Crashes due to mechanical failure?

[SMOKEU]

Has anyone here had a crash due to a mechanical failure on the bike? For example, a break lever snapping, tire blowout, foot peg breaking etc.

[Berries]

Have not seen a broken brake lever cause a crash, but blow outs do happen and I have seen a few of those. Broken chains locking wheels and soft luggage going astray are ones that come to mind. People polishing the brake discs has also led to a few crashes believe it or not. It is pretty rare to see a mechancial issue like suspension failure cause a crash these days. Brain failure causes a whole lot more.

I fell off while parking once because the front brakes were sticking and I had it on full lock. Wouldn't call it a crash though.

[p.dath]

At the AMCC ART day one of the people had their throttle jam full on approaching the hair pin.

If it happened to me I would have panicked. They were calm enough to hit the kill switch, brake and coast through the hair pin.

Phew!

[ukusa]

had an off road crash on my DR350 due to a jammed throttle.
Can't really class a blowout as mechanical failure, more just bad luck (nail/screw etc)or bad management if you ride on bald tyres.

[slofox]

Has anyone here had a crash due to a mechanical failure on the bike? For example, a break lever snapping, tire blowout, foot peg breaking etc.

Warr could tell you about blowouts...

[JimO]

i know a guy who's norton commando seized and spat him and his wife off on a motorway

[Jantar]

One due to a blowout on an overladen bike, so I guess that one is almost rider error.

One freak crash due to mechanical failure. The spring that holds the side stand up broke and the side stand came down (this was 1974). I discovered it the hard way when I went to lean into a left hand corner and ended up laying the bike down. Of course modern bikes will kill the engine if this happens, so not likely on a modern bike.

Then 1976, I had the rear hub split on a GT750 waterbucket. That tossed me off in a big way, and Suzuki did replace the hub under warranty. The rest of the damage was an insurance claim.

Mechanical failure that can cause a crash is very rare on modern bikes, but can still happen.

[LBD]

Back in the day.....

This budding mechanic rebuilt his CB 350 twin, and carbs....(I heard abouth this guy...cough cough)

Running too lean, and maybe to far advaced....said mechanic melted a hole in a piston....approaching a bend....with one cylinder working as a compressor presurizng the crankcase, bulk oil pumped out the breather which was fitted with a tube that lead down in front of the swing arm hinge/rear tire.

Said budding mechanic did not make it around the approaching bend....

[mrchips]

Some rivets let go on my old CBR's right muffler steel housing.

The trail of sparks & scrapage from this housing although impressive, was not what i wanted to hear whilst entering a sharp right hander with the wife on the back.

[Muppet]

Chain came off back sprocket and jammed rear wheel on my cb175. Luckily I was only doing about 10 km/h, I was on Johns Road in Christchurch when the speed limit was 100 km/h. Entirely my fault for not checking chain tension, being 16 I thought those things fixed themselves.....

[Kickaha]

Twice but only when racing

Both times the big end shit itself and the bikes locked solid and spat me down the road

[gav]

Twice but only when racing

Both times the big end shit itself and the bikes locked solid and spat me down the road

Yeah, but you are hard on gear ...

[Milts]

Closest I've ever had was coming over a sudden rise with next to no petrol in the KR150, the gforces pulled the petrol to the top of the tank and the engine cut out on me at about 60k's an hour. The rear was well sideways by the time I grabbed the clutch and straightened up...

I know my father had a nasty moment in his youth after adjusting his chain and not tightening the lock nut - result was a sudden tankslapper when he hit about 120 on the motorway, which apparently took the space of several lanes before he got it under control. Again, more rider error than mechanical fault though.

I do remember seeing some 'stats' which claimed that mechanical failure is only a factor in somewhere around 2% of accidents. Modern technology....

[scracha]

Has anyone here had a crash due to a mechanical failure on the bike? For example, a break lever snapping, tire blowout, foot peg breaking etc.

Had brake seal go whilst 2's up years ago....saved that one...just.

Had brake pads fall out after bike shop hadn't bothered to put retaining pin split pins in. After about 200m grass tracking, wet grass made for a soft landing.

Now I do my own brakes.

[Big Dave]

The air intake grill on the front of this Ducati fell off, got sucked into the fuel system and jammed it flat out - He was about 6 months on crutches.