Oh don’t I feel the twat! A friend at work gave me a little shot of his brand new Honda CBR125 - I’ve only ridden my YBR 125 for about 5 months now, I’m very confident on my bike, but his has a totally different feel.
Rode it fine up the street, changed gears without problem etc, but went to turn it slowly in a tightish turning circle and dropped it gently to the ground. Fairings all good, but scratched and dented the exhaust a little.
This makes me sad not only because I dropped his brand new bike, but also I want to get a CBR600 in September when I’m ready to upgrade. If I can’t even handle the weight and turning circle of the cbr125 what hope do I have on the CBR600 =(
Or will it just take lots of gentle practice with that style bike?
Dont worry- No major damage done, its experience when you learn from stuff. Bar height, width & angle make a difference to feel but the physics is much the same on any format. Get your balance, plan your move and just do it.
If you do get a CBR600 (or any faired bike as a first), I highly recommend crash bungs. Saved me a whole lotta money on plastics so far, paid themselves off within weeks! It does make the bike look a tad less attractive maybe but I’m willing to sacrifice that.
Otherwise, just get a naked bike
Oh no, I can imagine you feel absolutely gutted, hope your mate’s not taken it too badly.
Crash bungs or engine bars are a must to be honest, they’ve save me a ton too. On one occasion my bike was knocked over in a car park when I wasn’t there. Crash bung saved a whole load of damage.
I feel quite embarrassed that’s for sure as it was at work, so I’m sure that will spread around the whole office! haha
I’ve never ever, crashed, dropped my bike or come anywhere near close to anything bad.
Mate was really nice about it, lucky he had crash bung, saved the fairings, not a scratch thank god!
I’ve had the bike for a year now and I dropped it 3-4 times. It’s especially sketchy on slopes and sloped turns.
The weight doesn’t help. In fact the last time I dropped it was just a few months ago.
You do get used to manoeuvring it though and the weight doesn’t matter most of the time.
I find that 3 point turns happen more often than U turns though!
Slow speed maneuvering is a skill, and it does take time and practise before it becomes second nature. To be honest sports bike do not have the best turning circles, so perhaps something other than the a CBR maybe better.
And don’t worry to much the amount of “I’m a great biker, I can ride road x at 300mph” a lot of those people can barely handle a bike at slow speed, and wobble around with their feet to maintain balance.
The key is balancing the clutch and throttle, and using the rear brake to control the speed of the bike. You also need to keep the revs up.
Find a quiet bit of road, or a supermarket car park on a sunday and practise.
I was the same with my courtesy bike when i crashed my CBR125. My courtesy bike which has seen 2000 miles now is a CBF125 and i think the F stands for Fat… It feels so much heavier and wider even now after riding for 2 months… Still waiting for my little CBR to come home Had the date put back from the 16th April 5 times now to the 26th May… Not at all happy
A moron in a 4x4 decided to pull out on me and stop in the middle of the road while the road was wet. Attempted to swerve him and clipped the back right corner of his car damaging my knee, straining my back, denting the exhaust, ripping the right indicator off and some other right hand fairing damage. All in all I felt quite lucky and proud that I managed to avoid going straight in to the side of his car… Would have been a lot worse off for both me and the bike.
Well done man! I haven’t been in such a bad situation yet, plenty of moments where I thought, lucky I decided to slow down there or **** would have got serious, but nothing like that. I hope I respond well to the situation!
If (fingers crossed it doesn’t)… But if the time comes it’s a natural reaction to move yourself out of harms way so you just do it without thinking. At least that’s what happened to me… Saw the car… Swerved without thinking about it.
Had the date put back from the 16th April 5 times now to the 26th May… Not at all happy