I earned the last leg of the Triple Crown of motorcycling mishaps when I dumped the SV in a parking lot this morning. (The first leg was riding the Rebel into a ditch while attempting a u-turn and the second was experiencing the Rebel slip out from under me while in a gravel parking lot.)
I’m a little shy of 600 miles on the SV, but my first service was scheduled for 9 am. The weather in Oregon has been awful for the past week, and when I set off it was in the low 50s with a light rain. I was geared up, liners in my jacket and pants, but quickly realized that I really should have worn my fleece under my jacket. It’s a 50 mile ride to the dealership in Salem, and damn, it was cold!
I was an ice cube when I pulled into the dealership parking lot. I stopped, turned the bike off, put down the sidestand, started to tilt the bike to the left, and — you know what’s coming — felt the sidestand spring back up just when the bike was too far over for me to recover. Oops: a zero MPH dumpover to announce my arrival at the dealership!
Thanks to the motosliders I installed a few weeks back, I avoided any real damage to the bike except for a tiny scratch to the clutch lever and another on the mirror. One of the service techs helped me up and lifted the bike for me. I thanked him and said something along the lines of, “I can’t believe I forgot to put the sidestand down!” but he noted that he saw me put it down, but it had somehow caught in my pant leg as I was putting my leg out to tilt the bike and dismount.
The moral of the story: don’t forget to double-check if the sidestand is secure before getting off the bike. I usually give the stand a little kick with my foot to make sure it’s in place, but my brain must have forgotten that step in its state of frozenness.
The service job went without a hitch and I bought a sweatshirt on sale for the ride home. It rained even harder on the way back and the crosswinds were something fierce, but the sweatshirt made a world of difference. I happened to stumble across a great motorcycle video series on YouTube, and this video in particular does a good job of covering the dangers of riding while frozen:
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Remember the part from the Rider’s Guide? It was a quote from Will Rogers.
Good judgement comes from bad experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgement.
You’ve just learned a little more about personal limits and making adjustments. Part of the natural learning curve riders go through.
The part I really admire is that you shared it honestly. Not many are willing to do that, it seems. The other part I admire is that you were out there in the first place. As you say, the weather isn’t that great. Seems more like November!
Thanks for adding that one to your site. I’ve been riding 5 weeks total, and hoping to ride year round. Now I know to take the video, and irondad’s comments into consideration. Thank you!!
I rode the Rebel to work all winter long, except for those freaky ice and snowstorms. Rain I can handle, but ice? Not a chance.
However, I did get stuck in the snow once. The day started out sunny and fairly warm, but by 5pm it was snowing hard enough to start to stick on the roads. At the time, I lived at the top of the only hill in Corvallis. That commute home was a memorable one. (Nor do I really want to repeat it!)
Oregonians are lucky: with good gear, we can ride year round.