Man, those dudes can ride. If he was chasing you, might as well just make it easy on yourself.


In Milwaukee, if the road isn't iced, the MC cops are on the roll. I worked with a guy who rode for them for 29 years, it's very humbling to have your *** handed to you by an old man.

 

No kidding. When he shows up to the competitions the other officers kind of give up. Donnie is the best in Texas I'm told. He teaches a couple of motorcyle courses, one for new riders and an advanced course. I've thought many times about taking his advanced course. I'm sure he could teach this old rider a lot of new stuff..

 

I had my first hard scrape yesterday. I went past the point of the board hinge and hit something with no give. Not sure what it was. I was merging onto a four lane highway. Accelerating from ramp speed to 55 mph or so as I was making a 90 degree turn. More like a 90 degree curve. I did not feel I was doing anything super aggressive and I was surprised to scrape at all, much less hit that hard. I was merging into right side of the right lane and the scrape bumped me to the left part of the right lane. So no big deal, but it made me realize I have more to learn about the handling characteristics of this bike.

I could not tell whether it was the board support that hit or something else. It felt very solid. Since I was accelerating, I wonder if it was sitting into the rear and something in the back hit. Since it is a 25 year old bike, I wonder if replacing the rear shocks would help the bike stand up to riding in a more spirited manner would help. I have discussed the idea of replacing shocks before. Progressive 422s have been suggested. Others have said the bike seems to be sitting as it should and does not need new shocks.

Or perhaps I should look at something with a touring frame. But I do like this bike. And I do not ride super aggressively. On the other hand, I am not a very experienced rider and I want to make sure I am not on a bike that is going to bite my novice ***.

 

I forgot about some good advice given in a riders' course and crashed. "There are two kinds of riders; bold and old and one rarely gets to be the other." After my crash I read on this forum another good piece of advice. "Scraping a floorboard should be a warning, not a goal." Sounds like you might want a sportbike and a track. Don't get me wrong. I still love to throw my Deluxe into a corner, but the spectre of a year's recovery keeps me from scraping.

 

Best advice I've read yet tafdeluxe -- as I had a close call to keep me " old "

 

Thanks. I am not trying to scrape by any means. And I do not feel that I ride aggressively. But I do have other bikes with better handling characteristics.


I have taken the scrapes as a warning and I am trying to understand the limits of the bike. I did not feel that I was riding that aggressively so I was surprised at the scrape, especially that it was a hard scrape. Just trying to figure out if:


1. Just a random event and no big deal
2. I need to either ride the bike more conservatively or ride a bike that handles better
3. Replace or adjust the shocks.


I also have a Versys 650 but I am probably going to sell it since I ride more conservatively than that bike was designed to be ridden.


I have a DRZ400S which I a planning to keep since it is a great around town bike and gives me some off road ability.


I want to keep my 92 Softail since it is my favorite bike and belonged to an old friend so it has some sentimental value. But I want to make sure I ride it the way it was designed to be ridden.

 

We have a "snake road" leading to where I live. It has 5 right angle turns. After riding my Honda sport bike and then I jump on the 2009 Fatboy I drag the crap out of my boards. I do not feel I am anywhere near the edge. I hate draging the boards. They were expensive chrome jobs. At least you don't really notice the missing metal until you get down on the ground.

 

To me that is a Big Dadgum Deal. When the tire gets levered off the ground it as often as not can produce very painful results.

I am not familiar with your MY Softail and why it scraped a non pivoting part easily. There are a few things you can do-

Measure a few points on your bike, then measure the same points on a similar bike...perhaps yours is lowered and you can get it back to stock height for a bit more clearance.

Lean your body weight more and the bike less.

Use some trail braking thru the curves-by using a little back brake along with some throttle, it will lift the rear of the bike and give you additional clearance in the curves.

Hang the back of your boots off the outside back of the floorboards...that way you will feel them scrape Before the hard parts start to scrape...sort of an early warning signal. I do this when I'm riding with the wife...she is not particularly fond of scraping.

 

More than once while leaning into a curve and not dragging the board I have hit a dip in the road, this cause the suspension to compress and scrape the board real good. I try to be more aware of those low spots now.

 

This may have happened to me or maybe there was a bump in the road.