Yesterday's storm blew over my bike

[deilenberger]

Tom,

To each his own..

I was at a rally a few years ago where one centerstanded bike took down a row of 10.. My bike was happily on it's sidestand a few feet away. The rain/wind caused the ground to get soft under the centerstanded bike, and a gust of wind took it down (and 10 others.. the guy ended up paying a considerable amount for damage to the other bikes.)

If you recall this thread was started with someone who had a bike go over on the centerstand...

So - as I said - to each his own. I'll continue using the sidestand except in my garage where the centerstand makes sense (hard concrete, no wind.. saves space..)

[grwrockster]

Recently I woke up to find my Rockster snoozing on it's side - right over. It was parked on the sidestand as it's hard-standing drive with small gravel type of surface, but not metalled, tarmac or concrete.
It's not super-level either, so the side-stand was the way to go.

I've been parking it there the last couple of years on n off with no trouble. Then one night of very heavy rain & wind, ground softened just a bit, stand sank an inch or two and the weight and maybe a bit of wind did the rest.

No damage though to (well, the left rocker cover has a healthy scrape from a low-speed front-end washout on a glass-smooth Alpine hairpin in Italy last year already anyway so doubt any other nick there would notice anyway).

I'm philosophical about it - bikes are inherently unstable, particularly when stationary. Every so often one is going to fall over. At least mine has bits that stick out that are solid enough to take a topple without breaking. Some sports bikes when they go over crack plastics, break indicators and mirrors, snap pegs, destroy switchgear, ding aluminuim frames and push bent bars into fuel tanks. A scratched rocker cover I can live with!