Crash

[spm]

My Busa is seriously sick after throwing an epi as I approached a slow left hand bend at about 70 mph. The back end twitched and this was quickly followed by a full blown tank slapper which resulted in the pair of us going off road before I even new what was happening. The tyres were OK and the pressures spot on. I had noticed a bit of instability before, under heavy braking, but had put it down to tyre pressure as they had been about 7 psi down. I could not see anything wrong with the bike in terms of the sub frame etc, but the steering damper did not seem to do any damping. Has anyone experienced anything similar or have any suggestions as to what may have happened?
Paul.

 

[Kento-Moto]

spm, could ya give more details? You were with a passenger? What was road condition? What year the bike how many miles... if you had a passenger have you pac'd this person before? finally anyone hurt?

 

[Racer 222]

I am glad that your both alright! Well I know you are since you writing about the bike. I hope passenger is the same. I have run a variety of tire pressures on the rear. She has stuck every time. I try to keep it around 35 in canyons. A little more for the Freeway. I have run as low as 32 and the tire was sticking well. She was shredding as well. I am not that fast on the twisties yet but I do achieve good lean angles. (to the edge) Don't know if any of this helps.

Marc "Howlin Mad"

 

[spm]

ref Crash. The bike was registered 1/9/2000 and had about 3500 miles on the clock. ( I say had, because the insurance boys have now written it off) The road was dry with no oil or grease, no passenger, and no injuries worth mentioning, thanks to helmet and jacket etc. I did not really even get into the bend properly so it was not a case of the the tyre not sticking. The bends negotiated prior to this had been far tighter with uneven surfaces and adverse camber. These had been negotiated with no problems. I have since been round the accident bend several times on a bonnie with out any trouble, although obviously there is no comparison between the two bikes.
I suppose the upshot is that I will never know what happened but at least it is here on record should any one experience a similar incident.

 

[Bosch_232]

I tried replying to this thread earlier and it seems the post didn't take.

Anyway, you state that you bought the bike used.

How certain are you that there wasn't some sort of subtle alignment problem, possibly caused by a previous crash? Is it possible the frame was tweaked, or repaired improperly or something?

Just thinking out loud here.

 

[GlennWessel]

I have never noticed any head-shake on my 'Busa... I used to ride a ZX-11 and it was also quite stable, but on one particular sweeper with my girl friend behind me, the bike became very upset just as I approached the apex. We made it through the turn and I immediately apologized to her, but I could not understand what had happened because I had been having fun on that particular curve for a long time.

Are you ready for this? She later admitted that because we had recently been skiing in Colorado, she got her "leaning intuitions" confused. Just prior to that apex, she re-directed her leaned (hard) to the outside.

She wasn't going to say anything, but she realized she was filling me with self-doubt. You might want to interview your passenger more fully...

 

[MET]

Ouch!! Which way is she leaning now?

 

[GlennWessel]

She's with me again!