So my bike tried to kill me

Sorry for your bad luck. If you don't have one, a suspension fork will smooth out bumps, but maybe not potholes. So will fat tires like Schwalbe Big Apples.

Motorized bikes are like wild animals. Fun to ride, but they'll try to kill you. Mine tries to kill me too. Most of mine had to do with the bike chain.

hows your leg?

A few days ago, I burned my forehead and my inner bicep. That's nothing compared to the major blisters on my right inner thigh. Now I always wear long pants when I ride.

Motor mount stud broke?? Must have been one **** of a pot hole.

Mine has actually stopped trying to kill me surprisingly. It just gets super dirty and spits gas at me.

for me the Chicago pot holes try to kill me already cost me at least 2 new back tires and 1 rim

It is my humble opinion that potholes are a VERY underestimated safety hazard. I drive like somebody's grandpa on roads I know to be full of them. My old Higgins has surprisingly good rake and trail combination and, with the engine lowering the center of gravity a bit, I can weave and dodge pretty easily. But I've grown to hate potholes.
To give you an idea how much: when I lived in Cleveland one of the cars I drove was a gigantic '79 New Yorker. It was no good for dodging on short notice. I was heading home driving up Mayfield Road when I saw a "sinkhole wannabe" coming up quick. No room to swerve, no time to brake nearly enough, so I braced myself. It was big enough to stop my barge dead! Front driver's-side wheel sank to the frame, and the ball joint snapped. And my steering wheel pile drove me. Tie rod was messed up too. Battery jumped loose of its holder. And all the trash that was in the back was in the front. It was a mess. Cost me plenty to fix everything. I mucking HATE potholes.

NJZ- Glad you didn't seriously wreck! That sounds pretty scary. If you think the problem may have been being able to get to your mounting bolts, while checking chain tension I noticed my motor was loose at the plate. Since it's pushed all the way to the left, there's very little room to get a tool on the motor mount bolt from underneath. I sacrificed a super high quality 3/8 "Pittsburgh CHROME VANADIUM INDIA" wrench fo... wait- India? lol Anyway, I made what was needed to get in that space with the handy Dremmel. You might do the same.

BTW the thread title had me chuckling!

NJZ said:

Got everything almost dialed in perfect, running smooth, strong and quiet I ran VP 110 @ 32:1 and the engine was in love. I may half it 110/93 add oil and should be somewhere right at about 100ish octane I think. The straight 110 is nice but not nice enough to run it regularly at 9.89 with tax.

So hit pot hole motormount stud broke scorching engine kicks sideways sears my leg with the cooling fins like a flatiron steak. snaps drive sprocket cover. But on the bright side managed not to flat out wreck.

Click to expand...

Gotta watch out for pot holes. I almost ruined a rim the other day from a pot hole. hope you sounds heal quickly! Dont let it scare ya off. I had an accident a few weeks ago and almost quit motorized bike riding..I went back to my original kit i was riding and everything has been fine. I think 27mph is plenty fast enough for me on a bicycle. it just hurts so much more when you going 35 or 40..

Due to traffic and road design I had no choice but to deal with a few pot holes on my beast a while back. They did nasty things to the back wheel. The last leg of the trip home the wheel felt bad under me, hard to describe but definately not right. It had loose spokes, a slight warp and it was out of round. I had to tighten up spokes, true it, and then make it round again. On the upside, I understand more about how to fix that now.

Excerpt from my thread posts 128 and 129, avoiding damaging your bike and yourself too.

http://motorbicycling.com/showthread.php?p=479597#post479597

"With previewing the trail with a friends Yamaha 125 I was thinking it may be too much for my Briggs motor bike going back up the trail as the incline was a bit. The bumps were not to bad and the loose gravel on the trail you had room to go around usually.

I was cautious to where I turned around so that I had a running start. It did it fine. By the way there were some trails that I would get so far and just turn around. This even on the Yamaha 125 I would not have attempted. I'm not that good a rider. I saw a gully about 10 feet down and 25 feet across and knew the machine could handle it, but even if you fell and were OK, how to get enough running start when the flat on the bottom of the gully was only 3 feet across!

I guess in that case you use the engine to get it out while you walk besides the bike, your boots hopefully grabbing as well as the bikes knobby tires.

I know I did that with a 350 street bike when getting in an enormous pot hole on a less than well maintained city street. Then I had to stop for a red light and when I stopped my feet could not touch the ground. I had evaded falling over all the way, but there was no way to hop back on while in a rut."

Looks silly walking besides a motorcycle with your hands on the throttle climbing out of a big pot hole on a city street

MT