Death traps you have ridden

[Conquiztador]

Was sitting and thinking of bikes I have had the fortune to ride. Many outstanding ones came to mind. There is the Martin Ford V8 2 wheeler, a Black Shadow, and my old 48 Panhead obviously and some others.

Then I started thinking about the ones at the other end of the scale. Bikes that I for one reason or another should not have ridden (but as a result of youth, enthusiasm, foolishness and perhaps a bullet proof attitude I did ride)

When young I had a 50cc moped (well, used to be 50cc...) that I managed to get to do 80K/h +. I was interested in getting her to go fast, and so stopping was not on my mind. No brakes... Was going full speed behind a bus lying down and reching the hair raising speeds of over the mentioned 80K/h when the bus suddenly decided to stop. There was something happening ahead. Only had a split second to think and laid down her on the L/H side. I slid under the bus and smacked against the back axle. There I lay waiting for the bus to take off. And when it did I stood up, lifted the moped, started and off I went again. And that was in the days when you did not need to have a helmet when riding mopeds...

Also at 13 I was given a 150cc Vespa. Motor run well, but the handlebars were loose and you would have to turn them 45 degrees to right or left before the front wheel would follow. When going slow it was a problem. But as the speed built up the gyro force from the wheel made the front wheel run straight. She was best in a straight line. Used to end up in the ditch when the road turned.

[scumdog]

A Phillips 'Gadabout' moped

A CA Bedford van with mid-mounted 272 V8 - and NO brakes!
Boy, did I ever get the learn about need for brakes in THAT sucker!!:shutup: (long story)

[Pwalo]

None, my Dad would have killed me if I had a car or bike in that condition!

I had a Vespa 150SS for a short time while I was getting my licence. Even in reasonable nick it was a bastard in any sort of corner. All of my bikes were good, but I did have the brake lines on my 100E Prefect fail across the Foxton Flats once, but managed to limp back to Wellington. Wouldn't want to try that again.

[slowpoke]

A Kawasaki Monkey bike as a kid, minus everything except frame and wheels. We'd push the thing to the top of our hill then ride it down. No brakes meant ride it out or jump for your life. It had those square wheelbarrow type tyres on it too so you went from having a huge footprint on the ground to riding on a knife edge as soon as you leaned it over....maybe that explains my attitude to corners now (one day I'll learn to open my eyes).
I had a nice RZ350 at one stage and many years later getting back into bikes I came across an RZ250R with an RD350LC engine. It was a bit rough but I liked the idea of tinkering as I reacquainted myself with bikes. I tidied it up without spending a fortune but the throttle didn't so much regulate power as switch it on or off thanks to some dodgy porting and Boyesen reeds. It would burble and splutter along then FUCK ME WE'RE OFF! I soon learn't to make sure I was pointing in the right direction when I wound it on. I bought it as a pig and sold it as a slightly prettier pig but that thing was porcine through and through.

[terbang]

A Kawasaki H2 750 gave me the scares of my then 17 year old life closely followed closely by an angry little Anglia that I had fitted with a 2.0L cortina engine.
Once, out of youthful exuberance, I was convinced to fly a microlight. The 2 stroke snowmobile siezed at about 500 feet after take-off, revealing that the whole damn contraption only had a glide ratio similar to a brick. I wound up in someones back yard lucky to be in one piece.

[riffer]

I'm fairly certain that riding my IT400 after the throttle cable snapped qualified here.

It snapped at the throttle end, I wound it into a loop and tied it and rode home along Hutt River Stopbank from Taita to Stokes Valley like that.

And a T500 with dodgy steering head bearings over Wainuiomata Hill...


Scary :shit:

[WarlockNZ]

When I was 15 i used to ride this old piece of crap that i found behind the shed on the farm.

It was some sort of step through and could do a wopping 60k .. LOL, no brakes so it had to be slid to a stop .. damn that thing was dodgy.

Moved from that to my 2nd car, datsun 260C with a 318 Valiant V8 slapped in, that thing used to bounce off the right hand mud guard just from the twist of the engine ..

Ahhh .. to be young and bulletproof again.

[PeteJ]

MY TS185 bought for $25. That alone ought to tell you lots. Gear lever welded on, home-made expansion chamber, one of those useless plastic front brake levers that bend waaaay before the brake shoes actually apply pressure to the drum.

The one thing that disgusting pile of poo could do was jump. I jumped it into a river once.

And left it there.

[BIGBOSSMAN]

My enduring memory of a death trap was an old GS1000 Suzuki ex race bike. This had a Yoshi pipe and worked cam, probably putting out around 120hp at the crank. I took it on the southern motorway and it set about tankslapping the hell out of me at 240kmh, I just managed to hold on to it and returned the bike to its owner very much at the speed limit. Phew:gob:

[avgas]

Bikes:
a) K100 POS, front brakes only, no grip (off road trails), bent rims, no exhaust, fouled plug, loose triple clamps, no pin pegs
b) RZ250 which would shoot hot water on your leg when it reached certain temperatures.
c) RG150, got bored with it - paid a motorcross mechanic to work on it. Bayride suzuki ended up using my bike as a blue print for their race bike as mine was faster. Fast, light, with the words most ridiculous power band above 11K (10hp-->38hp dynoed in less than 2000rpm).....blew up after 24,000ks of abuse.....nearly killed me more times than i'd like to imagine.

cars:
a)83 sigma estate, which i sold the tyres off (i was poor and it only had to last 1 more derby) and then put steel belted radials on......as in all you could see was steel belts. I got the car for $10, it was low k's but it had been t-boned so there was no left hand side (i.e. doors and pillar). It had various pointy bits as one could imagine.
b)79 vauxhall chevanne, had a manifold an nothing more - really bad to drive through fields of tall grass as the engine was set to mild so with no back pressure the undercarriage had a 4 foot flamethrower. Neighbors placed an official complaint about the noise (city-slickers), they lived about 2 k's away. It ended up have destroyed front suspension to the point when the mounts had actually bent 3 inches up, the shock had collapse and the spring semi inverted, tow point was 3mm off the ground. After that the steering rack semi connected, so it either turned perfectly (f1 style) or the wheels did what ever they wished.

[vifferman]

I feel deprived - I can't recall any particularly dangerous bikes I've ridden. :confused:
We owned a Fiat 132 for years (of the cars we've owned, probably my favourite), and the brake master cylinder should've been replaced, but they sleeved it instead. So it developed this 'interesting' intermittent phenomenon that 5 return trips to the brake place didn't fix. You'd put your foot on the brake pedal, and whether the brakes worked or the pedal sank to the floor (as the brake fluid bypassed the seals) was entirely random. It was OK for me - I'd just test the pedal before I needed to stop, and if they didn't work I'd frantically pump the pedal till they woke up and returned to normal. But my wife kinda freaked out, having a baby on board and one incubating, so we chucked it in the auction and bought the most uninteresting yet reliable car I've ever owned: a Ford Telstar 1600. Crikey, what a yawnfest that was...:mellow:

[F5 Dave]

My Vauxhall Victor 3.3 I bought as I thought my girlfriend would like to go out in a car for a change. Took it for a warrant & it came back with a full page of faults, some quite scary. Turns out she liked the bike better. She’s long gone, but I never bought another one.

When in a friends Falcon it broke down & I had to go retrieve his bike. The throttle had been dubiously repaired & the clutch seemed to slip, but kinda roughly (it was dark). Turns out the sprocket was only bumpy, not toothy. :shutup:

[Bullitt]

Ive never had these kinda experiences. The closest Ive came is with a Datsun 160J which I dropped a 2 litre into with dellortos, then as the carbs are wider than the factory SUs the throttle linkage was too short. So I made one up out of a piece of wire...problem was as it bent itd drastically change the idle. Drove it from Chch to Dunedin and back like that, would pass someone with foot flat and take your foot off and itd keep accelerating. Kinda disconcerting coming into a 70k town and having to brake and put other foot under accelerator to stop it speeding through.

[canarlee]

the fire blade i bought recently had a very, no read VERY warped front disc on one side, and we didnt even realise it had three, yes 3 bolts missing from the calipers of said front discs!!!

damn im glad i didnt need to use the brakes too often!

oh and i rode it from auckland down to napier like that....

[jim.cox]

Kawasaki KH100 ('nuff said)

Aveling Barford PG (1953 4 wheel drive, 4 wheel steer grader with dodgy brakes)

[tri boy]

Death Trap I've Ridden?
Train from New Delhi to Agra (taj). Stopped 8 times, engineer kept replacing high amp fuses, until the swith board caught fire.:shit:
Dozens of Hindu's charging through the carriages jabbering a whole lot of stuff I didn't understand until I saw the flames.
Adrenalin is wicked stuff! Where can I buy it.:Punk:

[Dodger]

Hmmm, I still have and use my Chinese made 50cc Scooter. :scooter:

[outlawtorn]

Colemans Suzuki have a Kawasaki Eliminator 250 (1996) and this thing is completely and utterly dodgy as all hell. I rode it yesterday and it scared the crap outta me.

[Dodger]

Colemans Suzuki have a Kawasaki Eliminator 250 (1996) and this thing is completely and utterly dodgy as all hell. I rode it yesterday and it scared the crap outta me.

Ahh, the good old shop bikes.
The GN250 at TSS can be interesting at times :dodge:

[PeteJ]

Ah, and then there is my Suzuki RV90 with sidecar. The sidebox is so light that it's easier to ride the thing tilted over and on the bike wheels only.

Once you've learned to ride that sidecar, you can ride any sidecar, so there is some advantage to it. My first left hand corner on it gave me a life-changing adrenaline rush.

[swbarnett]

It had those square wheelbarrow type tyres on it too so you went from having a huge footprint on the ground to riding on a knife edge as soon as you leaned it over....

Sounds a lot like the stock tyres on a GN. Should've changed them when I bought it.

[Oakie]

Umm. Suzuki GT750 ('Waterbus'). Took one for a test ride from a dealer in Oamaru in the early 80s. Got up to road speed but the first time I applied the brakes the front wheel lurched to the left. I still don't know why but it felt like it was loose somehow. (Hard to explain.) Took it straight back to the dealer using the back brake only.
A friend subsequently bought the bike and it blew up spectacularly after a short time.

[Timber020]

Death traps. Turbo fireblade. Had brakes but it needed a chute and to be ridden on salt flats.

Took a GSXR750 for a test ride that had no front brakes. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Had a TM400 with no brakes and a habit of getting stuck in one gear while the carb wouldnt stop feeding the engine. Ended up in a few hedges, hitting a few trees.


Cars, My Pontiac Bonneville, 7.5 litre modded engine in a 1982 oversizes boat with the standard shocks and brakes.....from 1982. Tires like hard biscuits, handling like the car was permanently drunk. Had a ton of get up and go but you had no say where you were going. Someone nicknamed it the "stoned scud". 10 years back it cost $20 to fill in the US and it could seat 4 in the front and 5 in the back relatively comfortably. Cost me $850 and if I had brought the engine back a guy would have given me over 10k for it-hindsight sucks.

I have to blame my mates for the following

Mk4 cortina with worked 351. No he didnt upgrade the brakes OR put in power steering. But put on really wide tires. Parking it was a killer. It shook like crazy at 120 to 140, but was sweet above that, so the benchmark was set. Boiled the brakes on every trip.

Starlet with 20z twin turbo rotary. Loud loud loud loud. fast fast fast fast. Didnt like to idle, run at below 5000rpm but always wanted to stop at the next fuel station.

[Mom]

The only time I have ever been scared riding was about 30 years ago, when I took a Kawasaki off road machine (may have been 185/250) for a test ride.......I could not reach the ground, except on the tip of one foot, it had the power band from hell, and I liked to twist the wrist.......spent the whole time either one one wheel, or creeping along hoping not to foul a plug.....LOL. *mutters something about uncontrollable 2 strokes* :love:

Cars...AP5 Valiant!.........mean machine, did my first 100 miles p/hour in it, OK so the accellerator was stuck down, was on my way to watch then boyfriend fool around on the dirt out on what is now Te Rakau Dr in Auckland. Best was its inability to go round corners straight.........them boy sliders have nothing on my AP5!!!

[more_fasterer]

My mate's Yammie SR500 that I rode last year - the forks leaked, the shocks leaked, the front brake was as progressive as a light switch. So much so that my cousin got 200m down the road on it, went to brush off some speed and locked the front - down he went, right under the back of a parked car!

[Roj]

Then I started thinking about the ones at the other end of the scale. Bikes that I for one reason or another should not have ridden (but as a result of youth, enthusiasm, foolishness and perhaps a bullet proof attitude I did ride)



MY friends old RD350, it had a bent frame and a problem with the points that meant it had a mind of its own as to how many cylinders it would run on, borrowed it to nip home to get some tools while working on a bike at his place, running on one cylinder while heading towards a rail crossing with the throttle wound out, the barrier arms start coming down at the same time as it decides now is when 2 cylinders would be good, it takes off and I hit the brakes and end up sliding up to the barrier arms sideways as the train rumbles through:shit:

[Swoop]

"Death traps you have ridden"...

Let me think...
SH1,
SH2,
Etc.........

[peasea]

A Phillips 'Gadabout' moped

A CA Bedford van with mid-mounted 272 V8 - and NO brakes!
Boy, did I ever get the learn about need for brakes in THAT sucker!!:shutup: (long story)


CA Bedford?
272?
No brakes?

You really are a star, aren't you?

Glad to see you progressed to president of your local hot rod club.

Do your bikes have brakes?

[peasea]

"Death traps you have ridden"...

Let me think...
SH1,
SH2,
Etc.........

Oh brill, bling dude.

[slopster]

My first bike a gsxr 250 had no oil in the forks. Only problem was since it was my first bike I thought that was just how it was supposed to be. It was like riding a pogo stick. I had it for a year and did 10000km on it before blowing the motor up. When I got another bike I couldn't believe the improvement!

[675trippy]

a xl 500 with extended swing arm for hill climbs. the swing arm was extended abouy 6 inches but wasn't very straight so now and then the chain would fly past my head at high speeds fun but dangerous

[inlinefour]

Cannot say that there was anything mechanically wrong with it. Its just that at full speed into a bloody big rock it almost killed me. Have it on trade me for a dollar reserve. Will be interesting to see what it goes for as its still in awesome nick even after the accident. Although I'm not going to become all teary eyed and say I should not have ridden it. Hell, if I could I'd be back on it but trying a tad harder to miss those rocks on the beach. :yes:

[scumdog]

CA Bedford?
272?
No brakes?

You really are a star, aren't you?

Glad to see you progressed to president of your local hot rod club.

Do your bikes have brakes?
"Star?" _ I'm not sure my passengers thought that at the time.....

Brakes?I'm not sure - next time I'm out for a ride I'll look - are they at the front or the back? and how do you to use them??:bleh:

[jim.cox]

Brakes?I'm not sure - next time I'm out for a ride I'll look - are they at the front or the back? and how do you to use them??:bleh:

They're on the right hand bar, mate.
Just give it a big twist :)

[NotaGoth]

Had a little 50cc quad that I would always manage to flip and run myself over with....

Worst bike of all.....

My push bike... I swear to go it would have been much safer with trainers... Did alot of damage to myself riding my push bike.. LOL

[gijoe1313]

My little minimoto which has no brakes - zooming down the cul-de-sac and scaring seven shades of bejesus out of myself...