BMW R1200R R1150R/T F800 K1200R R1100R/T R1250R RnineT Message Board

hank wrote:

R1150Rclean wrote:1) You should have been able to stop using the front brake and not hit the car. PRACTICE emergency stops in an empty parking lot ASAP!!! IF your rear brake is easy to lock up replace the pads and lube everything the pads slide on with anti-seize grease (beemerboneyard.com rear pads are working great for me).

2) NEVER assume what a car/driver will do/is going to do. I assume they can not see me and could pull in front of me/cut me off, rear end me, or stop in front of me at any time.

I bow at the feet of the Supreme Rider. Oh great one we are not worthy. You are such a super rider that you will never have an accident. You will never make be distracted or make a mistake. Get real.


Hank.

Hank,
I learned all that the hard way, on the pavement having skin sanded off my body and totaling bikes, what is the harm in giving someone else advice I learned the hard way?

Welcome to the forum, Alpineswift! I was sorry to hear about your crash. Good thing you were going slow when it happened!

Here's my parable about a similar incident...

Within the first week of getting my bike home (I had to ride 750 miles to get it here ), I almost nailed the rear end of silver Corolla...yes I remember everything about that rear end because it's where I thought I was going to die. I had already planned in my head how I would jump up just before contact with it and clear the roof and hopefully land somewhere off to the side where I wouldn't get run over... The pictures in my head now are as clear as they were when it didn't happen 6 years ago!

I got into this mess when I merged up onto the interstate from a right-hand entrance ramp into traffic going ~70mph, but quickly needed to move three lanes to the left to make a left fork 1/2 mile down the road. The first lane change was no problem, the 2nd even better now that I was matching speed, and I swivelled my head to look over my left shoulder for another opening, found it, goosed the throttle to dive into it (90+mph now) and realized traffic had abruptly slowed to 40mph approaching the fork! The car in front of me, that silver Corolla, was only a couple car lengths ahead! AARRGGHH! I squeezed the front brake lever harder and harder and applied as much rear as I dared too, and by GOD the bike slowed from 90 to 40 before I hit that gleaming silver bumper (with inches to spare ).
I had never experienced such great brakes before and it was truly a revelation, and my salvation!

Since that day I have maintained that this bike is more capable than I am, and I'm cool with that!

Hope this (true) story helps you and anybody else avoid future entanglements.

And please remember that the advice shared on this forum has, in my years here, been offered like this has, with a charitable spirit that helps us all stay alive. Like you said, get beyond it, learn from it, and know that you're a safer rider for it!

P.S. I like the black jugs...been thinking of doing that to hide some tip-over scratches. Good to see how good it looks. Thanks!

Sunbeemer wrote:Welcome to the forum, Alpineswift! I was sorry to hear about your crash. Good thing you were going slow when it happened!

Here's my parable about a similar incident...

Within the first week of getting my bike home (I had to ride 750 miles to get it here ), I almost nailed the rear end of silver Corolla...yes I remember everything about that rear end because it's where I thought I was going to die. I had already planned in my head how I would jump up just before contact with it and clear the roof and hopefully land somewhere off to the side where I wouldn't get run over... The pictures in my head now are as clear as they were when it didn't happen 6 years ago!

I got into this mess when I merged up onto the interstate from a right-hand entrance ramp into traffic going ~70mph, but quickly needed to move three lanes to the left to make a left fork 1/2 mile down the road. The first lane change was no problem, the 2nd even better now that I was matching speed, and I swivelled my head to look over my left shoulder for another opening, found it, goosed the throttle to dive into it (90+mph now) and realized traffic had abruptly slowed to 40mph approaching the fork! The car in front of me, that silver Corolla, was only a couple car lengths ahead! AARRGGHH! I squeezed the front brake lever harder and harder and applied as much rear as I dared too, and by GOD the bike slowed from 90 to 40 before I hit that gleaming silver bumper (with inches to spare ).
I had never experienced such great brakes before and it was truly a revelation, and my salvation!

Since that day I have maintained that this bike is more capable than I am, and I'm cool with that!

Hope this (true) story helps you and anybody else avoid future entanglements.

And please remember that the advice shared on this forum has, in my years here, been offered like this has, with a charitable spirit that helps us all stay alive. Like you said, get beyond it, learn from it, and know that you're a safer rider for it!

P.S. I like the black jugs...been thinking of doing that to hide some tip-over scratches. Good to see how good it looks. Thanks!

Appreciate the welcome and the insight sir. Would have been much better had R1150Rclean not talked down to me like he did, but whatever, I'm over it.

Brakes on my bike work great too (which still shocks the hell out of me just HOW good they really are. lol) but like I said, I was too close and didn't have enough time to react which is why I got into trouble in the first place. I didn't keep my 2 sec bubble like I should have. Even from a stop I should have waited for the idiot to clear the merge from a stop (even though there is no bloody stop sign there ) before I started moving again. My mistake and I learned from it so whats done is done, lets move on.

Glad you like them. I was real hesitant to do black covers at first but I didn't want to grab silver or bronze and have it look like ass in the end. I think I did good with the Black Gloss Enamel (Checker, Kragen, O'Reily). Sand it your covers down lightly with 1000 grit just to make sure everywhere you paint was touched by the sand paper at least once (use water). Wipe em down and tape everything off you don't want painted (go crazy. I had a good 2ft box of newspaper taped up on both sides around the cylinders plus newspaper on the floor to catch any excess. don't be stingy with tape. its your best friend in tight areas).

I did maybe 3-4 coats of paint (2-3 light coats followed by 1 medium wet coat), let air dry for about 20-30 minutes, then followed over with 3-4 coats of clear (" "). Hope that helps ya.

Alpineswift - A friend removed the beak from his bike, if you would like I can ask him if he's interested in selling it at a decent price. The only problem would be that it is black.

Alpineswift,
As far as I am concerned I did not "talk down" to you, all I did was to offer you advice which if followed may prevent a future accident for you. How is that talking down? Advice is what it is, if you do not like ignore it. But by continuing to complain about me "talking down" to you, you only make yourself look immature in my view. Of course, I do not know how old you are, so my apologies in advance if you really are immature.

Come on guys - Al Gore didn't invent the interwebs for this stupid crap. Back on topic or I'm gonna tell mom!

jas wrote:Alpineswift - A friend removed the beak from his bike, if you would like I can ask him if he's interested in selling it at a decent price. The only problem would be that it is black.

Ask him how much he wants for it. I might be interested in black.

On a Buell that I used to own, I was able to make satsifactory repairs to cracked body work by purchasing a fiberglass repair kit from an Auto parts store. I then patched the underside of the panel, where it wasn't visible. It holds up well and doesn't require trying to repaint and matching the factory colors.

I know your fender isn't fiberglass, my parts weren't either. But the repair will hold up fine if you follow the instructions. Put on several layers for additional strength.

I've only had one accident in all my years of street biking. A state owned truck pulled right in front of me. I had about 1/2 second to decide what to do to avoid that crash.
In my case, the quick acceleration of my Rockster saved my bacon. The truck struck the right rear of my bike, knocking off the side case causing slightly less than $600 damage. I managed to avoid going down, thank God. It took 1 year and 8 months to get reimbursed by the state for my out of pocket expenses.

I feel like I made out ok with my accident, considering I walked away uninjured. Sounds like you did the same.

RB