29 years since my last bin on the road!

[paturoa]

Didn't make it to 30 years between bins (Disclaimer - excludes side stand "failures" or other general garge incompetence)

I dropped the Wee yesterday, and Katman is 100% correct!

Last evening I picked up a part at Colemans zookie and waited for the rain to pass over. I got bored with waiting, so I put my wets on and headed off down Newton Rd towards the NW motorway on ramp. As I stopped at the right turn, I saw and thought briefly about the big fat steel wet slippery plate that runs across the middle of the bridge there (crazy design).

There were a heap of cagers heading the other way, and after several day dreams, thinking about my spawns school exams, some work stuff and gee that rain is realy heavy, there was a gap in the traffic.

So I took off. It quickly became apparent that the large wet slippery steel plate that I had noticed earlier was converting any forward motion desires into sideways rear wheel motion. The bike probably moved less than half a metre forwards and about a metre sideways! There was no thinking time, and I found myself doing the splits with my left foot still on the peg and my right foot leg at an unhealthy angle out to the side on the road.

I was holding the bike at about 45 degree angle and had a couple of attempts to lift it. Nope, plan b, lower it slowly was the only option. So I gently lowered it to the ground. I looked up at this point and there was a cager stopped looking at me with a major frown across her face and a van behind me that never moved. I hit the kill switch, hopped off, lifted the bike, hopped on, started the bike and took off with no further dramas.

Lesson - when you notice a hazard, thinking about other stuff results in bins (aka Katman's theory #2)

Duh.

The sum total damage was to my ego. Though there was a about 1mm of paint lost off the pillion peg bracket and the bark buster appears to have another 1 mm mark on it.

PS - also excludes off road bins which number in their hundreds!

[Maha]

Compulsary viewing for lifting a motorcycle....Drew will be along asap.

[sil3nt]

I think you will find he only had trouble lifting the bike while he was still half on it doing the splits with the bike on a rather large angle.

[Gremlin]

Adventure bikes are good like that. Had a van u-turn on me recently and I went into the side of it.

Van had a torso sized scrape in it's side, BMW had some paint transfer from van on it's crash bars.

Not often the motorcycle wins.

Just try not to keep dropping it at intersections aye?

[scumdog]

Compulsary viewing for lifting a motorcycle....Drew will be along asap.

That guy was way too calm to be Drew...

[BMWST?]

the steel plates are very common they allow differential movement between bridge and terra firma

[nerrrd]

Had a very similar experience going over a plastic judder bar into a service station at not-enough-of-a-right angle in the rain.

Bike ended up lying on the ground on top of my left foot in front of a line of rush hour traffic (no applause, thankfully). Hit the kill switch, proceeded to pick it up with the aid of a young scooterist ("how do you ride something that heavy?"), filled the bike up, set off down the road and wondered why I couldn't change up any higher than second. Bent gear lever! Bent it back on a side road and carried on. No other damage.

Good times.