I had a really wierd day yesterday. I had a lot of errands to run, but nothing to haul so I rode the bike around town for most of the day. Even went down to the area where we had our MSF class and went through some of the exercises and things that they had laid out on my FXDI and at slightly higher speed than I did on the 250cc Hondas. After spending about 20 min. doing this, I got off the bike to have a smoke before I left. Just as I was finishing I heard another bike. It took me a while to realize that he was also speeding around the course. Put my helmet back on and started to leave and he was leaving at the same time. Heard him ask, "Is that your bike. Looks nice." Said yes and thank you and looked over at him and realized that it was one of my MSF instructors. We were going the same way, so rode together for a about 2 miles. Really neat to ride with my instructor.
Even though most of my riding had been around town and I seldom got over 35-40 mph, it was a great day.
Pulled into my parking lot at our apartment and the bike started missing real bad. Started to park in one spot, then changed my mind and went around to the other side. There was an A/C repair truck parked so that it angled across two spots (one of them being the one I wanted), but there was still room for me, just required a little turn. As I start to make the turn, I'm riding the friction zone and go to give it more throttle and the bike sputters and dies. Well, you can guess the rest. Low speed maneuver, no power. Down goes the bike and me. Helmet makes a nice crashing sound on the concrete and reminds me that I'm glad I'm wearng it. I'm struggling with gettng it up when the repairman comes down and gives me a hand. It doesn't start right away, so we push it into the parking spot and then it fires right up. I think the problem was that it was in the lower 90's and I'd hit a lot of red lights on the way home and the EFI was self correcting to keep the engine from overheating is why it died.
Anyway, now I am totally p*ssed and hot sweaty and legs are shaking from the exertion of trying to get it up while standing in a small puddle of oil that it leaked when it fell. I had been wearing Dockers instead of Levi's since I was seeing people on my errands, so I burnt my leg twice.
About an hour later, I rode the bike about 2 miles to a local restaurant to meet my wife and noticed that although the bike had fallen on the left side that the right side mirror was way off of adjustment. At the first light, I went to fix it and it just spun around. The nut had vibrated off of the mirror somehow in the 130 miles since the dealership installed my new handlebars. Fortuneately, there was a real good auto parts store 1/2 block from the restaurant and after we ate, I went over there and took the mirror in and they fixed me up with a nut and locknut and a wrench to tighten it down.
My thoughts now are that I couldn't believe how nice it had been being on the bike most of the day and then how I let a couple minor things really bum me out. What a strange thing the human brain is.
BTW, Bike and rider are both fine. I felt the affects of the fall for a couple hours, but took some aspirin and felt fine this morning. I left the bike at home today because I had three guitars to carry around and needed the car, but still plan to use the bike more for weekday travel even if it's around town.
Just needed to vent and help myself to put things into perspective. Thanks, Art

 

Damn Ace,

Ya gotta get that baby out of town and pick up the speed a little before you really get hurt.

I don't know how many times I have been lopping the engine around a tight turn and have it pop and die and well you know the rest. Once you get to a certain angle there ain't no stoppin it. Haven't done it in several years (probably because my EFI doesn't pop and die like my carb bikes did).

Give me a shout sometime.

Terry

 

Howdy Art, glad to hear that everything is fairly OK after your little accident. Sometimes it is nice to just ride around and just goof off instead of doing the errands.

 

Just goes to show that it can happen to anyone. Glad you and the bike are okay. Thanks for sharing the story.

 

Glad you and the bike are o-k, it does happen when you least expect it.

 

Oh man Art, I got sick when I read that story when I came to the part where you laid it down, glad you are OK and didn't get more than a burn out of the deal and a bit of damaged pride. If I could make a suggestion with the slow speed maneuver, use your clutch and feather it in case of a sudden stopage of the motor you wouldn't be under full power from the motor and if it stalled, chances are you wouldn't stop abruptly and cause a fall much like locking up the breaks. Don't give up on that puppy because of this. Check the oil levels and pay attention maybe with an oil temp gauge to what the temps are doing to see if the bike is overheating. The oil temps would be an indication if the motor was over heating. The ecm heat management would only start to kick in when the motor itself was in the 320* range (engine temp) and at that temp, you would be cooking your nuts off.

Take a look here https://www.hdforums.com/m_64815/tm.htm

 

gosh, glad to hear both of you are doing o.k. Hope the burn wasn't too bad. Goes to show ya - you never know and always always have to be prepared. But you know my stories by now - have laid her a few times and done a few stupid things when I wasn't prepared.

 

i dropped mine 2 days after i painted it. put my foot down on someones discarded coffee cup. i was plenty mad, and to add insult to injury, some dude in a cage behind me laid on his horn and yelled for me to get my *** out of the way that he was in a hurry! it got ugly from there!

 

Art, forget the laydown, just chalk it up. Great day otherwise right?

Mike, it got ugly, details man, details.

 

Art, glad you are ok.
Also glad to see you posting again, thought you flew the coupe
Some day, I could meet you at Chucks Harley[8D]