12-24-2016, 03:02 AM
Gravity is at all times accelerating us and all mass around us toward the center of the planet. There is no getting around it. We're blessed and endowed with certain abilities to resist gravity, and at first, these usually work quite well, to the point where we don't even identify gravity as a force of acceleration. But we wear out, or learn some kind of lesson, somewhere along the way.
When the ST1100 first arrived, I loved it and almost bought one. The deciding factor was not the weight or size, just finances at the time. A guy I knew had one, and let me ride it. I didn't drop it, but he did later on, in the parking lot of our favorite watering hole. The bike was designed with protective hard plastic bumpers over steel guards, so no real damage was done, and the V4 configuration made it pretty easy to get it upright again.
I concur with Empty Sea, if one is dropping his or her bike, or having a lot of mishaps with footing or balance, better figure out why.
In many cases it is because the person started with a bike too big to really learn balancing techniques and low-speed clutch/brake skills, and is just "managing" the bike. That's where a machine like the Wolf Classic 150 can be of great value, to build skills. Not to mention I always wanted a minibike or something like it when I was a teenager, but being a dirt poor farmboy in the Kansas wastelands wasn't cutting it financially. So I have one now, and I learn something every time I ride it.
I can honestly say I have never dropped any motorcycle while riding it, or astride. I cannot ever remember doing so. I am short, so it has nothing to do with having long legs, or a burly build. I chalk it up to having learned to ride in the dirt, and having a lot of tall dirt bikes, some with seat heights up to 37". And I always had to contend with short legs. One has to learn to be very smooth and precise at every stop, and observe off-camber surfaces, sand, oil, gravel, and the like constantly, because there is not much chance to save the bike if it starts to go over when the legs are short.
[url=http://www.cycleworld.com/learn-rarely-used-technique-to-motorcycle-riding-ienatsch-tuesday]Nick Ienatsch's article about this was a little surprising to me, because I just assumed someone like Nick had learned these techniques himself, but he really was never a dirt rider and so just never adapted fully to the challenges. So even a guy with a lot of racing and street riding in his background may have missed something to add to the skill set.
But all in all, I did not trade in my CB1100 because it was too heavy; that is, the weight was not a factor in terms of worrying about dropping it. I still have an F800GS with a 33"+ seat height and it's plenty tall, and plenty top-heavy. But the bike suits my riding needs, it's a fairly light twin with a lot of capabilities. As I said in some other posts, the CB1100 was heavier than I like as a machine when riding it. The Triumph Street Cup is probably about the ideal size, weight, and configuration for me, I guess it's around 470 pounds, good riding position, nice twin with gobs of torque. I do ride aggressively on the street when the roads are clear and clean and I like to brake hard; the CB1100 can certainly be ridden this way (I hope whoever buys my former bike takes care with the brakes because they are exceptionally powerful with the stainless lines and HH pads), but one always feels the weight and it becomes taxing after a time. If I rode up a gear, just cruising along at a nice clip, it would be no factor.
Just a distillation of my perspective, the CB1100 would still be in my name had it been 50-60 pounds lighter because it would have been a better bike for my personal tastes. Had it come in at the weight and general dimensions as the early Z650 Kawasaki (about 470 pounds), with about 70-80 HP, I'd still own it, I'm pretty sure.
All that said, I am well aware that I could drop a bike or have an incident any day, and so I prepare myself the best I can. No one's immune to gravity.
When the ST1100 first arrived, I loved it and almost bought one. The deciding factor was not the weight or size, just finances at the time. A guy I knew had one, and let me ride it. I didn't drop it, but he did later on, in the parking lot of our favorite watering hole. The bike was designed with protective hard plastic bumpers over steel guards, so no real damage was done, and the V4 configuration made it pretty easy to get it upright again.
I concur with Empty Sea, if one is dropping his or her bike, or having a lot of mishaps with footing or balance, better figure out why.
In many cases it is because the person started with a bike too big to really learn balancing techniques and low-speed clutch/brake skills, and is just "managing" the bike. That's where a machine like the Wolf Classic 150 can be of great value, to build skills. Not to mention I always wanted a minibike or something like it when I was a teenager, but being a dirt poor farmboy in the Kansas wastelands wasn't cutting it financially. So I have one now, and I learn something every time I ride it.
I can honestly say I have never dropped any motorcycle while riding it, or astride. I cannot ever remember doing so. I am short, so it has nothing to do with having long legs, or a burly build. I chalk it up to having learned to ride in the dirt, and having a lot of tall dirt bikes, some with seat heights up to 37". And I always had to contend with short legs. One has to learn to be very smooth and precise at every stop, and observe off-camber surfaces, sand, oil, gravel, and the like constantly, because there is not much chance to save the bike if it starts to go over when the legs are short.
[url=http://www.cycleworld.com/learn-rarely-used-technique-to-motorcycle-riding-ienatsch-tuesday]Nick Ienatsch's article about this was a little surprising to me, because I just assumed someone like Nick had learned these techniques himself, but he really was never a dirt rider and so just never adapted fully to the challenges. So even a guy with a lot of racing and street riding in his background may have missed something to add to the skill set.
But all in all, I did not trade in my CB1100 because it was too heavy; that is, the weight was not a factor in terms of worrying about dropping it. I still have an F800GS with a 33"+ seat height and it's plenty tall, and plenty top-heavy. But the bike suits my riding needs, it's a fairly light twin with a lot of capabilities. As I said in some other posts, the CB1100 was heavier than I like as a machine when riding it. The Triumph Street Cup is probably about the ideal size, weight, and configuration for me, I guess it's around 470 pounds, good riding position, nice twin with gobs of torque. I do ride aggressively on the street when the roads are clear and clean and I like to brake hard; the CB1100 can certainly be ridden this way (I hope whoever buys my former bike takes care with the brakes because they are exceptionally powerful with the stainless lines and HH pads), but one always feels the weight and it becomes taxing after a time. If I rode up a gear, just cruising along at a nice clip, it would be no factor.
Just a distillation of my perspective, the CB1100 would still be in my name had it been 50-60 pounds lighter because it would have been a better bike for my personal tastes. Had it come in at the weight and general dimensions as the early Z650 Kawasaki (about 470 pounds), with about 70-80 HP, I'd still own it, I'm pretty sure.
All that said, I am well aware that I could drop a bike or have an incident any day, and so I prepare myself the best I can. No one's immune to gravity.