hey C, it’s not a safe place to be during a lightning storm, under a tree… I hope you have a piece of tape over that exposed foam on your seat. I can tell you from experience it is no fun, riding a motorcycle that has a hole in the seat that the rain saturates the Foam rubber, and every time you sit on that bike for about a week your ass gets wet
As a matter of fact, I did this year for the first time while in the Badlands. I had just returned to my bike after hiking the Notch Trail. I was wearing my tennis shoes and shorts instead of my normal riding boots and jeans. I reached down to pick up the kickstand pad and the bike leaned just a little bit. Normally I can hold it, but I think because I was in my shoes instead of boots the leverage changed. So I slowly let it down and then did the pick up. Since then, I now keep the kickstand down until after I pick up the kickstand pad.
have I ever dropped my big bikes, let’s see. I pulled up to a stop sign leaving my House, and I usually roll through it very slow while looking left and right because there’s not much traffic. Right as I was about to hit the gas, I hear frantic beeping on the horns of someone. I didn’t see anybody coming from the left or the right, I wasn’t prepared to stop, but I was making a panic stop I didn’t prepare myself to make, and I laid my bike on the side. It turned out to be a friend of one of my sons pulling out of the street straight ahead, saying hello. that was my 86 Yamaha venture royale . knocked over by horns about 14 years later, about 30 years later, I was doing a lot of work, valve, adjustment, steering head, bearing lube, pulling the swingarm off to lube the swingarm bearings and lube the driveshaft splines at the U joint. this was on my current Yamaha royal star venture. I had it all back together in my garage, with a brick under the kickstand to hold the bike almost level. I bumped the bike and knocked it over in the garage.. I was 69 years old, and I picked it right up without doing it backwards with my legs.. to be fair, the Venture’s don’t lay perfectly horizontal on their side, the rollover bars keep the bike up at about a 60° angle.. I guess the second one wasn’t really a drop, but a knock over. But the first one about 30 years ago, that was a drop. Other than those two times, I can’t really remember ever dropping a motorcycle all the way back to 1968 I started riding 109 motorcycles ago. i’m not counting crashes at the race, track or crashes, dirtbike, riding, or trials bike riding.. I don’t think a Harley is much heavier than my two ventures, I’ve had three ventures, but I never drop the second or knocked it over.. I also had a Honda Goldwing six-cylinder up until 2021, never even came close to dropping that, and the other heavy bike I had was a BMW K 1200 LT. I actually dropped that bike two times in parking lots because of their weird front end that there’s not compress under breaking. That energy that you have when you’re stopping goes into your fork, springs, and your fork oil dissipates that energy except on BMWs. They have that anti-die front and for some reason, and it just makes the bike a real handful. If you have the bars turned even slightly and you use the front break. That top-heavy weight just makes it want to get away from you, which it did twice to meet under 5 miles an hour both times. But, I hit a deer at 70 miles an hour on that BMW, and I didn’t drop it. $5500 damage 2010 prices for the damage I had the BMW shop fix it. If it makes you feel any better, I do not know anyone on this earth that has not dropped their motorcycle
