Life Goes On...

Well, it's been a week since my slide on the Bandit. I am leaving her parked until I have time to read up on diagnosing blinking "FI" (Fuel Injector) lights and riding Burt, my 2003 Honda Shadow Spirit VT750dc, instead.

Anyway, it's very cold and wet outside, but riding in mid-November weather around here seems to bring quite a few smiles and waves from the folks around. Funny stuff.

Having been riding the Suzuki Bandit 1250s for so much of this summer/fall, putting on nearly 5000 miles in just a few months, has made me really clutch and throttle "shy". I got so used to her super-sensitive chip-boosted EFI throttle response and her hydraulic clutch, that I kind of forget what a basic 2003-era carbureted bike with a manual clutch and 500 fewer cc's is like.

In a word: FUN!

With Burt the Shadow, I don't have to worry so much about cranking the throttle open and then holding tight with both knees as the bike tries to throw me off. I also don't have that weird "clutch-hop-thing" as I do with the Bandit, when her hydraulic clutch pulsates and surges repeatedly after she's been sitting in warm neutral for a while.

In brief, it's a lot less work to ride this bike. Obviously Burt's just not as powerful and is also a bit heavier than the Bandit, but that also kinda makes him a bit more fun. Because I just don't have to be as thoughtful about throttle and clutch response, riding becomes a lot more about what's going on with the road and the environment and traffic. I can just crank on the throttle and he zoom's up to a respectable 70 or 80 mph pretty quickly, but it's not like the Bandit, where anything near full throttle opens her up and simultaneously lighten's up the front tire and puts me into triple digit speeds in the blink of an eye.

Given the slippery roads and crosswalks and tar snakes all around right now, and the piles of leftover salt and such from the last snowfall that I'm trying to avoid while riding, moving around with the Shadow is probably the "smart choice" anyway.

[ For what it's worth, I now find myself posting my inside leg subconsciously whenever I take a sharper turn or see any kind of questionable road surface, even with this much-tamer Honda... I guess one low-side (ever) is enough for me, thank you very much...  :-]

First Low-Side...

OK... I almost low-sided on the oiled gravel this summer, and thought to myself for a long while afterwards 'Hey, I'm keeping this bike upright forever!'

Well, so much for that idea.

I know they say, if you ride long enough, you're gonna crash, but I was hoping to get at least a couple years of riding under my belt before my first wheels-up moment. Was not meant to be, I guess.

First, the good - it was a pretty 'easy' low-side accelerating from a stop onto a mall-area street off a coffeeshop driveway. Since I was accelerating, the bike and I traveled quite a ways together until I kicked my trapped right boot out from under, then we both slid to a stop, probably 25 feet of 'sliding fun' in all. Luckily, I also didn't have to contend with traffic, I accelerated into a blank traffic 'pocket' and no cars really threatened me until I could pick the bike up (my Bandit 1250), mount, and paddle-walk to a nearby bank driveway - she wouldn't start back up on the street, I tried and tried.

I was also lucky that I was fully kitted out (ATGATT-promotors will smile) but really mostly because it was in the low 30's outside and I had layered up for a cold day of riding, not because I was planning any long trips or going any kind of distance on unfamiliar roads. I had ridden this same coffeeshop and mall run probably at least 50 times earlier this spring/summer/fall and I was only a few miles away from home. Those fancy new riding jeans (Bull-it SR-6 on clearance from Revzilla) now have a big hole ripped into them, and my riding boots took quite a grinding.

But again, all that better than my skin and bones doing the work of slowing me down. I got a mild road rash underneath where the riding jeans and "Bull-it" lining finally wore through to the skin, but nothing worse than if I had been sliding into home plate.

As for the Bandit, my favorite bike and the one I ride probably 75% or more of the time - she was thankfully sporting both her steel cruising pegs (engine-guard mounted) and her soft bags, so she came away with nothing more than a shredded and twisted up right peg and a busted right turn signal, even after grinding away on the asphalt for a solid 25+ feet.

Phew.

I'll diagnose what happened a bit later on, but honestly I still have no clue. One second I was accelerating onto the (clean/dry) street and starting to lean into an easy righthand turn, and the next second I was on my side with my right boot dragging me along for the ride until I managed to kick out.

I do know that as soon as I kicked out from the bike and was sliding to a stop above it, I could see the "FI" light blinking. I don't believe the motor ran at all during the whole slide, I just saw the back wheel spinning to a stop. I did eventually get the Bandit started after a whole lot of tries (full power-off & power-on tries) and then rode it home without further incident, so really, I have no clue why it went down at all.