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So much for the 4th of July adventure ride. I was going to ride my sidecar rig with both my Springer Spaniels across the Magruder corridor along the Idaho-Montana border. This gnarley gravel road goes ~130 miles through the Bitterroot Selway wilderness area. Fantastic views tho' there are still many snowdrifts above about 9000 feet.
I rode the several hundred miles to the start of the trail without any problems. About 40 miles in I saw a good spot to water the dogs and started to slow down. All of a sudden I there was a pop and I was frantically shifting my weight to keep the rig from going down the embankment into the river.
BOTH frame members had snapped in half in front of the engine right at the bottom of the fairing mounts. Without this support I now had two tires and four exhaust headers on the ground. I managed to get stopped and maneuver the rig into a small pullout before the spark plug wires broke.
I guess my karma was fully charged since I only had to wait about 6 hours for rescue. Amazingly a gal in a pickup towing a large trailer (from a rafting company) came by and we managed to drag the now disassembled rig into the trailer. Arriving back at civilization I managed to reserve a u-haul truck in another town 5 minutes before the store closed. I then came across a good samaritan biker who ran me a hundred miles to pick up the truck.
The dogs and I are now back at home. I'm glad the bike didn't break any farther up the trail (where few people go) or at high speed on pavement. I guess I'll need to render assistance to a few other people in distress to rebuild the karma factor.
I've pretty much figured out how and why this happened and I'll be posting a few links later to pics of the damage and a few recommendations on how to keep this from happening.
Enjoy,
Rob
I rode the several hundred miles to the start of the trail without any problems. About 40 miles in I saw a good spot to water the dogs and started to slow down. All of a sudden I there was a pop and I was frantically shifting my weight to keep the rig from going down the embankment into the river.
BOTH frame members had snapped in half in front of the engine right at the bottom of the fairing mounts. Without this support I now had two tires and four exhaust headers on the ground. I managed to get stopped and maneuver the rig into a small pullout before the spark plug wires broke.
I guess my karma was fully charged since I only had to wait about 6 hours for rescue. Amazingly a gal in a pickup towing a large trailer (from a rafting company) came by and we managed to drag the now disassembled rig into the trailer. Arriving back at civilization I managed to reserve a u-haul truck in another town 5 minutes before the store closed. I then came across a good samaritan biker who ran me a hundred miles to pick up the truck.
The dogs and I are now back at home. I'm glad the bike didn't break any farther up the trail (where few people go) or at high speed on pavement. I guess I'll need to render assistance to a few other people in distress to rebuild the karma factor.
I've pretty much figured out how and why this happened and I'll be posting a few links later to pics of the damage and a few recommendations on how to keep this from happening.
Enjoy,
Rob
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AndNew is probably right with regards to trying to fix that frame! You'd need a frame jig to be able to verify that everything is aligned properly! Also, with that much stress breakage, no telling what other joints are also worn and weakened, and could be ready to fail!? 
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