This was a friend's theft prevention method posted on another forum...makes for a great story:
"It's not one I'm proud of but here goes. In '1987 I had a P.O.S.
'70Shovelhead and wanted to trade it in on a newer '84 Softail. At the dealership I was blowing chunks in the bathroom from some stomach issues I had that day, when I got threw throwing up I came out to find my bike missing from the parking lot. About 10 minutes later the manager came rolling in on it and said he would give me in trade if my credit was approved. He never asked me for a my permission to demo ride it at all. :fired:! I wasn't approved, so I rode home mad as **** that he could have and did do that. So I had a hair brained idea to prevent others from just riding my bike away like that. I switched the bar controls around so no one could easily ride off. It seemed like a good idea at the time
. The throttle was up side down and backwards and on the left side and the clutch was upside down and backwards and on the right, so I would push it in. The half a$$ed front brake was down on the right side of the engine guard so it was a heel toe brake set up.
. I stood there for a while,
thinking thru what I had to do to roll on the power and ease out the clutch, as I moved forward and really thought I had it. "How did that go?' you ask? NOT TOO GOOD! The bike was positioned a few feet from my landlady's car and I had to make a hard left before getting up to enough speed to put my feet up and roll down the driveway. I over estimated my coordination skills at that moment and hit her car T bone style pretty hard, wheel steadily spinning. The real problem tho was I couldn't find nuetral after that and it was pushing hard against her front quarter panel. I pulled as hard as I could, but only managed to roll it back about 3 or 4 feet, before giving up and deciding to shut it down. 'How did that go?' you ask? NOT TOO GOOD
! I made the mistake of going for the dash mounted ignition switch with my right hand as usual, and you probably know was coming next :thinking: :thinking:. It dumped the clutch with nearly 5000 rpm and REALLY T BONED the car AGAIN.
I had to get her a rental and pay for the repairs, but did decide that night that I was dang sure gonna learn to ride this sumbch! So I pointed it down the driveway towards the street and tried again to pull away without a catstrophe. I did good at first till I got to the street and had to make a hard right. Well I darn near took off my left arm and head, on a row off mailboxes on the far side of the street before I got enough lean and slower speed to make the hard turn. I actually thought I was gonna take out the whole row! It shook me up me enough that I stalled at the next move and then again on the next stop sign. I still kept at it tho, till the wee hours of the morning, until I had it down and could do it on reflex and without much thought. I did get good enough to enter one of the very first National Easy Riders Rodeo's and took second place in the slow race which is a balance and control skills contest. Even got my long bearded mug in the newspaper story about the Rodeo, on that screwed up bike in the race itself. The lesson learned from this story? If I had left it as originally was I would had saved a ton of money [repairs to her car, and the next 13 years of repairs and upkeep to the FHL] and maybe someone might have stole that sorry excuse of pig iron and I would have moved on to something else, like a Yamaha. :raider: ;D ;D ;D"
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