Ran over something today...

[sejman]

Out for a little ride today on some very quite country twisties and hear a strange noise from my bike.  I was first concerned that it was the engine missing or something, but it seemed fine after that.  A mile or so later the bike feels very weird - low speed steering was heavy and the bike was squirrely but I thought it was from the road surface.  It got so bad I pulled over to have a look around:



Rode the bike home on the shoulder going about 25 mph and took the tire off and found this:



Yes - there is a chunk of my chopped rear hugger missing and those bright silver spots at the front of the swingarm are fresh gouges.  I must of picked up some kind of shrapnel on the road...thankfully it didn't get jammed and lock up the rear on me.

I was planning on getting some sportier rubber anyway this week for track day on Saturday.

[Moto Motivo]

You are one lucky dude for keeping it on two wheels, that looks nasty

[BMiller]

Yes, very lucky.  Glad it didn't turn out worse.  Luckily it wasn't anything major.

[Curmudgeon]

You were lucky you only clipped it and didn't get a puncture! I did once from a piece of muffler which looked like something off an old Nissan pick-up.  Didn't see a thing until I heard the "clang"

[sejman]

It was punctured - that flap of rubber went right through.  I rolled along home on a completely flat rear tire riding on the shoulder of the road going about 25 mph...took me at least 1/2 hour to go the 10 miles home.

A long time ago when I was just a college kid I took my then new '84 GPz550 from Boston to Ft. Lauderdale and back with a friend on his CB750.  Then we went from Boston to the Rockies and the Grand Canyon and back.  No spares, no tire fix stuff, no extra chain, no cell phone, nothing but a little cash and my Mobil gas card.  Pretty crazy to think what kind of mess we could have gotten into.  Never had even a minor mechanical issue...makes me squirm just thinking about having simple tire puncture while in the middle of absolutely no where...

[Curmudgeon]

Oh, boy! A plug won't help with that!

Last summer my son got a flat in a tubed rear of one of my bikes when we took a long loop out to the mountains, miles from nowhere. That was ~ 2:30 PM. By the time he took my bike home, drove his car to his house to grab his pick-up, over to borrow a pal's bike trailer and back out to me and back home... Definite Chinese firedrill.  We had re-heated pizza ~ 11:30. NOT fun.

On tour I used to carry plugs and air cartridges but fortunately never need them. Fixed a flat from a thorn with a tubed rear on a BMW R90S once in 1977. That was bad enough. Without shaft drive and those great old tool kits, forget it! That was miles from nowhere too but a local did give me some extra air. Not much you can do with a rip usually but find a flat bed or trailer and then a dealer.

[The Mad King Pepe']

Oh, boy! A plug won't help with that!

Yea, you'll need some duct tape at least!





Jokes aside, congrats on making it home. That really looks nasty!

[Blackout]

Maybe someone took a shot at you!!