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I've never heard of any bikes having that. Frankly it reminds me too much of the safety switch on the lawn mower seat.
HD requires some rider interaction: before riding off - look down - make damn sure you kicked up your "jiffy stand". And if you don't look, it just might be a possible painful reminder that you remember the next time. Yep, rider interactive! Imagine that!
And you're lucky they've added the "make sure clutch is pulled in while in gear hitting starter" feature. Ask me how I know -got 1001 examps, including the many times I pogo'd with my ol' jiffy down.
On a different note - I remember more than once that I wished they would've added an electronic feature that would've prevented me from leaning the bike over on the ol' jiffy, without extending said "jiffy". Now that really sucks when ya got a whole group of peeps surrounding you with a welcome! Yep, quite embarrassing to say the least. But the only "electronics" in those days (not too many years ago), was the points and condenser, so to speak.
Do ya sometimes wonder how it was possible to ride cross county without all of the electronic safety's? I wonder how those poor ol' boys and girls got there, really.
Last edited by ftzoid; Sep 22, 2013 at 08:05 PM.
Reason: Do ya sometimes wonder...
Yamaha has had it for an eternity as well. Personally, I hate it.
My favorite is the Honda solution. A rubber tab thingie on the kickstand. If you leave it down and start to lean into a left hand turn, the rubber thingie drags on the ground and flips up the kickstand before you find yourself pogosticking on it.
My 2011 Electra Glide Police has that feature.
My understanding is that all police models and all international models have the switch on the kickstand.
My 12 Ultra won't start while in gear with the stand down, but will start and ride if you pull the clutch in. My 04 Heritage figures if you're pushing the start button you must know what you want and the starter engages, stand up or down, in gear or out, clutch in or out!
I met my sister in law at a Kawasaki dealer to look at a used Vulcan. BIL was working and couldn't get over to look at it. I checked it out and they let me ride it in the parking lot only-couldn't get on the street. Bike checked out OK and she bought it. I rode it to their house and dropped it off.
That night he called me and said there was a problem with it that I had overlooked, obviously. He wanted to know how I got the bike to his house because everytime he put it in gear it would die.
I had a Yamaha VStar before I got the Ultra so I knew the problem as soon as he told me.
I've had the kickstand scrape the ground and retract itself a few times also.
Last edited by smithbrl; Sep 22, 2013 at 09:56 PM.
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