Scraping the Kickstand Sucks!


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buzzbomb

Senior Member
Elite Member
I nearly screwed the pooch once again. A 15mph turn, taken not quite too fast. Scraped the hell out of the left peg, and dragged the kick stand. Scared the crap out of me, as it was dragging my bike down.

Lifted the bike up, so it wasn't dragging and now I'm headed for the woods. Lots of lean and correction and back and forth, and I managed to keep the bike on the road and made the turn. Barely. It was pretty darn hairy.

I shouldn't have dragged anything on that turn. I was going pretty quick, sure, but not too quick. My form was assed and the bike was way too leaned over.

Just a side road on the way to work. I was shaking for an hour after I got there.

The moral of the story is that it's been weeks since I've got to ride up and run my twisties. I was rusty. Gotta keep it current, or back down.
 
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Nastybutler

Cynical Member
Elite Member
Gixerhp said:
I changed the pegs on Jens bike, because she was dragging the peg as well as the kick stand.
I also ground the kickstand stop, so the kick goes up higher.

Pics of the pegs are in this post, http://www.600cc.org/forum/f89/rizoma-goodies-24293/index6.html

Second post on the page!
Click to expand...
As buzzbomb alluded to, if she's scraping pegs and other hardware, then rather than modify the bike, she should learn proper form. The reason he, and anyone, could scrape the kickstand is because he wasn't anywhere close to proper form while going faster on a public street than is safe. That was the whole point of the OP, which you apparently completely missed.

I challenge you, or anyone, to lean your bike over by hand with help, while stopped of course, until the kickstand touches and then look at where your tires are contacting the ground. You won't have much, if any, room to make an adjustment in the corner.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
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Gixerhp

Member
Nastybutler said:
As buzzbomb alluded to, if she's scraping pegs and other hardware, then rather than modify the bike, she should learn proper form. The reason he, and anyone, could scrape the kickstand is because he wasn't anywhere close to proper form while going faster on a public street than is safe. That was the whole point of the OP, which you apparently completely missed.

I challenge you, or anyone, to lean your bike over by hand with help, while stopped of course, until the kickstand touches and then look at where your tires are contacting the ground. You won't have much, if any, room to make an adjustment in the corner.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
She dragged on The Dragon, and i was right behind here, there was nothing wrong with her form or cornering ability.
The kickstand does drag, and i rode the bike after, and was able to duplicate the the scenario.
 
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BoneJj

Well-Known Member
Gixerhp said:
She dragged on The Dragon, and i was right behind here, there was nothing wrong with her form or cornering ability.
The kickstand does drag, and i rode the bike after, and was able to duplicate the the scenario.
Click to expand...
sorry bud, but you're doing it wrong and so is she.

If she's getting the bike over that far she's certainly far past proper wheel angle. Not trying to be a Dbag about it but the bike was designed the way it is for a reason. If she's not learning off the side on a tight turn and keeping the bike up higher so that it doesn't drag then she's doing it wrong.

If you have some trailing video of her taking said corners that she's scraping on then there would be something to look at and really get the discussion going but right off the bat it really does read as bad form that is causing her to drag the side of the bike.
 
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buzzbomb

Senior Member
Elite Member
Gixer, Bone and NB are correct as to the point I was making. I wasn't bragging about dragging stuff. Dragging stuff is bad. It means I was doing something seriously wrong.

When I was running up to Rockinham, NC and hitting my twisties all the time, proper form was becoming second nature. It was becoming muscle memory. I was studying everything I could and applying what I was learning in an advancing curve. Nearly every run was better than the last (except where I hit a plateau for a couple runs, but that's another story.)

Because I haven't been able to run some real twisties in so long, my skills were seriously lacking on that turn and it almost caused me a bad wreck.

It would please my ego greatly to allow for the possibility that my form was awesome, and I was screaming through that turn so fast I looked like a GP racer, and only scraped parts because of the way the bike is designed.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. I was seriously crossed-up (and maybe entered the turn a wee bit too fast :rolleyes:) and it caused me to have lean the bike much further over than if I had taken the turn correctly.

I'm not busting on you or Jen. You might be very skilled riders. Heck it takes some skill to get to the point where one consistently drags parts and lives to tell about it. But I screwed that turn badly and the dragging parts are both proof of that and a warning:

All my gear is of very limited protection if I wrap myself around a tree because my skills weren't where I thought they were.
 
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