What have you done with your bike/s today?

[Greybeard]

... he dropped it, in full view of the world and its wife. Maybe he'd got polish on the soles of his police boots!

No doubt you rushed over to help him pick the bike up. I could have done with someone to help me yesterday.

[Greybeard]

The only casualty from my unscheduled 'off' was the bobble on the end of the front brake lever. I've ordered a new lever from the official BSA parts supplier, Fowlers in Bristol. The lever cost £40.99 including the cheapest postage option. I've paid less than that for a car😕.

[Worty]

The only casualty from my unscheduled 'off' was the bobble on the end of the front brake lever. I've ordered a new lever from the official BSA parts supplier, Fowlers in Bristol. The lever cost £40.99 including the cheapest postage option. I've paid less than that for a car😕.

'ow much

[Worty]

Dunno if I recounted this elsewhere, but I had a screamer in the eighties when dispatch riding in Birmingham. 

I'd modified my sidestand to kick back the moment pressure was off it, due to forgetting on a number of occasions and having a 'moment' on the first l/h bend.  I'd soon got into the habit of pushing the sidestand down against the spring, and dropping onto it as I came to a stop.  One lunchtime, I went for a sandwich at a local place which had indoor seating and a large front window.  As I pulled up, I went for my 'cool' sidestand-down approach, got it wrong, and ended up on the floor with the bike on top of me - much to the shock and amusement of all the diners watching through that big front window.  After having the ignominy of having to haul myself from under the bike (XS750), then having to haul it up (on a slope) by myself, I decided that I couldn't suffer walking in and ordering a sarnie, so made a quick, red-faced exit.

I still remember every moment of it.

[chaterlea25]

Hi All,
GB maybe some of those elevated boot soles that were in a post recently would help?
That or get an inch of padding removed from the seat , or would 1in. shorter shocks work?

John

[berger]

i had to put shorter rear shocks on urma yonda because i'm a short ass , only problem now is the unkept road where i live and i have to be very careful of the ups and downs not dragging the exhaust pipes off under the engine

[Greybeard]

Hi All,
GB maybe some of those elevated boot soles that were in a post recently would help?
That or get an inch of padding removed from the seat , or would 1in. shorter shocks work?

John

For a moment I saw shorter socks 🧦

[Joolstacho]

Worty, 450 R/T Ducatis had those stands from the factory... evil things, we named it 'suiside stand'.
(Me too GB - well it's obvious,- shorter socks are bound to work!)

[BagONails]

I dropped a Yam FJ1200 back in the 90's in similar fashion, slow speed manouvre on gravel and a bit of a gradient. Momentarily locked the front wheel which went sideways just enough to put us off balance, foot went out, bike started to go and foot slid on same gravel. There was no holding it now. The bike which felt surprisingly nimble when rolling suddenly turned into a dead weight that I did my best to lower gently without getting caught under it. 

I was so angry at myself somehow I picked it straight back up again  to this day I still have no idea how.

Happily virtually no damage that couldn't be bent back into shape or polished out and that was just to me!

[Greybeard]

.....
Momentarily locked the front wheel which went sideways just enough to put us off balance, foot went out, bike started to go and foot slid on same gravel. There was no holding it now. The bike which felt surprisingly nimble when rolling suddenly turned into a dead weight that I did my best to lower gently without getting caught under it.
....

You couldn't have described my incident more accurately 👌

[Worty]

Gravel anywhere is a bugga - responsible for my first crash down a country lane when I stuffed the little Fizzy into a ditch

[berger]

haha in the 70's lots of us used to ride about together maybe 12 or more some days , one of the mates had a yamahoohaa yds7 and it must have been attracted to the bits of gravel on the country roads , he could never stay on it nearly every time we went out he came off and we had to do road side repairs to the headlight wiring with tape, we called him gravel rash

[BagONails]

I hope your buddy survived Burgs?

Yep its a classic isn't it, like diesel on a wet roundabout in Chelmsford that did for me a few years earlier.

I nearly fell off laughing at a mate who completely missed a corner on an Essex lane on his Fizzy. It was a kind of optical illusion I suppose but the lane made a 90 degree right which you could see looking at the tree line, hedges, telegraph poles etc. but there was a farmers field access gap in the hedge and in the summer it looked as though the lane continued straight. Bob was thus sucked in and only realised his mistake too late, shot through the field entrance and into the crop which hid everything except his white helmeted seemingly disembodied head flashing through the wheat. How we laughed although it was nervous laughter as we realised it could have been any of us...luckily the five bar gate was open and he was OK.

[berger]

BON he survived but wasn't a biker for long. your 5 bar gate story reminds me of another lad at a 90 degree bend near where we all lived but he hit it and ended up in the field and the bike and gate in a mess. another mate hit a bend that swung back on itself on his kwacka 650 and hit a car he had a 6 month stay in hospital and ended up limping for life .i had a close one on my 250 starfire when another bend was a tight 90 and i ended up nearly scraping the handlebars on the top of a dry stone wall as i mounted the grass bank opposite , good job nothing was coming the other way.

[Bodger paul]

Was hoping to have my first ride on my newly purchased BSA A7...Not ridden a British bike for a long long time so the change in gear selector to the right and also one up and not down was on my mind. Bikes been running well but when pushed out of the shed yesterday it didnt want to start  ...Quick check for a spark and that was fine. I cleaned and flushed the tank out a couple of weeks ago and the previous owner had cleaned the carb just before i bought it. Perhaps i dislodged a bit of gunge or something and its now blocking the jets...Next job...carb strip and clean.
Was looking forward to my first ride, The joys of owning an old bike...