why you should never rush into upsizing your bike..

[sunhuntin]

had a practise ride yesterday for the toy run on sunday..... going into marton via the back roads [first turn off just before going past the turakina signs] narrow country road, two of those "giveway" bridges, both on the other side of a slight rise.

i get over the rise for the second bridge, see one bike lying on its side, and the rider sitting in the ditch with a few of the guys around him...only just recently bought the bike [bmw] something like 1100cc, previous bike however long ago was a 650. seems he took the corner to wide or fast and panicked. bike was facing up hill, when it should have been facing down. rider escaped with a busted up wrist and a lesson learned.

bugger for the guy who wrote that, but maybe a good lesson for him, and also for the new riders.

[Damon]

I wonder if his friends and family gave him the "i told you so" speach?

Some one who goes thrashing a weapon like a 636 around after only 1400mls of total road time...idiot doesn't really cover it, have to admire his attitude though but i think he has bigger balls than brains.

[Brett]

Call me an idiot...but since i ride a 250 i have never encountered headshaking (the same thing as tankslap??). What would you do to recover the bike? I imagine it is caused by rough acceleration, bad gear changes??
I will be getting a 636 next year, and would like to know what i would do to recover the machine if this ever happens. I will be spending much of my time to begin with at puke, learning how the thing moves.

[bugjuice]

headshake is a tankslap. So called, cos when it really gets going, the handle bars will slap the tank back and forth. That's a bad day.

Tankslap is mostly brought on by high acceleration. The front gets light, and could skip along the road. As it skips (only a mm is needed to get it going), you could hit a small bump or just be pulling harder on one side of the bike more than the other. It'll then touch down and not be facing forward with the rest of the bike, so it'll bounce to the other side as a reaction. But that's not forward either, so it'll bounce back and so on. There's the slapping action if it gets too carried away.

I get slaps all the time on my bike (good fun now), cos the front isn't set up right and it needs a damper. But when it does happen, the best thing to do is relax and don't try to fight it, cos you probably won't win. Just let it do it's thing and ease off slightly, and it'll right itself in no time.

a 250 rarely has this issue, cos you need the power to be lifting the front. And you need to really be giving the bike some shit to get a good slap going. So chances are, that you'll not encounter one for ages while you're getting used to the bike. Just be weary of ripples on corners (trucks pull the road up) and on exits of corners where you'll be accelerating out of the corner, and just keep your whits about you. But the main thing is to relax! And no, you're no idiot

[Skyryder]

Just another reason why I ride a cruiser. No tank slapping for me. I'm the boss and not the bike.

Hard lesson to learn that you have to loose some of what God gave you.

Slow down next time ol' son whoever you are.

Skyryder

[jonbuoy]

Just goes to show how quickly things can go wrong and how your brain sometimes tells you to do stupid stuff - our instincts weren't designed to cope with 100KM+ speeds. Spent 4 months on crutches after highsiding a GSXR600 and fracturing my heel (after the back slid my stupid brain told me to shut the throttle - if I'd held it open would've probably only done a GP style tail slide, my fault - didn't exactly have a whole lot of time to think about the options). Can't believe how unsympathetic some people are - he was stupid to be wearing sneakers - but if its your everyday transport you don't always dress up in the full leathers to nip down the shops to get a pack of smokes. Sucks to hear of any biker being injured - their fault or not.