Did it or didn't it?

[Jantar]

Following on from the threads about: Which first bike; Is a Honsuzakihasung gzxrs250 the best bike for me to learn on; Which sould I get; etc. I have maintained that a new biker should start on a mild mannered naked bike because they are likely to drop it in the first 6 months.

I am not saying that a crash is inevitable, but that it is more than likely that the bike will come in contact with the ground at some stage.

It maybe while riding, it maybe while manouvering it, or it may have simply rolled off the stand.

What I am looking for here is a good indication of whether or not your bike has come into unintentional contact with the ground at any time during your first 6 months of riding.

As the thread develops I'll work out the mean and standard deviation based on a simple bi-nomial distribution and come up with confidence limits for how likely it is that a new rider will drop their bike in the first 6 months.

[Gremlin]

twice in 3 days... into a couple of ditches, probably about 4 months in, then nothing for a couple of years after

[Madness]

At the age of 16 I pulled up outside my local Fish & Chip shop one Friday evening. There were quite a few people in the shop and it had the obligatory large glass frontage. The RG250 drew quite a bit of attention as I pulled up, this probably distracted me as I dismounted. I forgot about the side stand, crrraaaasssh.

Nice balanced poll, BTW. :whistle:

[Hitcher]

Not in the first six months. I saved that for later...

[Maha]

That would be YES!!!
My beautiful YZF600 took a lay down while parking in between cars, Mom was a few parks over and could see me but could hear me...:angry2:

[nodrog]

what makes people think that dropping a naked bike is cheaper than dropping a faired one?

example -

K6 GSXR1000, sent down the road at 40-50kph, damage - scratched side fairing, cost to fix - $900 (or just cover the scratches with go fast stickers)

mv augusta brutale, sent down the road at 25-35kph, damage - scratched engine cases, block, radiator, frame (all of which is covered by a cheap piece of plastic on a faired bike), cost to fix - $1 reserve on trademe because it is fucked (the labour cost alone was nearly enough to write it off, because the whole bike needs to be stripped to replace these parts)

[Usarka]

what makes people think that dropping a naked bike is cheaper than dropping a faired one?


Fairings are good sacrificial scratch pieces and dirt collectors.

washing naked bikes is a PITA.

[NighthawkNZ]

I never had an accident or dropped my bike till I was older and started getting cocky

[fireball]

first 6 months nothing, then after that came the affair of little asain women in mercs and bmws trying to kill me

[road king]

i had my first bike for about a day. pulled into a gravel driveway, stopped, lost my footing and over she went. i think there was a small scratch and maybe a broken indicator. about 2 months later i put it into a ditch at about 50km. damn near wrote it off

[dpex]

That would be YES!!!
My beautiful YZF600 took a lay down while parking in between cars, Mom was a few parks over and could see me but could hear me...:angry2:

How does you ride feel after you top 150+, without fairings?

[dpex]

twice in 3 days... into a couple of ditches, probably about 4 months in, then nothing for a couple of years after

You wuz just goin' after the free watercress, eh, Grem?

[Maha]

How does you ride feel after you top 150+, without fairings?

Who the hell goes that fast??....:no:

To answer your question...windy!

[Ragingrob]

It didn't.

[hayd3n]

Who the hell goes that fast??....:no:

To answer your question...windy!

maybe he was on a track or a closed road

[discotex]

Not in the first 6 months but before I got rid of the 250.

Cage saved me the hassle of putting the ZXR on trademe by allowing me to use their insurance to write off the bike :) Got more from their insurance than I paid for it 9 months earlier. Go market value!

[spookytooth]

Yes it did but it was'nt my fault.There was pretty girls i was 15 at the time.Bike tried to do a wheel stand

[Jantar]

Results so far do show that it is more likely that a new rider will drop a bike within the first six months, but that result is not yet significant.

Out of 50 new riders it is very likely that 21 will drop their bike 16 will not drop their bike and 13 may or may not drop their bike. (to the 95% confidence limit).

I'll update the probability as more votes come in.

[Jiminy]

Nah, made it to the seventh month before the first drop. That's why I didn't buy an expensive new bike when I started riding, I knew it would happen.

[Harvd]

yea i dropped it/flew it... into the sea so never really technically hit the ground... what should my vote be then? 1 month after i got it too

[PrincessBandit]

what makes people think that dropping a naked bike is cheaper than dropping a faired one?


Dropped my pretty little ginny twice (once from stationary, looking down as i stopped in the driveway, second time it jiggled off it's side stand while I was stopped at the letter box). Each time only an indicator smashed. Dropped my beautiful bandit twice too (first time grabbing a handful of brake to avoid neighbour coming round bend in shared driveway very quickly, second time foot slipped in gravel at a stop); each time smashed indicator :angry2: and scars on the faring. Second time it actually had aaarrgggghhh cracks! Decided that due to $ factor faring could be patched up rather than replaced yet.......


i had my first bike for about a day. pulled into a gravel driveway, stopped, lost my footing and over she went. i think there was a small scratch and maybe a broken indicator. about 2 months later i put it into a ditch at about 50km. damn near wrote it off
I sympathise - see above, although can say quite happily I've never come close to writing my girl off.


Yes it did but it was'nt my fault.There was pretty girls i was 15 at the time.Bike tried to do a wheel stand

Musn't think smutty thoughts, musn't think smutty thoughts........:whistle:

[Motu]

Dropped my bike the first and second day...and then frequently after that.It was hard to do any significant damage to a BSA Bantam - steel levers with perches welded to the bars.

[Jantar]

Now with 66 votes in we can say that there is more chance of dropping a bike within the first 6 months of riding than not. It is still a tenuous claim and only at the 75% confidence limit.

At the 95% confidence limit we can now say that out of 100 new riders 44 riders will very likely drop their bikes, 32 riders are very likely to not drop their bikes, and 24 riders may or may not drop their bikes.

[XxKiTtiExX]

Lost my footing and fell over with mine after only 3 days of owning it, managed to squash myself in the process... I'm glad I hadn't spent heaps on my first bike thats for sure..

[Ocean1]

Yes. Probably a dozen times.

That's what dirt bikes is for innit?

Actually, the first road bike falled down at about 2 months also, parking incident.

[rphenix]

Never on the road, but the Honda XR plenty of times on the grass especially early in the mornings when theres that water dew/vapour combine that with mud created by deer hooves and you've got a pretty effective slip'n'slide.

Great thing was you could pick up the bike, look around good nobody seen and continue riding. Nothing on the bike except caked mud on the clutch lever and hand guard.

I've always thought some of those city slickers learning to drive cars that drive around at 35km holding about 100 people up in the process should instead go to some farm bootcamp where they can ride a Yamaha AG, Honda XL/XR or similar.

[Quailboy]

Not yet... :sweatdrop

[Usarka]

How does you ride feel after you top 150+, without fairings?


It feels like 190+

[Gremlin]

You wuz just goin' after the free watercress, eh, Grem?
The first was full of mud. The second was relatively minor, and completely newbie, right in front of another kb'er. He has always said after, I was yelling in my helmet, stop braking, and tuuuuuuurrrrrrn.

I don't like watercress... or scratching up bikes :mellow:

[NinjaNanna]

1st bike (ZZR250 - 1991) yes - practicing u-turns, brushed the gutter and lowered it to the ground. No damage

2nd bike (VFR 800 - 1998) - steep driveway 2up, dropped it at 2km/hr. No damage

3rd bike (VFR 800 - 2002) - no, never dropped that one

4rd bike (ZXR-9 1995) - tricky manuveour getting it into parking position, foot down, oh shit too far - technically didn't reach the ground but did scratch lower fairing on some bricks. Strained my bloody back too.

5th bike (R1 2004) - not yet and hopefully not.

-----------------

Wife's first bike (ZR-250 Balius 1990) - yes gravel in car park while learning, lost footing while slowly coming to a stop. Lowered it to the ground, probably some new scratching but could tell because of previous owners own misadventures.

Same bike I stupidly left it running on its side stand - ever so slightly facing downhill, heard a crash turned around to see it lying on its side, thought oh well no big deal, picked it up and oil was leaking out - I'd cracked the engine case - oh shit now a big deal, got it sorted and bike is still running fine.

[The Pastor]

what makes people think that dropping a naked bike is cheaper than dropping a faired one?

example -

K6 GSXR1000, sent down the road at 40-50kph, damage - scratched side fairing, cost to fix - $900 (or just cover the scratches with go fast stickers)

mv augusta brutale, sent down the road at 25-35kph, damage - scratched engine cases, block, radiator, frame (all of which is covered by a cheap piece of plastic on a faired bike), cost to fix - $1 reserve on trademe because it is fucked (the labour cost alone was nearly enough to write it off, because the whole bike needs to be stripped to replace these parts)
those are slides not drops

[nodrog]

those are slides not drops

pootatoe - potarto

[The Pastor]

pootatoe - potarto
not really, more potatoe and kumara

[slimjim]

watched a sales person drop a bike my mate was going to take for a test -ride ..he was going to buy it ..:scooter:. CB750....sales person started it up rev..rev.:wari:.then hopped off on right hand side :gob:?(don't know why he hopped off that way)..while holding onto handle bar and twisted throttle grip...haha bike gave a huge rev'.sales bloke let go.."fright" however he'd kicked sidestand up as he was warming bike up...but hadn't put stand down when getting off for mate to get on...nice doughnut on shop floor..went into gear when bike hit floor..:yes:..

no he didn't buy that one...brought a kaw 750 instead..:love:

[nodrog]

not really, more potatoe and kumara

mashed or roasted?

[vifferman]

what makes people think that dropping a naked bike is cheaper than dropping a faired one?)
Well.... yes - generally it's cheaper to drop a nekkid bike, because nothing will break. F'rinstance, I dropped/crashed my first bike several times, and up until I t-boned a car, the only repairs needed were a clutch lever and gear lever.
I low-sided my VFR750 at ~35 km/h, and it broke the brake lever and did a few hundred dollars damage to the fairing. In fact, when I wrote it off, it was all fairly cosmetic stuff: fairings, dented muffler, bent fairing stay, etc. Total bill for labour plus parts was around $6k.

There are cases where the fairing will cause the bike to slide along nicely, acting as a sacrificial low-friction surface, whereas a nekkid bike might tend to grab onto the road/ground and tumble, due to sticky-outy bits.

I think Jantar's point is that many of the crashes/drops noobz will have will be realtively low-speed (or standstill) affairs, in which case you're talking about broken/bent clutch or brake levers, scuffed bar-end weights, that sort of thing. Except if there's a fairing involved, in which case you get broken/bent clutch or brake levers, scuffed bar-end weights, AND scratched/cracked/destroyed fairing panels as well.

[nodrog]

I think Jantar's point is that many of the crashes/drops noobz will have will be realtively low-speed (or standstill) affairs, in which case you're talking about broken/bent clutch or brake levers, scuffed bar-end weights, that sort of thing. Except if there's a fairing involved, in which case you get broken/bent clutch or brake levers, scuffed bar-end weights, AND scratched/cracked/destroyed fairing panels as well.

and without that fairing you get scratched engine cases, radiators etc. thats alright if you have a 20 year old gn250, but if you have somthing a bit flasher and want it fixed to as new with new parts its going to cost, lots. engine parts cost alot more, especially just the labour content to repalce, its not just a 5 minute bolt off bolt on experience like a fairing.

[breakaway]

Exactly 5 months after :weep:

[inlinefour]

Following on from the threads about: Which first bike; Is a Honsuzakihasung gzxrs250 the best bike for me to learn on; Which sould I get; etc. I have maintained that a new biker should start on a mild mannered naked bike because they are likely to drop it in the first 6 months.

I am not saying that a crash is inevitable, but that it is more than likely that the bike will come in contact with the ground at some stage.

It maybe while riding, it maybe while manouvering it, or it may have simply rolled off the stand.

What I am looking for here is a good indication of whether or not your bike has come into unintentional contact with the ground at any time during your first 6 months of riding.

As the thread develops I'll work out the mean and standard deviation based on a simple bi-nomial distribution and come up with confidence limits for how likely it is that a new rider will drop their bike in the first 6 months.

Good thread! Sadly as a 8 year old I was given a Honda step thru, which as it turns out probably was not a bad thing. I was nervous and the bike was gutless, a good combination for staying upright for quite along time. Its not until I had the confidence and the TS185ER, which I swapped for the step thru as it was road legal, that crapping off became a new thing. Once I got on the dirt our attitude was if you dont come off your not pushing it enough. That and the go back and do it again until you dont come off, saw me coming off a fair bit. Thank gwad that by then I was on a MX bike that could handle it!

[kevfromcoro]

yea i dropped it/flew it... into the sea so never really technically hit the ground... what should my vote be then? 1 month after i got it too
into the sea.
thats a new one
bet it stuffed the bike....

[Jantar]

The trend is starting to show up but still not yet at a high enough significance. With the votes so far we can say that a new rider is more likely to drop his/her bike in the firs six months than not. This is still only to the 75% confidence level. If the current percentages are truely representitive, we need at least 275 votes to make a valid conclusion.

At the 95% confidence level, out of 100 new riders it is very likely that 46 riders will drop their bike, 34 riders are very unlikely to drop their bikes and 20 may or may not drop their bikes. As the TV polsters say, there is a margin of error of 10%

[Ripperjon]

Can you let me know when 66% of current newbies have crashed.

Then i'd know i'm in the 34% who won't and can start riding round like a firkin nutcase.

[Lucy]

I'm so glad the poll only asks about the first six months.....

Maybe if it was a closed poll it would be more accurate? Not saying it's not, but there could easily be a few who reckon cos it wasn't their fault, they won't vote for the second option?

[RantyDave]

Yeah. Car park going to do my restricted. Broke the clutch lever off. Not my finest moment.

I think it was within six months.

Dave

[motorbyclist]

first two ROAD bike drops involved shoes laces hooking around the gear, and then brake levers while stopped outside the closed gates of my driveway:first:

next was hitting something slick while doing a right hander at a roundabout in the wet, at night, in heavy traffic where no-one stopped to ask if i was ok, or to even give way to let me wheel my poor fxr off the intersection

in all cases all i did was broke the wing mirror and bent the subframe holding it. bit of glue and bending and she's sweet. few scratches, who cares?

closest my gsxr250 came to the ground was it falling off the stand while cleaning it. not to worry my body was promptly there to save it:first:


imo i'd rather scratch and/or break a fairing and still be able to ride home than leave oil all over the road where a case broke or ground through, possibly hitting the flywheel/whatever behind and leaving a mess for the next guy.



I've always thought some of those city slickers learning to drive cars that drive around at 35km holding about 100 people up in the process should instead go to some farm bootcamp where they can ride a Yamaha AG, Honda XL/XR or similar.

same here - learnt on the dirt and now very capable of keeping upright in all kinds of shit.

though luck may have a part to play

[motorbyclist]

perhaps the poll should be asking a much more relevant question, as many people will drop a faired bike without appreciable fairing damage? what if the damage included forks etc that would have written off the bike regardless of the cosmetic bits?

ie, levers, indicators and wingmirrors are usually cheap and easily replaced, and 'big' crashes will often be a write off due to forks alone, rather than cosmetics.

ie. Q"in your first 6 months of riding, did you do any appreciable damage to your motorcycle?"
A yes, faired bike
B yes, faired bike -would have written off if naked anyway (forks etc)
c yes, naked bike
D yes, naked bike -would have written off anyway (forks etc)
E no, faired bike
F no naked bike



an even better question as it's simpler:

"in your first 6 months of riding, did you regret buying a faired motorcycle?"
a yes by reasons including cosmetic damage
b yes for other reasons
c no

d bough a nekkid one - obligatory due to kbers not seeing the "view results" link

[Blossom]

Yeah. Car park going to do my restricted. Broke the clutch lever off. Not my finest moment.

Dave

Err did ya get ya licence after that?

I have not dropped my bike at all. But dumb question from me.. My cruiser does not have fairings but I have not heard anyone refer to them as neked bikes. Soooo where do they fit in?

[motorbyclist]

naked i guess

though all that chrome looks expensive to replace....

[RantyDave]

(dropped in car park waiting for restricted)


Err did ya get ya licence after that?

Yeah, actually. It was while the ... thingy ... scheme was running so the idea was that we'd spend the morning doing theory, afternoon having a bit of a warm up trundle then the restricted would be handed out en masse at the tail end of the day. So I lunch time I hot footed it up to a bike shop, picked up a dirt bike clutch lever and wedged it on. All good.

Dave

[normajeane]

I never had an accident or dropped my bike till I was older and started getting cocky
Are you older:cool::buggerd:

[normajeane]

Yes, 20 years after not riding and stalled the bike when leaving on a small rise onto a road

[MsKABC]

Technically it stayed upright, because I didn't actually own it when I was test-riding it and laid it down during a low-speed manouvre :oops: Lesson learnt though, it stayed upright after that :) (So I selected "yes" in the poll)

[dave222]

I voted yes, had been practicing up and down my drive and small gravel as it was my first ride. Decided I had enough confidence to ride on the road and off I went, got to the end of the gravel road and was about to turn onto the main road when a car came around the bend, grabbed front brake and over she went.

Next day ended up sliding on its side turning back into the gravel road.. man I hate gravel now!

Only scratches both times to the fairing and mirror/frame got a bit bent but was easily fixed.

[Jantar]

perhaps the poll should be asking a much more relevant question,......

No. To be able to carry out any meaningful analysis the poll must either be kept very simple (ie only two options) or the number of respondents needs to be very large. Even as it is, the number of votes is very borderline to make any statistically significant claim. A few more votes at the current percentages would help.

[motorbyclist]

No. To be able to carry out any meaningful analysis the poll must either be kept very simple (ie only two options) or the number of respondents needs to be very large. Even as it is, the number of votes is very borderline to make any statistically significant claim. A few more votes at the current percentages would help.



an even better question as it's simpler:

"in your first 6 months of riding, did you regret buying a faired motorcycle?"
a yes by reasons including cosmetic damage
b yes for other reasons
c no

d bought a nekkid one - obligatory due to kbers not seeing the "view results" link
there, only three options and directly addresses then issue at hand

[Jantar]

there, only three options and directly addresses then issue at hand

Still you are missing the point. I am trying to establish whether or not it is likely that a rider will drop their bike within the first 6 months of riding. I am not trying to differentiate between faired, unfaired, commuter, cruiser, dual purpose, or any other type of bike.
I am certainly not trying to judge whether or not anyone regretted buying a faired bike, irrespective of the reasons.

[motorbyclist]

well if the thread is, as per the original post, about learners riding mild mannered bikes, perhaps the question should take that into account?

it COULD be that those riders on perkier bikes actually crash/drop LESS often

and then the proportion of riders on the perky and tame bikes would throw that anyway


this big argument on KB is whether or not a leaner should have faired or naked due to costs when (if) you drop it. of course if you drop and do any damage is a completely different story...



what i'm trying to say is, your question yeilds fairly useless information for all the analysis you're making into the KB population

[ital916]

well if the thread is, as per the original post, about learners riding mild mannered bikes, perhaps the question should take that into account?

it COULD be that those riders on perkier bikes actually crash/drop LESS often

and then the proportion of riders on the perky and tame bikes would throw that anyway


this big argument on KB is whether or not a leaner should have faired or naked due to costs when (if) you drop it. of course if you drop and do any damage is a completely different story...



what i'm trying to say is, your question yeilds fairly useless information for all the analysis you're making into the KB population

I am going to join the church of motorbicyclology