Kickstand Down - Poll

[Crazcnuk]

I've been riding for over 30 years too, with a few hundred thousand kms, on bikes, in that time. I have dumped my (street) bikes twice.

Once I got cut-off in bumper to bumper traffic and jackknifed the trailer I was pulling, at about 15 mph. Damage mostly to the pride, nothing to the bike or trailer.

The other time was at about 5mph. a car was signalling a right hand turn into the street I was coming out of, so I started to go, when he changed his mind and came straight across. I stopped dead, skidded the front wheel about a foot and fell over, rather than slam into him.

But I am still not going to sit here and try and tell people I have never forgot my kickstand down. As for cutting my hands off, I have never even broken a bone, other than the ones the cop broke beating me up, or the nose that a friend of mine broke one night when he was depressed.

On my 750-4K it had the automatic kickstand, so I used to sit on the bike, then with my feet on the pegs, hit the throttle, straighten and drive away, letting the mechanism lift it for me.

I can probably count how many times I FORGOT to put it up on my fingers and have a few left over.

[bkush]

Never... I've tried to do it a couple times, but on the XJ, it just kills the engine, so I've never successfully driven off with the kickstand down.

[MAXIMAN]

Never on Zilla. He won't let me. He's got a safety switch on the stand. When you let out on the clutch with the stand down he kills the motor.

[BlkMage]

I haven't been riding long enough.

Though I have had a zero-mph dump. On a hill inside a parking garage, with a full gas tank so it leaked out the cap vent. It took 2 other bikers helping me to get it up.

[Bigfoot]

I have tried but the safety switch on mine still works.

[chip]

I have droped my VStar 650 twice, once while trying to do a u turn to catch some little brats who where throwing rocks in the road as me and my friends pasted by, and the other when some lady hit me and the wife with her mini van.
I drove of last week with the kickstand down on the xs, made it to the end of the driveway.
Two quick storie: co worker who knows nothing about bikes bought a brand new kow last year and called up the dealer screaming that the bike would not start in gear and when shifted into gear it died, thay sent a mechanic to his house to pickup his bike. Imagine his surprise when he put up the kickstand and rode the bike onto the trailer. Saw a guy leave a bar( drunk) with his new HD made the sharp left turn kickstand caught and took him down and his HD went sliding in to a gaurd rail.

[Geezer]

I forget about once every other year or so. What I've done to prevent this it to make it a habit to sweep my left foot back along the side of the bike before taking off from being parked. I will often do this a couple of times before riding off. It's a good habit and it's helped keep me alive all these years.

Geezer

[fredintoon]

Back to the original question - - -

- - - which asked "How many times in a week do you accidentally drive off with the kickstand down?" and my answer is still "never". Not because of my care and skill but because of my sidecar, d'ye see.
BUT had the question been "How many times have you ever accidentally driven off with the kickstand down?" I would have to say, "f**kin' dozens". Luckily for me, all that I ever got from so-doing was a scraping noise and a feeling of embarrassment. The last time was before 1986 though. that's when I got my XS650 with it's safety interlocked side-stand.

[Gigmaster]

kickstand

I've only done it once, about 15 years ago, on a KZ 1000. I found out when I tried to make a left hand curve at 50mph. That's the only time I"ve ever gone down on a bike.

[oldbiker648]

I have done it a few times over the past 3 years, and got one good jolt as I leaned into a hard left hand turn pulling out of one of my favorite stops. Hired Goon has it right, get a routine working, downshift into neutral and then put the stand down before cutting the engine off. Get the stand up before you even restart the engine. Where you will mess up is when you have to hit the enricher circuit while you put on your helmet jacket and gloves and then forget to raise the stand when you mount up and kick her into gear.
I have a Kerker 4 into 1 and have never had a center stand on the '80G, so I live and die by the side stand.
Prom., I had one close call when I moved the bike slightly forward after lowering the sidestand 95% of the way down. As I dismounted I heard the clunk of the sidestand flipping up. Would have let the bike go, but it would have trashed my XS-650, so I sacrificed my left wrist for a good cause.
You XJ guys don't need to remind us that you have a "conscience" built into your bikes by the Yamaha engineers, we know!

[Axel]

side stand

Bonus - if you put the stand down in gear, the engine stalls ,on mine anyway .

[Crazcnuk]

Never had a bike that killed the engine, if the stand was left down.

Closest was my 750-4K. If you left the stand down, and drove away, it just put the stand up for you!

[Hired_Goon]

Originally posted by Dsxs11
Well there are two kinds of bikers those that have dropped one those about to drop one. Seems someone is running out of time.

Then that makes two kinds of people as well.

Those that have said stupid things and those that are going to.

Or

Those that have a valuable opinion and those that will one day.

Or

Those with brains and those who missed out.



Your above quote is the standard reply used by people inadequately trained in a given skill for when they have f$#ked up. Of course it wasn't their fault, it was always someone elses.

He who is free from sin can cast the first stone.

Well I haven't dished out a virtual stoning for a while now.....

[Crazcnuk]

I've never dropped a bike because of the stand.

In fact, I've only dropped a bike over twice, in almost 30years, on the street. Both times as a result of being cut-off by a car doing something stupid.

I've knocked my bike off it's stand once, loading the trailer and I've had them fall over if the stand wasn't on solid enough ground.

Once or twice, I've almost dropped it by letting the clutch out as I got off, when it was still in gear, and running.


And, like the other night, I've come out and found my bike laying on the ground, for no apparent reason.

[yadada]

I try to do the habit thing, put it up when I sit down, and put it down right after I turn off the motor. So I haven't done it yet. I have killed the motor a couple a times with the safety switch, so I have been trying.

I saw a guy sitting at a stoplight in the left turn lane a while back with his kickstand down as I rode by. I slowed and yelled "kickstand!" at him and pointed towards it. Hope it helped, I'd have gotten run over for sure if I tried anything else.

Perhaps we should come up with a universal hand or foot signal to tell other riders they have this problem. You see a kickstand down and you do the kickstand hokey pokey kinda thing. Might be handy on a group ride. Or is there some signal I don't know about? Or is this a totally stupid idea?

I did try to start the HD in gear once on the side stand when I wasn't sitting on it. Luckily it has a little tab that won't let the stand retract unless the stand isn't touching the ground. Scared the crap out of me! The tab saved me in the garage, but now that I type this it doesn't sound like such a good idea. I think you have to lean over onto the stand quite a ways though before the tab keeps it from going back up. So perhaps it would go back up when it hits the ground while riding. It's not as vertical as the XJ's stand. More of a side sweeping motion. I will have to check.