Motorcycles BS Thread 2.0

Be careful if you’re taking the front forks completely off.. it’s loose ball bearings inside and they like to go flying

 

Yeah, I saw that. Luckily I don’t have the specialty wrench for that and a brass punch didn’t budge it. I think I’ll just leave the bearings in place and clean up around them. It feels real good as is, just lacks the dust cover.


Finding shocks is turning out to be a challenge, so that’s next

 

A little background before my tale of woe and embarrassment:

Background: Been riding for 4 years and a little over 30,000 miles now. Try to remember to practice my "parking lot" skills every couple of weeks or so, particularly threshold braking in the 20-60 mph range and, while not an expert, I've gotten compliments on that ability from a couple of track instructors, so I'd consider it a strength.

Been riding the bike as a commuter vehicle lately as I changed job locations, going from a 10 mile daily trip to 70 and I enjoy saving gas and being on the bike! Had a training out of my school building and was "appropriately distanced" following a co-worker as she knew the way and I did not. Upon approaching a stoplight intersection, our light turned yellow. I figured we were close enough to get through it with no worries and opened the throttle very slightly, just to be sure. She, otoh, was worried I'd get caught by the light and would lose her, so she hit the brakes... HARD! I was quick enough to not rear-end her van but lost balance and dumped the bike. Escaped with just a sore right butt cheek and some minor scraping of my frame slider and exhaust tip. Very happy about that!

Mulling it over (and over and over!), I realized a few things:

1) Panic situations like that always seem "sped up" as they are happening, i.e. my brain goes into hyper drive but my body feels like it's in slo-mo. Anyone else have that perception?

2) Despite my practicing, I was way over-focused on the rear brake. I could feel the rear sliding and became preoccupied with getting it to regain traction, even though I know it's effect on overall braking is minor. I know I was braking firmly with the front but have exactly zero recall of how firmly. Since the rear was still on the ground, clearly I had at least a little more I could've gotten from the front...

3) I also have no idea how I lost balance of the bike to the point of dumping it. Super embarrassing...

My take-aways at this point? I certainly need to practice more often and not get overconfident. I could've benefited from a helmet cam to analyze afterwards. Reality has a way of NOT conforming to our expectations!

Thoughts and/or suggestions re: practice, a decent helmet cam, etc.?

 

First glad you and your ride buddy are okay. Bikes can be replaced, damage limited to frame slider and exhaust... you won this round.

1) Your the perception of time slows due to your entering your fight or flight, and your brain writing more details into your memory. This is so the next time you perceive a similar event you’ll know how to react to survive again. When you enter this mode the amygdala sends the fear signal to the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus then sends signals to the body to open the floodgates for the physical response. All of this is already perceived, processed, and reacted to before your conscious mind can say “oh fuck” and try to take over. Reaction is faster than realization. You can train yourself to be more “in the now” during these times, but at the cost of chronic stress related problems; being a true “adrenaline junkie” is bad for long term health. Just know your response was normal.

2) Im willing to bet you simply didn’t put your foot down once you were stopped. When you practice panic stops, do you always come to full stop and foot down? Or, do you keep balancing with feet on pegs and power out? I’m willing the latter much more than the former.

3) I was in a firefight once and watched a person do a mag-dump, stop, and start policing up their brass. Because that’s how they trained: fire mag, police brass, reload, repeat. if I’m right on 2) practice your panic movements by ending with a foot/feet on ground. When 1) is in play you fall back in training. If training is no foot down after stop, you’ll do that before the conscious mind gets the reigns back from fight or flight and says “put foot down” right about the time shiny bits hit pavement.

But I’m just some dipstick on the intertubes, so take my advice for what its worth. I’m just glad nobody was hurt.

 

Abrupt stops can just catch you off guard in all senses.

it’s hard to practice them without a second person or a variable trigger of some sort, but it will still help to come to quick and complete stops

I dropped my dirt bike once at a similar situation. Didn’t see a stop sign at night until the last second. Stopped in time but just wasn’t ready to “catch” the bike as it stopped.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyv3TuwoHK8

 

1000% things slow down. I took a gravel turn too fast on my F800 and basically did a 180 with the back end coming completely around before losing it and sliding. I remember being able to think slowly and clearly enough to lift up my arm and shoulder using my helmet and gloves to keep my skin off the ground as I was sliding. No idea how I did that aside from adrenaline and reactions, but still weird to think about to this day.

My guess on the cause of dumping was your rear tire regaining traction but not being in a straight line with the front wheel, that'll cause the bike to pitch over, almost like a high side type motion. Unless you're confident it had traction again before that.

My advice on training: practice locking up the rear, getting it out to the side a bit, then releasing the brake and letting it snap back in line. It's kind of fun, I do it on the CB750 whenever I have it out. If you get confident with knowing how to handle the rear end, in a future situation your attention can stay on the front end and getting max braking out of that knowing the rear end isn't going to bite you.

 

Thanks for the replies!

When practicing, I almost always come to a stop and put a foot down. I'm thinking that if the rear had stepped out to the right a bit and then gained traction the last few, slow mph then a lot of weight would have shifted left to right, causing me to not be able to hold the bike up.

Will get more practice in and try to let the back end get a little silly! I can definitely see how starting on a dirt or dual-sport would get you comfortable with those types of situations!

 

I finally finished the project Ninja and got it insured, registered and inspected. It feels good to scoot around on something that was nearly sent to the scrapyard, and that I fixed it up back to 100%.

Before and after shots below.

 

^ Yes! There is something about completing a project like that that words just cannot convey.

 

Any of you guys follow Bike Shed London? They’re opening a second location here in LA and I’m considering applying for membership. There’s the social aspect but also a portion of me wants to get in touch with more local riders that want to do longer trips.

 

Town was covered up with Ladies and Leather yesterday. They dang near drank all the bars dry. Luckily there where a couple they didn’t know about.

 

Practice, practice and practice some more. Muscle memory is being built as you do this. Promise. No, I guarantee that statement. Just like with any sport.

Been on 2 wheels most of my short 51 years on this tiny planet...dirt to street and back to dirt to spend time with my son on trails. On an enduro dirt bike now. All I can say is use that front break sparingly...but it is there to help us. Even with my experience, I grabbed ALL of the front break to avoid idjits sitting in the middle of the trail. It WAS panic and not paying attention on MY part. Dumped me right in front of their pretty little 4wheelers.

And it does not take much to drop that street bike if you pull too much rear break. My old harley saw that demise on a county road not too far from my house after a very long ride that day. Made me sick to my stomach...but it was a lesson on taking breaks on long rides. Ride..rest..ride..rest etc....

 

Agreed! Going from looking up at the light and opening the throttle just a bit to seeing her hitting the brakes hard definitely threw me, figuratively and literally...

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U1mSavQ_DXs

 

Any FJR fans have thoughts about a 2014 with over 30K miles for a little under $10K?

 

I had a 2006 (first year of the 2nd Gen FJR) for a dozen years. I loved it. It was fast and fairly comfortable.

Personally I'd skip all 2nd GENs and go for a 3rd Gen (2013+) with the 2016+ that have 6-speed transmission, factory cruise, factory heated grips and electronic suspension.

My (younger) brother has my FJR now and it still rips.

Edit - corrected 3rd Gen began 2013. I'd still go for a 6-speed model with the electronic suspension.

 

My 2007 Aprilia Tuono 1000R
Owned about 10 years, 2nd owner
~6900 miles (I make my 3 mile commute to work on a Sport City 250)
Viva Aprilia!

 

BRP start to finish,14+ hours on the bikes in a day but it was a pretty fun 26th B-Day adventure!

 

RAD!