Idiot Patrol: Dumbest thing you've ever done with your bike

[Rufus120]

Just in case you want some more ideas

http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=3151.0

[cutter]

Oh boy. Where to start, maybe when I first started riding on an old bmw, I got a serious target fixation on a corner and drove into a ditch. No harm done to me, the bike needed some duct tape to get home. I was riding with friends who were experienced riders and decided to show each other how fast they could go, and I didn't want to get lost. Lesson learned.

Last dumb thing I did was get frustrated behind a bunch of Harleys on a good twisty spot in NH, after a few miles I spotted a gravel turn off and went in too hot. The gravel and braking led to the inevitable front wheel deciding to lay down- somehow I managed to get both feet on one side of the bike and surfed along with it trying to keep it up. Scraped up the bikini fairing and bent the brake pedal, but that was nothing compared to what an idiot I felt like with the stream of riders who had all gotten stuck behind the hogs with me who watched the whole thing and pulled over.

[fastwin]

No interesting crashes or goofy garage drops. But probably 25+ years ago I was riding my Honda 750 Interceptor on the highway and happened upon a 40 foot cattle trailer filled with 40 feet of cattle. In a classic case of wrong time/wrong place one bovine decided to let loose with the world's loosest bowel movement and I got coated from head to foot with wet cow poop. Couldn't even see through my face shield. It was like hell on a bike. Lesson learned. NEVER EVER follow a cattle trailer!!!

[ducpainter]

Would riding off from a stop with the fork lock locked qualify as dumb?

It certainly did hurt.

[KRJ]

  Woke up one morning in My front yard, with the Neighborhood Kids poking Me with a stick, I then discovered I was pinned under a KZ1000.When I hollared for My roommate the Kids all ran off, appearently they thought I was dead. Several minuites later I was free, leg was numb for an hour, worst damn hangover I ever had...

[zooom]

  Woke up one morning in My front yard, with the Neighborhood Kids poking Me with a stick, I then discovered I was pinned under a KZ1000.When I hollared for My roommate the Kids all ran off, appearently they thought I was dead. Several minuites later I was free, leg was numb for an hour, worst damn hangover I ever had...

now THAT sounds like a helluva "hold my beer and watch this" story!!!

[mitt]

No interesting crashes or goofy garage drops. But probably 25+ years ago I was riding my Honda 750 Interceptor on the highway and happened upon a 40 foot cattle trailer filled with 40 feet of cattle. In a classic case of wrong time/wrong place one bovine decided to let loose with the world's loosest bowel movement and I got coated from head to foot with wet cow poop. Couldn't even see through my face shield. It was like hell on a bike. Lesson learned. NEVER EVER follow a cattle trailer!!!

that's great 


mitt

[eichh]

Dumbest thing on my Monster would be coming out of a local watering hole. They had an outdoor beer garden so I had an audience of 10 checking out my bike once I fired it up. So as I'm putting on my gloves with my helmet still on the tank I bring my leg down to sweep up the kickstand when my pant leg catches the shift lever putting it in 1st which lunges it forward 2 feet and kills it. So not having my hands on the bars I smash my nuts into the tank and about blow a nut trying to keep the bike from falling over with just my legs. I left in a hurry after that.

On my old Shadow I took a wrong turn so I was going to cut through a parking lot except there was a curb and small walkway. I figured a 6" tall curb shouldn't be to hard to get over and it wasn't except the walkway was only about 2 feet wide so I ended up bottomed out on my frame. Fortunately it was 11 at night so nobody was around to see me trying to wrestle a 600 pound motorcycle off a curb in the middle of a bank parkinglot.

I learned something from both incidences so I got that going for me.

[DucofWestwood]

several submissions ...

1st day ever commuting on the bike: stalled coming away from a red light in busy santa monica blvd traffic.  panicked.  re-started.  let the clutch out too fast and did a massive wheelie in the middle of traffic.

1st gas fill-up: couldn't figure out how to make the pump work on a bike.  gas station attendant had to show me how to hold the spring back to activate the pump.  didn't feel very cool.

pulling out of office parking garage on my new (to me) s2r1k, feeling cool with a small group of people watching.  rev'd the throttle to show off the exhaust.  immediately the engine cut-out.  this was before i took it to speeddog to have that little issue fixed.

just recently ... used my "throttle as horn" technique to alert cars at an approaching intersection so they wouldn't make a left turn in front of me.  except when i revved the throttle, i forgot to pull the clutch in.  went flying thru the intersection with a massive case of whip-lash.

[Teutonics]

Two for me...

First was with my first bike, met a friend to go riding and we're in his driveway just getting back. Sitting on my bike I take my helmet off and hook on the handlebars, which proceeds to drop to the ground.  Brand new Arai bounced on the concrete, so not thinking I reach down to catch it and the bike tips with me... into his bike... which then tips into his new car!  No damage to either bike, but his handlebar slides down the quarter panel.  Ugly.

Fast forward several years to renting Harleys to tour around Las Vegas area (that could be the dumb part, but there's more).  Never ridden a Harley, only sport bikes so not used to the "quaint" performance characteristics.  Heading out of town I look over at a bank that displays time/temp on the sign out front... 118 degrees F...look back and the light at the corner that the bank is on is now yellow.  No big deal, grab a handful of front brake.  And nothing happens.  Step harder on the rear brake and the backend starts to slide on the hot (and greasy) pavement.  Continue the slide through the now red light and finally stop in the middle of the very large intersection looking at traffic starting at me.  So much for the Harley mystique.   

[dennisd]

A group of us were going out for a ride (cruiser group, I was on my HD).  One of the members of the group is handicapped from a car wreck many years ago.  She rides a Harley Sportster trike.  We stopped at a gas station to fill up before the ride.  I gassed up my bike then went over to hand the nozzle to her so she could fill her tank.  When we were all ready to ride, I picked my bike up off the kickstand (jiffy stand in Harley speak) but to my embarrassment, I got a leg full of gas.  Seems like in my effort to help her fill her tank, I forgot to put my gas cap back on.  To make matters even worse, when I noticed the gas sloshing out I quickly tried to put the bike back on the kickstand to stop the flow.  Harley kickstands are spring loaded to hold them up while riding but have a notch to lock them in the deployed position.  When I had picked up the bike, the kickstand came out of the notch and therefore didn't catch the bike.  It proceeded to fall over against the gas pump. 

[Monster Dave]

Really early one morning a few years ago, I decided to ride my sweetie's Monster to work since it hadn't been ridden in a while. So I gave it a quick once over to make sure all was good, and noticed that it was a little low on oil. So I added the necessary amount of oil, and then geared up and rode down the street.

As I rode along in our neighborhood, something just didn't seem right....and I noticed that my right foot felt like it was wet...

So I stopped only to discover that in my haste, I had forgotten to put the oil cap back on and I had oil all over my right foot and up my pant leg!!!




Oops!! I never did that again!!!

In my defense, it was close to 5am in the morning...

I'm sure that's not the dumbest thing I could have done, but I sure felt like Gomer after that.

[ducatiz]

I let a friend "try it out."

Yeah, he dumped it. 

Forget it.

[muskrat]

A group of us were going out for a ride (cruiser group, I was on my HD).  One of the members of the group is handicapped from a car wreck many years ago.  She rides a Harley Sportster trike.  We stopped at a gas station to fill up before the ride.  I gassed up my bike then went over to hand the nozzle to her so she could fill her tank.  When we were all ready to ride, I picked my bike up off the kickstand (jiffy stand in Harley speak) but to my embarrassment, I got a leg full of gas.  Seems like in my effort to help her fill her tank, I forgot to put my gas cap back on.  To make matters even worse, when I noticed the gas sloshing out I quickly tried to put the bike back on the kickstand to stop the flow.  Harley kickstands are spring loaded to hold them up while riding but have a notch to lock them in the deployed position.  When I had picked up the bike, the kickstand came out of the notch and therefore didn't catch the bike.  It proceeded to fall over against the gas pump. 

I hate the jiffy stand.  I too had my Hardley fall on me in the parking lot of IHOP in front of a Sunday crowd.  The spring picked up the stand as I was moving it into the lock position.  I got cheers and several hands to pick that beast up.  I drove off to eat elsewhere

[DucHead]

Long story short: ~60 mile ride through rural Montana in rain and lightning at night at 1.5 x the posted speed limit.