motorsport Park in SA, sighting lap before the first session, lofted the front wheel down the pit straight, snicked it into second (because I could ), forgetting completely the hairpin right at the bottom. Low side into the kitty litter at about 80kph. Full leathers (ATGATT) so no injuries apart from a minor bone-chip in my elbow. Pride severely damaged and the model was so new in Australia there were no fairings to be had so it all had to be ordered from Japan.

I rebuilt the thing in my lounge resulting in my wallet being lighter by about $5,000. You live and learn huh?

Cheers, SB

 

Aw man, a TL is on my list of bikes that I want to own.... I can't imagine how much that stung....

 

Loved your story. But unlike Conrice, a TL1000 is one bike I don't ever want to throw a leg over again. Gave me fits learning the clutch engagement zone.

 

Glad you enjoyed the story. I still did the entire track day with the right hand side fairing, tail and radiator trashed (not to mention my now scuffed leathers). Just refilled with coolant before each session and rode it like I stole it (couldn't do any more damage right?). Managed to go through $500 worth of tyres on the day as well.

The TL1000s is a fantastic bike. I still own it. In fact I just bought a carbon fibre lower fairing for it which I've yet to fit. From new it had Omrae carbon fibre cans (company now defunct), and during the rebuild I fitted carbon front guard, hugger, kick plates and partially stripped and polished the rims, it did (and does) still look the bees bollocks!

Cheers, SB

 

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