Drop my bike and nothing broke!

[Fred W]

I would be willing to bet you a six pack that the mirror frame stay is (at least) cracked under the faring.

The 3rd Gen mirror mount sub-frame is a cast alloy frame and hardly any impact will crack that thing in a hurry.

Just pull off the right side inner faring panel (same one you pull to access the battery) and you'll be able to see for sure.

The weak sub-frame was an incentive to upgrade to the FZ1 mirrors on my 2014 (that along with a desire to see something in the mirrors besides my elbows).

The FZ1 mirrors will fold up where th stock 2nd and 3rd Gen mirrors only pivot laterally (not up)

 

[Uncle Hud]

bluesdog posted: <snipped> When you're feeling bored someday, lay the bike down on some padding, and give it a test.

Now that's really funny! I can hardly pick up my bike by myself, and you're suggesting I intentionally lay her over?

For the record, however, I used a hybrid of butt-on-the-seat and the "bluesdog method" to pick her up when the sidestand folded in BFE west Georgia: butt-on-the-seat as high as I could lift, then squirm around facing the bike (worthy of a porn video), and push with hips and legs to upright .... and gripped hard and leaned backwards to keep her from going all the way over to the other side.

Absolutely depended on secure footing, grippy soles on the boots, and adrenaline from realizing no one would be driving by for 30-45 minutes.

 

[RossKean]

... Try it down slope at a gravelly campsite after the sidestand planted itself into loose ground. Make sure you have 50 lb. of camping gear on the pillion seat when you do it.

 

[Fred W]

Worst low speed drop evah, more than a few years ago...

I'm out on an ADVriders tag ride, which generally means the bike must be in the pitcher of a tag location, on my '05 FJR, in December, in New Hampshire, which means it was fargin cold! The tag was a sign on the side of a pretty steep slopes road, one that you would be worried about leaving the bike parked on long even in gear as it might overcome the engine compression and back itself down hill. (I am just smart enough to know to park the bike uphill whenever possible). But there was a closed gate on the road just past the tag location.

Got my tag pitcher, then jump back onto the bike, and am feeling pretty jazzed up about it, so I figure I'll just pull up on the slope a bit and bang a deft U turn to get out of there. No... stupid rider. These are not a trials bikes. :nono:

Bike tilts in the downhill direction and there is nothing for me to to dab on for at least a foot in the downhill direction. Bike falls down on its right side and makes the most awful crunching noises as it does so.

Adrenaline to the rescue, I have no idea how this mid fifties out of shape slob got on the steeply downhill side of the bike, got "into the textbook position" and levered the bike back up into it's correct vertical axis by myself, and then managed to get onto said bike without further droppage, so that I could then ride home with my tail between my legs and all that machismo pride thoroughly eviscerated.

Here's the tag photo.

The photo really doesn't capture how steep that hill really was. But it does record for posterity what the right side bag looked like before I mangled it.

 

[RaYzerman19]

I'm happy for you that the damage to your bike is very light, but you did break something. The lever certainly and I would call the damage to the mirror, muffler and fairing breaks of a sort. You did in fact get off light. I know of two cases of similar tip overs that cost in excess of $2500 to repair.
I have Canyon Cages front and rear and I added sliders to the front cages. The sliders were made and sold by a former inmate of this forum. When I performed my sudden dismount similar to yours the only evidence was some minor chaffing on the bottom of the right slider and scratching on the bottom of the right rear Canyon Cage.

Canyon cages will not prevent mirror damage, they end up being a fulcrum point. Upper bar ideally should be higher. But you can get lucky if the mirror folds in and your handlebars hit first..... Anyway, if those sliders you added are available, I'd be interested in a set.

 

[El Toro]

For what its worth, a 'Wing is far easier to pick up than an FJR; especially if the FJR goes all the way over. 'Wing has a MUCH lower center of gravity and doesn't really go over very far because of engine guards and bags.

Another bike that is really easy to pick up is the Victory Vision. They've designed that so that it flat out won't go over. It catches itself before it's toggled over and requires an inordinately large torque arm.

As for the videos that show "the proper way to pick up a bike" using your butt and good hand holds, I am in the group that finds that, if the bike has gone over, the slope and surface are such that this flat out never works.

On the bright side, I've never dropped an FJR, but I remember dropping my ST1100 once, and even though I was knowledgable about the "proper way to pick up a bike," I might as well have been pushing a rope.

 

[gixxerjasen]

Canyon cages will not prevent mirror damage, they end up being a fulcrum point. Upper bar ideally should be higher. But you can get lucky if the mirror folds in and your handlebars hit first..... Anyway, if those sliders you added are available, I'd be interested in a set.

Exactly what happened with my sliders, but they did their job. Mirror is cheaper than all that stuff on the side of the bike. And some of that stuff on the side of the bike, if broken, would have left me stranded in the most expensive town to spend time in in the USA.

 

[Lowcountry Joe]

Mike...not being a smart ass ....but what happened that caused the tipover? Glad it wasn't any worse.

 

[mikerider]

Mike...not being a smart ass ....but what happened that caused the tipover? Glad it wasn't any worse.

I was rolling and prepared to make a right turn on a major street. I think with the front already turned, I hit the front brake too hard and it just dropped on the right! I already stopped completely when it slowly went down on the right side and I couldn't hold it!

 

[Uncle Hud]

My tipovers (yes, more than one) have been from the front fork rebound. The bike stops fabulously -- thank you, ABS -- but the front fork compression is always followed by an extension, which throws the bike in the opposite direction.

Even at 5 mph, this "sproing" is enough to toss the bike around pretty hard.

 

[Lowcountry Joe]

Mike...not being a smart ass ....but what happened that caused the tipover? Glad it wasn't any worse.

I was rolling and prepared to make a right turn on a major street. I think with the front already turned, I hit the front brake too hard and it just dropped on the right! I already stopped completely when it slowly went down on the right side and I couldn't hold it!

O well, it happens. I haven't done that on my FJRs (yet) , but I have done it on a touring HD. I had the front wheel to lock-up under braking because of some gravel under the wheel, and before I knew it, it was going over on the right side. No damage at all, just pissed with myself. The HD, weighing 950 lbs, is a lot heavier than the FJR, but the FJR is plenty heavy when trying to upright the bike alone. Chalk-it-up as a learning experience for sure. Ride safe my friend!

 

[eastern5]

hmmm. that mirror looks about right as mine did. My mirror did not break off but it no longer "folds in" the same way as the other mirror. Check that.

 

[Proteus1952]

My dumb a$$ drop occurred about a week after I became the proud owner of a "new to me" 2010 feejer. Damn, I was dreaming about that bike all week and rode it a bunch. Went for a night ride on the interstate loop all the way around Fort Worth just for the pure enjoyment a new bike brings. Stopped to fill it with gas and then popped into the garage to put it to bed for the night. Put the side stand down and felt something odd as I began to lift my right leg up and over. Before my brain could really register what the heck was happening, it was leaning over to the left and rapidly entering the black hole of gravity. Bang! And then the sound of sizzling fuel just waiting to burst into a fireball became apparent. It was all made worse that it had partially fallen into my son's Sportster which shared the same garage, with me sort of trapped in the middle. I had hollered pretty loud for HELP and luckily by son came in to assist quickly with the pickup. Very fortunate that the only damage was a broken mirror that was later repaired for about $250.

Took me a week or two to really sort out in my head what the fudge had happened. I'm 99.9% sure that it was a shoelace that snagged on the side stand and pulled it back just enough to cause it to fail.

Needless to say, those lace up heavy leather boots have been replaced with side zip boots with very short lace knots on each.

BTW - This topic has been typical of why this is such a great forum. I feel pretty dang normal now after perusing all the various instances of Murphy's Law's in action.

 

[smokerider]

Canyon cages are the lifesaver (or paintsaver), and also have kept my bike from going further over. I live in the sticks and we have no driveway, just dirt/gravel and it's usually mud. Me and the Feej have an embarrassingly frequent slow tip over when I get into a good muddy patch of the approach to the barn and either overbrake or even simply have my foot slip while backing down into the barn.

I'm really upper body weak from a deer/bike wreck but I can usually get her back on her feet even standing in mud. It's all legs and position, and the canyon cages keeping it from getting tires up off the ground. Sometimes I just can't do it and the wife has to put her 100lbs into it.

 

[zenwhipper]

This happened to me last summer. True bummer. Scratch damage was left side bag, engine case, mirror and my PIAA aux light. Not that big of deal. But, I drove it home and put in the garage after a more thorough once over only to find a couple months later that my left mirror had bent upward and was not in alignment with the other. So, I did some bender-back-place work and she seems fine. But, here's the interesting part, I have SW-MOTECH mirror extenders that likely added additional leverage to the mirror and resulted in the bending. I need to open up the fairing and see how bad the mirror mount may be.

 

[fetisov]

Well, for 6 years I avoided the dreaded Zero Speed Drop Club, until today.

My better half were out for a lovely ride in BC along the lake, stopped, and when I put my foot down my long shoe lace caught on the rear brake level. At the same time my wife started dismounting (no comments here!) and over she went. Tried to recover going down but I was still in first gear, grabbed the throttle..not a good thing on an AE, jumped from my grasp. Frick!

No real damage except of scratches on my side case and left mirror case, the actual mirror did break. Now looking for a silver mirror for an 06...any ideas where to pick one up? I'll google and EBay as well.

Time for a rum....

 

[steveoreno]

Mike...not being a smart ass ....but what happened that caused the tipover? Glad it wasn't any worse.

I was rolling and prepared to make a right turn on a major street. I think with the front already turned, I hit the front brake too hard and it just dropped on the right! I already stopped completely when it slowly went down on the right side and I couldn't hold it!

I did that once with my old C-10 Concours they were famously heavy and the forum had a section called Connie Droppers anonymous.

 

[FJRPittsburgh]

Motorcycle boots don't have laces. Proper boots would have saved a couple of you. However, I dropped my last FJR with proper boots backing up on a steeply sloped asphalt parking lot. It happens to the worst of us.

 

[Cav47]

Okay, to help all of you feel better(maybe me too) On the recent trip down to the Bayou with my Louisiana friends, my 04 took a dirt nap.

Simply was on some uneven terrain as we waited for a ferry to dock up. I put the left foot down and leaned her over a little. Well the little gravel marbles just never dug into the rest of the gravel. It was like ball bearings underfoot. I tried like heck to keep her up. But loaded full of camping gear and 11 days of stuff said not today. I thought I could hold on to it but no solid footing made a nap inevitable. I did my very best to set her down as gently as possible. I almost busted a nut in the process.

Must have worked because only a few pock marks were visible. A good cleaning and waxing has taken care of 99% of it. The highway peg had the most damage, but when you fold down the stem, the marks go away. The slider has a few marks but those were easily covered as well.

RedFishHunter helped me pick her up and I stressed for a few min, but the stress melted away as soon the non damage was noticed. Might of also had something to do with what a great time I was having.

Oh well, my 04 is not a garage queen at nearly 70K miles. 37K of them are in the last 2 years. "Cause when we ride, we ride" as my friend Pants says.

BTW, that was the first time I had ever put a bike on the ground. Prob won't be the last.

 

[ericboutin]

Oh how I know about the gravel marbles!!! LOL.....yup that was my zero speed drop too. Cliff note version.....owned bike maybe 1 week......riding with my riding buddy (daughter).....she's a bit uncomfortable because my last bike had a backrest, I hadn't gotten my trunk yet for her.....anyway rolling to stop sign luckily on a very untraveled country road......put foot down.....foot slides....damn marbles......bike leans right......i say oh shite......i try to pull bike back upright accidentally rolling on throttle....scares shite out of me.....slip clutch a bit......i say oh fruck.....bike really leans right.....daughter does a nice little roll off the side of bike to the the ground and the bike falls also on it's right side about 3 feet further forward....did i say slipped the clutch!.....i look back see her sitting upright with little birdies circling her head.....i say she's alright and with what has to be pure adrenaline i put bike upright and reach over and put kickstand down and lean her over to the left. We both learned some things that day and she has never again asked me why we gotta put on all that gear to go for a ride!!

Glad it wasn't worse for sure! Welcome to the club let us know what size for your proverbial T-Shirt!!