Bent Brake Lever!!!

[Mike Cash]

My habit when dismounting is to put the stand down, lean the bike on the stand, and give a backwards tug just to make sure the stand is fully deployed, then get off the bike. May not be entirely necessary, but it sure does cut the chance of getting off without putting the kickstand down.

 

[Mikee3544]

Last week we did an hour practice in an empty parking lot and everything went well. U-turns, 8s, circles, etc. This 1st. drop was a good lesson for me, try not the pass that tight way, where you can't. But practicing is very important, this is a much heavier bike than the CBR250R was and doesn't tolerate well if you are unskilled.
Ride safe and always wear protective gear and crash guards on the bike.

 

[Ramseysteve]

Hey, I dropped mine today.........pride goeth before the fall as they say. I ran out of gas on purpose to see how far the last bar goes. When the bike rolled to a stop I pulled out pen and paper and wrote down the mileage and calculated the fuel mpg of the tank. With that done I hopped off the bike to get out the fuel bottle - and forgot to put down the kickstand. No harm done except scratching the plastic cover on the hand guard and the lower left corner of the saddlebag.

That's so often how these things happen, and its usually after we've been riding for a while when mental fatigue kicks in.

I'm vertically challenged, 5'6", 28" or 29" inseam (depends on where I buy my pants). I could ride the bike as-is, but chose to lower it 1" with the Soupy's link. I am planning to get the seat re-shaped, and may return the bike to stock height after that. Ordinarily stock height would be do-able, but anytime there's a camber or drop off, having an extra inch makes a difference.
Right now my main plan is to try to make that one time I dropped it senselessly the only time I do that. We'll see how that works out!


Steve

 

[Jim]

I too bent the brake lever today whoops.... Weird angle on a hill trouble touching. It happens. Your not alone

 

[fratermus]

^+1
I take my bike to a big empty parking lot at least every other week for low speed maneuver practice. Making a figure 8 in a 2x2 car parking spot is one of my favorites. Make sure you are practicing good form (body position, lean, not death-gripping the handle bars, etc.)

I read a post (advrider? twtex?) where a rider said he turns every parking activity into a bit of low-speed practice. A low-speed u-turn, figure 8, etc before pulling into that spot.

It's fun and challlenging because you get to see a lot of surfaces, angles, inclines, etc. Just make sure there are no cars moving around before you do it.

 

[wildeone]

I broke already 3 of them, once in the garage when I lost my balance on slippery surface and bike outweighed me. (I was not on the bike)
Two other times when practicing offroad. In mud and sand you'll be down sooner or later so I have always spare lever in my frunk.

BTW why is that stock lever so long? no sense to me, could be like 2 inches shorter so it wouldn't brake so easily.
I'm planning actually to get sporty, short lever for both clutch and brake.

Slow speed training as well as offroad is quite often neglected and that's the biggest mistake street rider can do,
especially with heavy bikes like this. Throttle and clutch control are the most important skills after braking.

 

[Akar.Zaephyr]

(...)
The only good thing that came out of this was that I was able to pick the bike up easily. I do not know if it was because of the anger or because the bike is light. I was a little worried in the past that in case of a drop I would not be able to pick the bike up. Still, I was able to do it on a first attempt.
(...)

The bike isn't light, but the balance center is really low so it helps picking up the bike from flat.
I know - I've had the "opportunity" to drop my driving school's Suzuki Gladius a few times during the course (I dropped all of the bikes I had the opportunity to drive on while learning...), and trust me - when this fat lady leans more than 45 degrees, there's no chance I could straighten it up.
I've almost dropped my NC when I was parking it in a garage, but despite it leaned more than 50 degrees, I was able to hold it and straighten it up. So it's not your anger - these are well balanced machines

Also, a question: do you drive the manual or the DCT version?
As wildeone stated (and what I've been taught on the motorcycle driving course), while maneuvering slowly, you constantly use half-clutch - this way, it doesn't matter how many revs you have, you'll go slowly the whole time and if you start going too fast - use rear break to compensate. It wasn't easy to learn this but I see why my instructors insisted I do.

Here's how currently motorcycle DL exam looks like (starts at 0:30 and ends at 3:30):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCoj8AxYNqU
Of course, what they don't tell you is that exam motorcycles have huge crashbars all around so it's not easy to fit between some of the bollards (like the slow slalom), carshbars like these:



But I guess it wouldn't be Poland if someone didn't mess something along the way

Anyway, back to the subject, maybe this video will serve as some sort of inspiration as to what you can practice to get a better control over your bike.
Hope it helps

 

[walawn]

I would check out ASV levers. I put a set on my Grom and they are considered unbreakable. They fold back in a crash as well. Very nice quality, but also expensive.