Ducati Monster Forum

I was told by a Duc mechanic that he would not put frame sliders on a motorcycle. He says that at a stand still or slow drop they are good protection, but should you go down while moving they act as a pivot point and the bike ends up worse off than if it just slid on itself. Any thoughts about this?

They seem to slide on the slider alright. Here's one of our members going down on his S4Rs. Bike sustained only minor damage!

youtube.com/watch?v=BuMRyZvYFaY

(sorry you'll have to cut and past that url into your address bar, embedding is disabled on that video)

And an earlier video showing the kind of sliders he had.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB_3IqCMqPs

Big ass lic plate.   :-[

Re: thoughts;  not much more can be added beyond whats already been posted and commented here and the "other" forum.  I have em on my S4R.

Not sure if this is a topic on search yet, but it was at TOB. But your mechanics argument is actually a flip from what most people tend to believe. Believe the facts however you want, i choose to have them on. but.

a) All quality sliders (speedymoto, cycle cats, rizoma etc) are made to snap if there is a sudden force applied to it greater than what it was designed to do. This is to prevent the bike from, just for example, snagging something and getting fliped.

b) in a slow speed drop, or parking lot drop, all of the impact is placed on that one slider. That energy is transfered to your frame and engine. There have been many reported incidences of broken engine blocks an frames from multiple slow speed drops. But i dont see this as an issue unless something delibertly kicks your bike over or you drop at parking lot speeds multiple times without trying to keep it up or lay it down softly. It takes a lot to break the frame and engine.

So its really up you as the end user to decide how you want to protect your bike. Cycle cats are probably the beefiest you can get, Speedy motos are a bit softer than the sliders cycle cat makes, but i believe they also have larger sliders (diameter wise) Rizomas are in a Tetris double L shape. Like one leg of the nazi symbol i suppose

edit. typed this out and got a phone call.

what happened to the guy in that vid? looked like the rear just broke loose and came out. I saw some sparts in the front when it went down too. I assume too much throttle opening her up out of a corner?

Remember there are only TWO bolts that attach the frame to the engine itself.  It isn't good having one that the installer didn't tighten properly.  (I've seen this too many times now as well as 10mm used in 12mm location)  I sometimes wonder if the frame/engine breakage attributed to frame sliders is partly due to improperly tightened bolts.