Lesseeee...
My bikes have been down for the following reasons:
Test-riding my first bike: found it a bit heavy to manoeuvre and dropped it in the owner's rose garden.

Wearing a dark visor in dreary twilight: clipped a Mini I didn't see.

Swerving around some plonkers standing on the road, only to have the front wheel wash out in some gravel behind them.

Lost steering (and all control, in fact) when a cyclist turned in front of me without looking.

Wheelied up my drive, realised I was going too fast, hit the picks and slid on the shiny concrete into the back wall of the carport.

Lost traction when trying to ride my road bike up Mt Tarawera (back in the days when you could).

Lost contact with the bike (and all control, in fact) when I intersected with a car that failed to give way (nice somersault over its roof).

Lost front end when I turned into a corner and the tyre hit a squashed softdrink can.

Had difficulty steering and braking with a errant pedestrian under the front wheel.

Swerving and braking to avoid a car changing lanes without the driver looking first = FAIL! (Newly-fixed pedestrian-damaged bike damaged by road).

Being side-swiped by a brain-dead, u-turning Audi driver.(Newly re-fixed road-damaged bike written off)
Bedding in new brake pads by braking hard on greasy off-camber road with tar snakes (dumped bike at near standstill in front of road workers, landed on my head)

Taking a shortcut around traffic on grass/gravel verge while drugged up = FAIL! (dumped bike at near standstill in front of service station patrons)

Brain overload while drugged up and tired: Braking + turning + indicating + operating gargre door-opener + trying to look kewl for spectating neighbours = FAIL!
Err.... that's about it, if you don't count off-road adventures, such as trying to ride an AG100 with trailer+ dead sheep up hill, or parking XL100S into electric fence, or getting barbed wire wrapped around ankle while riding MT250 through a swamp, or wheelying same MT250 over backwards up a hill.
Or "stunting misadventures: donuting a CB175 on concrete. Or gravel. Or grass. Or asphalt....
Really (sadly?), there's no end to the ways you can dump a bike or yourself on your ear.

Bookmarks