have you ever come off your XS ?

[peanut]

I'm curious to know what are the sort of typical accidents that XS rider experience.

I have been reading Lee's account of the recent accident he had and got to wondering just how high the odds are of having some sort of accident on an XS650.?

The only time I came off was at about 15mph and yet the bike (68 BSA Spitfire ) cartwheeled completly over the bars and narrowly missed coming down on top of me. I had only been riding the bike for less than one hour since purchase
There was no warning , nobody else involved and nothing that I could have done to have prevented it.

Exiting a MOT testing station after a bike test (fail on rear light bulb) I turned left accelerated into the traffic and immediately the bike felt like I had slammed into a brick wall and came over the top of me. It was all over in less than a second and the following car did well to stop before going over me.

I found out later that the front brake shoe lining had delaminated from the shoe and jammed in the drum.

What accidents have you experienced on your bikes and what were the circumstances, speed , blame etc ?

 

[JP50515]

Not on my XS. But on my 83' Shadow VT500 I did. It was a weird bit of road, You exit off the highway onto a 1/4 mile long exit ramp that runs directly adjacent to the highway (divided by a median) and on this ramp there are 2 more ramps that enter onto it from streets above the highway. They all converge and then split into entry ramps for two other highways and a side street. Anyway right before the convergence point, an ambulance with not lights or sound suddenly cut off the two cars in front of me and came to a near stop. I hit the brakes, slid sideways for what seemed like forever ( i had time to recognize, what was happening and think "hm maybe I can aim for that gap between the car and the median" and then had time to realize "nope gonna hit em")

Anyway hit them going somewhere close to 50 MPH did a superman over the car and then a hulk smash into the road. Needless to say...I am no super hero, however I walked away with nothing more than a bruised arm and a totaled bike so In one way I beat the road ha.


Funny thing about it was, when I was laying on the ground I remember wondering if I were dead and if I wasn't what was broken. Well when I looked over all I saw were my sunglasses laying in the road and three people in full Chef uniforms...hat and all... getting out of a car and running over and I remember thinking "Yup i'm dead....Chefs are jumping out of cars and coming to take me away...not angels....guess i'm gonna get eaten by something."

Ha nicest chefs I ever met though. They thought I was dead too. Glad I'm not.

p.s. these old bikes hold up a lot better in a crash than the new plastic ones ha. i was impressed

 

[Dakota_Lew]

Not on an XS, but on a CB900, I was racing around on the back roads, and came around a corner leaned hard into the turn and at the last second I saw a crushed beer can in the road and hit it with my front tire and it was just enough to slide out. Both me and the bike ended up in the ditch luckily, my helmet was ground down in the front about an inch(where my teeth would be) from the road when my head was clunking on the ground as i slide across, since then I have never rode without full wrap around helmet, made me a believer in a full face helmet.

 

[Samuraiace]

I was riding to work the morning I finished my summer build with a fellow XS'er and it was the first ride of the season for me. We got to the end of our trip (about an hour and a half) to the job site and the owner had dogs that would chase cars down the road. (young dogs )
So when we got to the road that connected to the job and the dogs came flying down after us and followed for about 30 feet before one bolted in front of my buddy. He went down and his head dropped right in front of my wheel line so I locked it up and went down too. Going about 15 -25mph onto a freshly graveled dirt road. Slid on my knee pretty far and wrecked my shoulder and hand (slapped the ground, when I fell). The bike trapped my leg and poured gas all over while the engine kept puttering away on me. I was picking gravel out of my leg for a couple of days. Owner of the dogs/the guy we were working for didn't give to craps about us or our bikes. The foreman there graciously threw my bike in his truck and I cannibalized a few parts to get my buddy's Xs going. I got the brunt of the damage. The foreman was nice enough to give me a ride back for nothing and cursed out his boss the whole way. Luckily my friend made it back without a hitch and had all the extra cosmetic parts to get me straightened out. But that was the total of my riding season that year. I had just got her running too.

 

[grepper]

I've been down twice, both on the same xs650.
First time I really was a new rider, I leaned into a corner and caught some gravel. The bike slid out from under me and came down on my foot. A skinned knee, elbow and sprained ankle. On the bike a broken turn signal, ripped grip and a bent shifter pedal.
The second time I was cruising at about 60 mph 2 up with my then Girlfriend (now wife) and a farmer lost a load of hay in front of me. Some road rash for us, on the bike a scrapped muffler, bent engine guard, dented tank and cracked side cover. If you’re going to run into something on a motorcycle, bales of hay would be it. I told the farmer I was glad he wasn't hauling scrap metal. Now I get real nervous riding behind trailers and trucks with crap in the bed. Last year a cooler lid flew out of the bed of a pickup truck in front of me on the freeway and hit my car windshield. I would have been toast if I was on my bike that day.

Proper riding gear is key. The first wreck I was wearing sneakers. If I had boots on I wouldn't have messed up my foot and ankle. The second wreck I had leathers on and the only road rash I got was from where my sleave got pushed up. Full face helmet both times.

 

[Downeaster]

Not counting dirt bikes (and who does?) I've been off fairly hard three times, once on my '74 XS. That one was entirely my fault, riding like an idiot on a road I wasn't familiar with.

Crested a hill carrying enough speed to catch some air, looked ahead and at the bottom of the other side of the hill, the road turned left at something tighter than 90º.

Locked 'em up and almost made it but low-sided at the apex of the corner. Might have made it were it not for the sand/gravel on the road. Narrowly missed a mailbox, wound up in some guy's front yard.

Only damage was my pride, and my wedding ring. The tip of the clutch lever dug in and pinched my fingers between the lever and the grip. Had to haul my tool kit out and grab the pliers to get the ring round enough to get it off my finger. That, and pull my shorts out of my ass..

Next was on an XL500 Honda dual purpose. Just coming back from swamp-road bashing in NW Florida (Pensacola area) and riding about 35 down Navy Boulevard when my front tire went flat and rolled off the rim. Cleverly inserted my body between the bike and the road to avoid scratching the paint. MAJOR Honda rash on my right side, right shoulder bunged up, inside of right thigh burned from the hot motor. I was a couple of weeks recovering from that.

Third was on a Honda Goldwing in Goose Creek, SC. Riding to work in the rain. It'd been raining long enough that I wasn't too worried about the "fresh rain on the oil tracks in the middle of the lane" phenomenon. Should have been, went to hang a right and sha-BOOM, down I went. Again, no serious harm done, but I did suffer a little embarassment explaining why my uniform was so messed up when I got to work.

Haven't been involved in an accident involving another vehicle, but been close enough to test the pop-off setting on my sphincter muscle a few times.

 

[Downeaster]

To be a little more responsive to the OP, the XS is no more prone to accidents than any other bike, and as with all motorcycles, the primary cause of accidents is the operator or other vehicles.

Caveat to the above is that the XS in it's stock form is NOT a crotch rocket and will not handle or stop like one, so don't try to ride it like one.

Probably the single biggest safety improvement you can make to an XS is better brakes.

 

[oldbiker]

hi guys yes i have,,,,,,,, years ago when i first got my yam.. i came out mt driveway on warburton highway wesburn,,, it was running crap compared to now anyway i opened up the throttleand went thruogh my gears,,,yep i didn,t plan on the swepping right bend coming up just past the wesburn pub ,,, fortunately for me as i ran out of made highway they was a gravelly sandy road with 3-5 homes on it so i went up the little run off to the mornal road and gracefully stepped off the bike after putting it on its side gently ,,,nothing smashed or come off nothing etc. my ego was damaged,,so i took it home and soap and washed it then put him to bedfor a week or 2 ,,,but we have made up alot since then regards oldbiker

 

[srust58]

Twice. Once when a car turned in front of me and I hit them in the front fender and went over the hood. Broke my wrist and collarbone. The second time I was out in Montana driving at night and hit a muffler lying in the road at 65mph. The bike went up, my ass and feet went even higher but I had a grip on the bars with my hands (my only contact with the bike) and we all came down together and continued on.

 

[tonyc]

That is how I got my two xses. I was riding a KLR650 when a 92 year old lady made a illegal left hand turn infront of me. Totled the KLR and broke my clavicle and dis-located my shoulder. The only serious enjury in 50 years of riding.

 

[jetmechmarty]

Two low sides on XS650. 1st was in 1985, going way too fast on parkway ramp. The bike slid into the guardrail. It was pronounced totaled, but I'm still riding it. I low sided again, maybe ten years ago. Two-up in the mountains, I ran out of ground clearance in a tight turn. The bike had a case guard and it touched down first, or nearly so. Looking back, the springs were too soft (worn out) to be riding like that carrying a load. The bike survived again.

 

[TwoManyXS1Bs]

I've had my fair share of road rashes, but NEVER on my XS's. There's always that subconscience thought "If I break it, I'll have to find rare parts, and I'll be the one who has to fix it"...

 

[xjwmx]

Only once in traffic and always at very low speed. I was turning into a parking lot and a guy was coming out of it and somehow I fixated on his eyes which were fixated out into space, oblivious to me, and for some reason I had a single vehicle accident. Could have easily been avoided, nothing even happened, but I was a rank beginner at the time.

Almost had the rear to out from under me a couple of times in wet grass or mud. Made for an exciting recovery.

Crashed parking in the woods for some reason. Also when I was a beginner. Not sure what happened but I wasn't moving when it happened.

Crashed in a rut on a dirt road at Eskippakithiki.

Crashed at the Wounded Knee Memorial The hill it's on is steeper than it looks! Going up with a total full load on the bike, I realized I was at a place too steep to stop and let me reconsider, so I was going to just have to hill climb it, which I did. However going down a different way, nice gentle slope, got caught up in a tire rut. My own fault for paying too much attention to the ground at that point in time. All of them learning experiences.

 

[FLEA]

put it this way the soft front end of the xs2 and suicidal kangaroos definitly dont mix

 

[bergoff]

My only street bike crash was on my 18th bday. I was young and dumb and way hung over. I forgot to put my feet down and fell over in the garage. I learned from my mistake and promised myself that I would never do that again.

 

[deadchef]

My only street bike crash was on my 18th bday. I was young and dumb and way hung over. I forgot to put my feet down and fell over in the garage. I learned from my mistake and promised myself that I would never do that again.

that's hilarious!

...although i could see myself doing the exact same thing!

 

[trance]

laid down the 62 ducati 160 monza when some folks ran a stop sign. lucky no real harm done except a bent peg. not looking forward to any 'real' accidents. I ride as safe as I can and try to watch out for the other guy. I always assume he does not see me. But I know I can't control everything.

 

[oldbiker]

hi guys ,,well ,,,yes i have come off my beloved xs650,,,, ,,i was riding along warburton highway wesburn,,, hiking to warburton,,, and i was moving a little faster than i should have,,, so not realizing i was coming up to a sweeping bend in the road near sam notts pub ,, i couldn,t make it around the bend so i went straight a head into a shell type small gravel i gently laid the bike down ,,,yelling no no no ... we stopped ,i looked at the bike and alooked around to see if anybody was watching ,,, in luck ,,, picked up the bike started it and very slowly rode it home ,, washed it and put it in my garage for a few weeks ,,, it taught me a valuable lesson ,,, regards oldbiker

 

[pcoumbe]

My only street bike crash was on my 18th bday. I was young and dumb and way hung over. I forgot to put my feet down and fell over in the garage. I learned from my mistake and promised myself that I would never do that again.

I've got a mate I ride with in Aus whenever we get the chance and for some reason he does that from time to time, usually at a red traffic light. I don't bother helping him stand his Griso up any more, maybe it'll help him remember to put a boot down when he stops.

 

[NONclow]

I was riding my old '83 Magna V45 one day with a buddy on his '82 nighthawk 450 just cruising down a local scenic byway, we ease around an easy 40 mph right hander onto about a 1.5 mi straight he passed me all tucked down at about 60, I dropped two gears, made it about 75 yards, approaching two clusters of juniper trees (one on each side of road), 30 yards off his tail and gaining (quickly!), one doe and fawn from each side wanted to the other...... right after he went through.... (luckily enough for me the does stopped). I took the fawn from the right in the front wheel (pushed the wheel into the front head), and the one from the left jumped into the headlight and did about 4 spins in the air. Bike layed down in the middle of the road on right side and slid for about 20 feet. Got a few scrapes and ground a bit off my right knee cap. A passerby helped me and bud throw the mag in the back of his ranger pu and got me home. Whew! What a trip!!