Coming up the A23 through Croydon earlier this afternoon, traffic fairly busy but I’m in no rush so filtering when required in a laid back fashion.
Ahead up ahead I see a scoot being ridden in a fairly erratic fashion (nothing strange there ! ) Anyway a little further ahead I roll up behind him at a set of lights & notice that although the scoot is being held upright, his rear wheel is twisted about 15-20 degrees through the vertical to the left (anti-clockwise) !! :crazy:
Being a scoot, obviously the engine & transmission are also out of line & hanging out to the left, the bodywork & seat unit though showing crash damage was where you’d expect it to be, so presume it was twisted at the swinging arm pivot.
Rider was wearing tracksuit bottoms, trainers etc. with no signs of damage, so I assume an accident hadn’t just happened & he was trying to limp the bike home, but that he’d actually chosen to go out & ride it in such a state, how he got it to go round right hand bends I don’t know !
Sounds like a large and obviously important bolt had started to rattle it’s way loose and finally fell out.
I see loads of important looking bolts in the gutter when stopped at traffic lights etc.
Bikes vibrate a lot and absorb a lot of shock from the road which can loosen things - someone on here a few months back stopped to find one of their front calipers dangling on the end of the brake line after the caliper bolts fell out. . .
So I advise you all to periodically check your nuts.
And check your sump nut - that gets loose and starts spraying your rear tyre with nice super slippery oil ain’t clever either. . . :hehe:
But seriously, I’ve seen something similar to happen on the road. Not quite so extreme and the wheel was wobbling between 10 degrees left and right as it went around. I kept well back from that joker. How people can live with themselves riding bikes in such a sorry state is far, far beyond me. I get freaked out when I feel a tiny wobble in the rear…
Had a Triumph Saint like that, er, years ago. Could never understand why the cornering was so variable. Then a friend pointed out that the bolted on rear sub frame was A: loose and B: the bolt holes had gone oval.* Pretty much had a hinge in the middle.
Could that be why Met. Police sold the thing?
(*I was young and stupid then. Rather than old and stupid.)
Some of the sports mopeds favoured by the stylish chav have plastic bushes in the engine mountings that can wear out and leave the wheel/engine abut 15 degrees out of alignment. I is not that uncommon to see them like this but it does take some serious abuse/neglect. You can be sure that such a scoot is not insured and the brake pads are al ldown tothe metal.
) Anyway a little further ahead I roll up behind him at a set of lights & notice that although the scoot is being held upright, his rear wheel is twisted about 15-20 degrees through the vertical to the left (anti-clockwise) !! :crazy: