Bandit Alley
GENERAL MOTORCYCLE FORUMS => GENERAL MOTORCYCLE => Topic started by: BanditoNova on August 06, 2008, 05:03:43 PM
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Watch out for the manhole covers!
Was up in Barrie Ontario over the last weekend, perfectly hot dry day. Came out of a parking lot into an intersection making a left hand turn. 2/3rds of the way through the intersection my rear wheel comes out from under me, and before I have time to even think about feeling the adrenaline in my guts, my left foot bounces off the pavement and then the bike stands itself up and I'm riding along as though it never happened. I took a look back at my wife who was in the car behind me and her face was as black as thunder. We went to the relatives house (2 mins away) and I said I just had to go back and see if there was oil on the road or gravel etc. Once I get back all I see is a bone-dry manhole cover (which I failed to see the first time) right in the middle of my turning arc. I never knew how slick they could be when dry.
Lesson learned - almost the hard way :roll:
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So glad you were able to pull out of it. Thankfully our manhole covers in Cali are either on the sidewalk or near the gutter. The yellow painted lines are another story. I have accelerated while the rear tire was on yellow paint and the rear just floats over till it hits pavement, then bites. I leave skidmarks everytime.......in my drawers lol. :yikes:
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:yikes: :yikes: :yikes:
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I have a lot of railroad track around here that I drive over every day. Those rails are slippery as snot. Man hole covers are also pretty bad.
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manhole covers are bad, but not as bad as the:
1) steel grates they put in the streets of subway vents...
2) the large steel plates they put in the road to cover construction in progress during rush hour.
I've been down on the grates before in the rain. It's amazing how fast a sliding bike will stop when the various levers and bits drop into the holes in a steel grate. :rant2:
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Ouch . . . . I'll consider myself lucky - and warned!
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It's amazing how fast a sliding bike will stop when the various levers and bits drop into the holes in a steel grate. :rant2:
:lol:
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bike parts are better than toes, fingers, or "other" protruding parts. LOL!
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Manhole covers are no fun. I have a cool little sweeper through the industrial area I work in. It has maybe 7 or 8 of them. It's an exciting little twist trying to find the right line through there! :yikes:
Add to that the 100 yard long metal grate bridge I cross on the way home every day.... makes the commute more interesting!
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Add to that the 100 yard long metal grate bridge I cross on the way home every day.... makes the commute more interesting!
metal grate bridges are a disaster. Back in the early 90's I was on marathon ride from DC to MA. Let me tell you, the TappanZee(sp?) bridge is a scary nightmare on a gs450 in heavy cross winds and rush-hour traffic. And then once you get across it the unbelievable maze of potholes big enough to swallow a Buick... :annoy:
So my meeting with the road grate: I was working as a motorcycle messenger (the craziest combination of stupid and fun job all in one) in Wash DC, pretty new to motorcycling (maybe a year). It was raining and I was working over in Rosslyn Va, just across from Georgetown. I was coming up to a green light and it changed on me. Rather than push it through the yellow in the rain (I was turning too...) I decided to stop instead. Big mistake. The only place to stop was rolling up on the grate, probably 6 feet wide and 10 feet long. The brakes on an 82 gs450e aren't all that hot... as soon as I hit the metal, the front wheel washed out. :yikes: I stayed on the uphill side, somehow. When the bike actually hit the pavement, it stopped dead with a bar-end/lever and who knows what else hanging up in the grate. I popped off the thing and landed on my feet at a slow run, slipped and banged my knee pretty good.
It snapped the end off the clutch lever, bent the bar on the left side, minor ding in the tank, big bruise on my knee and that's about it. Oh, and my pride... I finished the day with a bent bar. That was fun. :annoy:
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we call those bridge grates "cheese graters"
bikes stop dead, people get grated
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AndrewSW: Was there an appreciative audience? There ALWAYS is for me - a bunch of slack jawed bystanders who stare like dumkins. :roll: :duh: :annoy: :clap: :yikes: :congrats:
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Naw, no audience that time :thumb:
I had a whole group of tourists gawking once when I hit the tarmac in shorts... :annoy: (back when I was both young and stupid, unlike now when I'm a little older). I tried to pick up the old gs450 (it was still running! Gotta pick it up before it stalls) with a broken wrist and no skin left on my knees. literally. I must have been quite a gruesome sight for them... :rofl: