Bonehead mishaps

I Have been reading a lot of stories about how some o us have tried to wreck our VFRs.
Yes we have all done it, I think. Tell your bonehead stunt where you dumped your VFR. I'll start. so everyone fess up we could all use a good laugh.
Out for a Sunday ride with my 2 CBR1000RR buddies. We pull into the Mickey D's on St. Charles Ave in uptown New Orleans. I'm the lead bike. I kick the kickstand down like I have done thousands of times. Let her lean over to stand up. but I apparently didn't get it to lock and she starts to go over. I put my left hand out to catch my balance on the SUV I pulled up next to. realizing in that split second that it is going to take much more force to hold her up than I can generate with one hand on the mirror of a parked SUV. I scream for my buddy Todd, he is watching me thinking, oh great, Danimal is showing off again. At this point I realize that she is going down like a queer at a bus stop. rather than letting her fall between my legs I throw myself under her and let her land on my left leg pinning me on the ground. Todd and Rene are now laughing at me thinking, and correctly so, that I am An idiot. Fortunately there was a large Mc Donalds styrofoam cup on the ground where the front cowl landed minimizing the damage to it. They lifted the bike off of me Laughing at me the whole time. the girl wasn't 2 months old. I replaced the Left fairing , front fairing, and the tailpiece all told it cost me a little over $700 for that little trick at Mickey D's. plus Todd tells all our buddies about it every chance he gets. He still is wary of me being around styrofoam cups. he is worried that I will throw my VFR down on every one I see. None of us are perfect we all have our Senior moments.

 

I can't resist bonehead files. Too funny for words usually. I have one too of course (maybe several, but one in particular).

New VFR, like 700 miles or so on the clock.

Pull out of garage. Get gear on and am ready to ride. Haven't yet bought the PC or cleaned out the cats/replaced exhaust etc. Had been fighting choppy throttle for a while.

Anyway, start pulling forward with bars close to full lock to get through my alley. Bike is doing typical low rpm bs. Crack throttle a bit more. Bike lurches forward, but my body doesn't, because I'm not thinking, and I'm not prepared. So, of course, throttle rolls on more. Bike lurches forward more, throttle opens more....you get the picture.

Problem: gravel all over, bike still close to full lock on the steering. Gravity's solution: Rear tire loses traction, I buy a new shift lever, lower fairing, and upper fairing. Also get a nice dime size dent in the tank from the bars (everyone who thinks those little tabs really keep the bars from folding back, think again).

Total newbie move, but hey, it happens even after a few 100K on bikes.....

K

 

Oh yeah, and Danimal, I had a bmw gspd (the old airhead ones), and I pulled up at my girlfriends house, got off the bike and walked towards her door. 2 seconds later I heard a loud crash, which was the bike falling. I was in a hurry and forgot all about the stand .

Luckily since it wasn't one of the new plastic covered GS's, I just picked it up and cursed a bit. No damage whatsoever to the bike.

I really wish I still had that thing. What an awesome ride it was.
K

 

Well I did pretty much the same thing. Not with my Viffer but with my previous bike which was an old rather sad EX500. I didn't try to save it though, it was old and already beat up so I didn't really care. So I am really careful with the Viffer, not sure what I would do if she was trying to get away from me.

 

Anyone ever take off w/ the kick stand down I've done it once or twice over the years you don't really notice until you try to turn left, then life gets kinda interesting. Never went down because of it but had to make some rather odd manuevers to correct the situation:caked:

 

See my post at:
http://vfrworld.com/forums/sixth-generation-2002-2007/10094-paint-codes-rwb-vfr.html

Long story short - long days ride, dark, attempting to setup camp, not checking the sidestand, etc.

Still need some damn touch up paint!

alow

 

I was loading my viffer into he back of my truck. I had two ramps down, one to walk up and one for the bike. I had backed up to a burm to level out the ramps to make it easy and as I was lining it up...I looked down at the front tire to make sure I was on the ramp... and I leaned out a little too far and the bike just SLOWLY went down with me fighting her all the way. After a lot of cursing myself and a whole bunch of cussin' got her back up and loaded. Looked around and was thankful it was at night in a place where no one was.

 

Face down bone-head accident

I'll keep it short. Don't ever hard brake while on one of those TAR SNAKES! Was with a group of 6 and I was last in line. Traveling at least 70 down some rural back roads. The first guy started heavy braking and by the time things were closing quickly, I hit my front brake and it washed out immediately while directly on one of those tar fillings. Wearing full riding gear saved my ass. Walked away with minor road rash from the wear thru on my Kevlar gloves. I REALLY HATE THOSE TAR SNAKES! Riders beware! If your going to hit the binders hard, look far ahead for those pesky things.

 

From my offroad days as a teenager(pre job) when money was a little tight; I don't recall the exact circumstances around how I broke my handle bars but I did. Instead of running over to the local shop & buying new bars I inserted a peice of solid round stock & welded the bars back up. Looked ok, but after a few rounds on our track we had built out under the power lines w/ some good sized jumps the bars broke again on a landing. I went down hard & impaled my self in the chest w/ the broken end; I have a nice 2" long keliod type scar to this day to remind me its cheaper to go buy new parts when thats the best course of action. I'm just thankful the broken end wasn't longer or I would have deflated a lung.
First time riding a full sized dirt bike @ age 12, 1976 Honda XL250 I was riding on a muddy trail that ran along a creek. There was a sharp 90 degree turn on to a bridge that was built across. I goosed the throttle to kick the back end around, instead of spinning I got traction & launched my self right into the creek which was about 4-5 ft deep. I put 3-4" gash in the back of my arm from a branch off a downed tree that was under the water.
Same bike, riding thru a sand pit hit a jump, landed the shocks where so shot it bounced me off the bike, me & the bike doing the superman thing thru the air & we both landed @ the same time the bike in the dirt me on top the bike roughly in the engine area; moderately painful.
On my IT250 same bike as the handle bar incident we where "cliff jumping" out of a sand pit 30-40 deep w/ the last 5 or so feet a shere verticle. Normally you'd shoot up about 20-25 ft & go out about the same or farther on flat ground. We'll my last ever attempt something went terribly wrong I went straight up out about 4-5 feet from the edge straight down w/ the front end leading & landed in a sand pile front first. The back end of the bike pile drived me into the sand, my head was literally buried; visor broke & helmet was full of sand.
This one didn't happen to me, but to date is one of the funniest things I've witnessed first hand. Around the same time we where doing the afore mentioned cliff jumping. There was a group of 20 something guys(we where teens @ the time) that all rented a house together. One of them had a old beaten & tattered Kawasaki KE250 enduro, they came out & watched us jumping went home got the old rattle trap going & took turns flogging the poor girl. After a while of accepting the beating she was thinking payback; the last guy came up the pit wall sailed into the air & the seat fell off. Once the seat come off a all there is land on it the air box & two steel tubes The landing was not pretty he tried to stay on the pegs but when he landed the right hand foot peg broke off. Dude took the brunt of the impact from 20 odd feet up right in the family jewels & it made for a pretty ugly crash. He limped away w/ a bruised ego & a swelling of something between his legs that definetly was not pride:tongue:

 

So at least the bike got laid. :wink:

 

Save some of those story's for the upcoming ride, you painted quite a picture there and I might have a hard time from LMAO after a few cold ones, that's off course till I get to my stupid ass mishaps :biggrin:

 

1986, stopped at my parents house and swung around the front of my Dad's brand new 1986 Chevy Silverado 4x4 pickup. Thought I'd park right in front of it under the carport. Kicked the kickstand down on my 1983 Suzuki GS850G (one of the best bikes I ever owned I might add) and stood up, only problem was kickstand was not locked and over she went, handlebars went right thru the plastic front grill on my dad's truck. no damage to bike but I was worried what the damage would be to me once Dad found out. Turns out he wasn't as mad as I thought he'd be bless his heart, he never did like me riding bikes tho.........

 

Reg71 does his own stunts in "Bonehead Mishaps : Enter the Sandman"

I don't care who ya are, that story's funny.

 

This wasn't my VFR, it was my old V65 Sabre. The pro-link was squeaking. The pro-link is this thing that attaches the swingarm to the bottom of the rear shock, there are three attachment points that pivot as the shock is extended and compressed. Anyway, I had put the bike on the centerstand and extracted the pro-link, cleaned and greased it, and it was time to put it back in. To get the holes to line up, I had to lift the rear wheel just an inch or so off the floor. But I needed both hands to hold the pro-link in place and push the bolt through.

So I was laying on the floor and using my feet to lift the rear wheel, while I had both hands reaching up into the bike from below, when the centerstand folded, the rear wheel slammed up into the fender, and the bike started to tip. I managed to extract my hands before I got my forearms broken, and grab the side of the frame and hold the bike up.

Now what? I was laying on my back on the floor, holding the bike up with my hands so it wouldn't fall on me. I couldn't figure out any way to get up!

I was alone in my friend's shop, on a warm summer evening. My friend's shop was in this commercial building in an alley behind a closed fast food joint. The neighboring business was a massage parlor. The polite thing to do is to pretend not to see the men visiting the massage parlor, but there wasn't anyone else around, and I wasn't expecting anyone else. I could have been there until the next morning, if I waited for someone I knew to stop by. So I lay there for twenty minutes or so until another guy walked past on his way in to the massage parlor, and I called out to him. Probably scared him half to death, but he did hold the bike while I got up off the floor. Thank goodness the weather was nice and I had the garage door open!

 

Spring breaks on garage door as bike is pulling in. Bike continues into garage, driver is lying on driveway, seeing stars. No hospitalization necessary.

 

ah... hence the sky-is-falling name :tongue: