dumbest thing you've done in the 2-wheel world?

[thrownchain]

OK I might as well add my moment to the list. When I first started riding we had a Heathkit minibike. Anybody remember those? 5hp BS motor, big tires, snowmobile type drive, Would do 30-35 mph. Well anyway, when someone was around we'd show off by coming around the barn  on full song. The pegs on those were in front of the motor on the base of the frame curve, so if you lean too far over, all of a sudden your doing big circles thru the yard. It was even more fun on wet grass. When I moved up to a big bike [ Yamaha CT 1], I was riding at my cousins in the southern tier of NY. We had three or four places where we would "hillclimb", a pretty good grade,too. More than once I'd lose momentum about 10 ft from the top, then try to figure out how to dismount gracfully. Got laughed at alot, of course it wasn't funny when it was someone else.

[ksithumper]

I once hurled my big CCM motocrosser at a tabletop jump in a vain effort to keep up with the fast guys. On the take off ramp I hit a bump which sent me off slightly diagonally. By my standards it was a massive jump, and while up there I had plenty of time to realise that both wheels were going to land pretty close to the ropes. It turned out to be rear wheel just inside the ropes, front wheel just outside the ropes....

The spectators loved it.

[behindbars]

It must have been the summer of 1978. I was at a summer camp in northern Michigan. Got really bored with some of the classes I had....such as edible wild plants. Got the bright idea of skipping that class and seeing if I could "borrow" one of the CT70 minitrails that the camp had for trail riding. Got to the barn where they stored them and nobody was around so......I got one out, fired it up and off I went. One of my classes was trail riding, but none of the kids had a clue how to ride and I was getting very frustrated at the pace we were riding. Now I was FREE with nobody to slow me down. [] Didn't know the trails very well and that would cost me dearly. I had the CT wound wide open when I crested a hill. To my horror I realized that the other side of the hill was much longer and MUCH steeper... and at the bottom was a steeply banked drainage ditch. I tried to slow down, but it was way too late. I planted the front wheel squarely into the steep bank of the ditch and smashed the "family jewels" into the triple clamps with a tremendous thud. I had hit the bank so hard I had bent the forks all the way back to the frame. The front wheel would barely roll. What to do now? My "jewel sack" was cut and swelling at an alarming rate. [xx(] I knew if I went to see the camp Doctor they would put 2 and 2 together and I'd be busted for sure.... so I took the bike back to the barn and leaned it against a tree. Nobody had seen anything! I pulled off that one, but my fun for the rest of the week was over as I could hardly walk. Looking back now it was poetic justice. I sure got what I deserved. I often wondered what the camp mechanic must have thought when he found the bike all mangled up. Stupid kids.....

[thrownchain]

OUCH,OUCH,OUCH!!!:(

[wolfmanonapenton]

"I say you surely all will kickgas if you hold the clutch in and grab a handfull of throttle and WFO then let out real fast!!!Try forgetting to tighten a front backing plate stay arm to the slider on a 72 piner on the pipe wfo on a strait away making up time in a qualifyer at Stone Mountain!Thats when they started playing with the clevis pin replacements project?Just make sure pins tight!Or you will have worse than worrying about quick wheel changes?

[Rain Man]

Wolf man, Its sounds like that happened 30 years ago, ...     havent you done anything off/camber since then ?  I've never/ever have done anything dumb or funny on a bike,  It sounds like alot of us haven't done anything dumb or funny on a bike since 197 shushushba. sshhhs
  come on guys, did anybody crash or have a funny mishap this past season ??
 I'm leading up to something here,

Raymond
 Down East Pentons

[wolfmanonapenton]

Alright Rainman"I'll give you something exciting!This summer I bought a 1970 400 cross husky and some idiot lost the little strait retainer left in the side of the bing 54,36mm carb,the little dohicke that keeps the slide from turnins sideways and holds it strait in venturi?I was unawhere of this! started it up and man I could hear that piston wanting to hit me !Instant RPM,scarey when you're in a inclosed area!Now I know why some of my machines had that old ugly orange three-M adheasive globbed on them to prevent air leaks and to keep those keepers that were pressed at factory in place?Nothing like a pinched throttle cable either!On a heatyhy 250 penton![][B)][}:)]

[wolfmanonapenton]

Rain man! you deserve a gold medal![)]

[Rain Man]

Naa Wolfy, you gotta earn gold medals, and they don't come easy or give them away.
 
  Now i'll tell you the dumbest thing I've eva seen a fella do up here in the great North Woods.  
   I've always been a driver in this sport, trying to encourage others to come to the races and events and all...  
Well one time I talked this real green horn into coming to an Enduro with me down in Massachusetts, and he calls me @ 6am and says he'll meet me there cause he's late and didn't wanna hold us up.  Cool,
  The enduro starts and finishes and I never see the guy.
 Well he drove the 175 miles down to the starting point and forgot his bike !!!  And he fessed up to it ta boot.
   That was just one of the few funny things that I've seen, but talk about being nerved up on race day !! wow


Raymond
 Down East Pentons

[Gavin Housh]

If I was to tell the dumbest thing I ever did on a motorcycle[?]. Well let's start with the dumbest thing I ever did with a motor cycle and maybe later I could tell some of the dumbest things I've ever done on a motorcycle. I guess I was sixteen when this story took place. I was working on my first full sized bike, a 125 suzuki I had spent the whole summer working to buy. The bike was purchased from my cousines husband and he lived about onehundred miles away. When he delivered the bike to my parents house it came in pieces stuffed into the trunk and back and front seats of a Datsun 210 two door. He pulled all the stuff out and informs me that it's time for me to learn to build a motorcycle, and then leaves me standing there with a pile of parts. I suposse that maybe it was a way of pleasing my dad. I think nobody thought I could put it all togeather. I moved all the parts down to the basement and went to work. Somewhere during the later portion of the project I was working on getting the carb back on but first decided to clean it in gasoline. I had a pie tin with some fuel and carb parts in it on the floor near the base of the milk crate that was being used to support the machine. Somehow while that was going on my adolecent mind got side tracked to some other important item that needed attention. I don't remember exactly what that important thing was but it involved the use of the propane tourch[xx(]. When I was finished heating I went to set the tourch down on the cement floor. The floor was full of cracks and was very uneven and I just happened to set the tourch on the edge of a crack. As my attention was on the part that needed heating and getting to it before it cooled I hadn't realized that the tourch was falling over right into a pie tin full of gasoline. The fuel went all over the place and immediately burst into flames. The first thing I noticed was that my left hand was on fire[V]. I tried shaking it to put it out and when that didn't work I without thinking put hy hands togeather between my legs. This was successful in extinguishing the flame on my hand but as I looked around me I now saw that the motorcycle had burning gasoline all over the gas tank. This required immediate action and I quickly grabed a mattress pad that I had used to cover to bike. I beat the flame with the pad and smothered it. As I stepped back to gather myself I realized that my hand was painful and I noticed that two of my fingers were severly burned. I new what to do and I ran to the sink next to the washing machine and turned the cold water on my fingers. As I did this the skin fell off the back of my fingers. Now I new I needed real help and I ran to my fathers study. There was one thing I could always be sure of was that my dad was always home working in his study. I ran into the room and informed him that I had started a fire in the basement. He yelled "is the fire out" I told him yes and he asked if I was ok. I showed him my fingers and he freaked. He took me down to the kitchen and put some ice and water in a plastic bag and off we went to the emergency room. We got to see the doctor and he said that I was lucky and would probably not need to have any skin grafts. They cleaned the area touroughly to prevent infection and I don't have to tell you how that felt, because it's kind of hard to describe. When we got home I was sceaming at the top of my lungs and my parents being on the safe side wouldn't give me any more pain medication than what the doctor had perscribed, had to call the doctor to ask if it was ok. I remember laying on the bed screaming and the pain being so bad that I actually was halucinating as I looked up at the ceiling it became a swirling haze of geometric patterns. My brother later told me that the sceaming was so bad that he just plain had to leave the house. Needless to say that I learned well from this expeiance and havn't done anything like this since. More stories later on the dumbest thing I've ever done on, or while riding a motorcycle. Gavin

[lksseven]

Uh, Gavin,  I don't think I'll be able to sleep for a week after reading your horror story ... Lordie!

I was gonna post that everyone else is vying for 2nd place, because I have a new story from just last weekend.  But my first place vote now is squarely in Gavin's ballot box.  I'll have to settle for "most recent" dumb thing on a motorcycle.

Anyhow,  last weekend I was riding/exploring through a new virgin 80 acres,  and became completely enmeshed in a big pile of discarded coiled barbwire (on the KTM) that was disguised by tall grass.   I felt the drag, stopped, and when I looked down, the barbwire was threaded up between the rear tire and brake and fender, and also was wrapped around both my legs almost to the knee.
  It literally took me 10 minutes to extract my boots from the barb wire so I could dismount from the bike (I told everyone later that I looked like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape when he ends up tangled in the second barbwire fence on his stolen BMW motorcycle, but I'll confess to you that I didn't look one single bit like him ... he looked Cool!), then I had to walk a quartermile cross country to the truck and get wire cutters, walk back to the bike, and take about 20 minutes to cut the barbwire into about 30 pieces so I could get rid of all of it from my rear assembly.  Amazingly no damage at all to the  bike or my boots - thank God I was going slow (my usual :-(  ).   Would have been really bad, though, if I had been going fast, or had not been wearing boots.  

Boots, boots, boots!



Larry Seale
I choose to ride

[thrownchain]

I hear ya on the barbed wire, my favorite thing to do used to be ride along the front of the woods until you find a hole to head into, then ride around for awhile, then back out. Alot of the woods and hedge rows have old fences running through them. So you come zipping along and go to pass through or into and all of a sudden someboby put out the anchor. You look down and you've a wire hooked on a footpeg. Also very dangerous on a snowmobile, can cause some damage or injury, even death. Something to watch for. Be careful!![^][^]

[tomale]

I have to admit I had a few laughs reading your stories and it reminded me of a few of my own, to be honest I had forgotten alot of them until everones stories reminded me of them again. So here goes,
My first bike was a Susuki Ts 90. It had been siezed up by the previous owner and my younger brother and I bought it together.
We had some friends that lived down the street and there step dad had bought each of them a new bike. He use race Triumphs at Ascot and I guess he was really fast, he had hung that up and decided to trail ride with his kids, We were invited along since we had just aquired a bike of our own. We had gone to a place called Clear Creek and we had been out on a long trail ride. I was begining to feel my oaks and I thought I knew were we were. Clear creek his a huge place and it is all sand and everything looks like everything else... to my horror.
Bob, my friends dad, had slowed up and I could not figure out why, I quessed he had slowed down to wait for the little kids and I was in a mood to show off just a bit.... As I passed Bob the trail just dissapeared before me, and I was airborne. That would not have been too bad but the trail was really steep and at the bottom was the road and then a drop off and then the stream beyond that.. I had to slow down, there was no place to do that but the down hill I found my self on. I tried to down shift use the rear brake but that caused me to do tank slappers.... what to do now.... I went up a gear from where I had been and applied the rear brake real easy... finally I was slowing down but I was running out of room, down shifted again and a little more rear brake, I did not know how to use the front brake yet so it never saw much service until much later in my riding experience. I got it stopped on the far side of the road with the front wheel just in the soft stuff along the side. I was ready to go back to camp and change my shorts, but Bob came up next to me and slapped me on the back and said that was great, you looked like Joel Roberts coming off the top the hill, thanks I said but I did not feel like that, The moisture in my jeans gave me a different idea, I figure I would never hear the end of it. And there was many a camp fire after that were my exploites were told for all to enjoy.

Or how about Jan. 1974 I had just picked my first new bike a 250 Elsinor. The call had come in that my bike was ready, it was so new that it had to be ordered. Saturday morning I drove down to pick it up and there it was, in all its glory. I loaded it up in my truck and headed to my friends place. He had an orchard behind his place and I wanted to ride it and I have to admit to show off too. we had selected a dirt road that was loose dirt to test the new bike out. I fired it up and headed away from him. I went out 50 yards or so and turned around and gassed it, wow what fun. this was made to do wheelies. As I passed my buddy on the rear wheel the bike came on the pipe so fast that I had no time to do anything and over I went. I got up and only my ego was buised but the bike, the bike, Oh no! As I went over the bike must have gone a little side ways and the rear fender was caught in the soft dirt and it snapped off. This was the first year of plastic fenders and they were a bit brittle. I looked to my friend more some comfort but he was on the ground holding his stomach and laughing hard and loud. If this was not bad enough I figured the only thing to do was to go back to the shop and buy a new fender, but there was none to be had. I ordered a replacement and hoped it would not be too long but the damaged was done and now everyone knew what happened. I could not cover it up. everyone knew that I had the bike and I would have to tell them how  I broke the fender on my new bike with in the first ten minutes of ride time. A side note... I never broke another fender on that bike.

Thom Green,Still crazy after all these years!
76' 250 MC5 (orginal owner)
75' GS400 (project bike)
72'sixday (project bike)

[LynnCamp]

This is one of those questions that brings up memory after memory...

my favorite is the time i hit a spectator spot at some east coast national enduro....... the hill was covered with fallen bikes so I took off into the woods to the left of the crowds.  Unfortunately, I got into trouble... and fell off as my bike went airborne and hung up on a tree limb several feet off the ground.  Luckily, the friendly onlookers helped me pull it down... but was my face red.

As I sit here with pulled ligaments and swollen ankle ... I am more aware of my dumb move 2 months ago when I was climbing a steep, rocky hill in Colorado and again got into trouble.  This time when I fell ... the rotating rear wheel sucked my foot down in between the swingarm and the wheel. Luckily the engine died and the wheel stopped before breaking any of my bones, but my leg was jammed in so tight that my riding buddies had to remove the rear wheel to get me out  (cute trick on a steep rocky mountain).  Ouch!!!! Then even dumber me went on to ride/fall another 50 miles before crying uncle (luckily i was feeling no pain as my lower leg and ankle were numb by the time they got the spokes straightened out and the wheel back on).

[lksseven]

Lynn,

I'll have a cup of coffee with you and you can pick the place.  But if you ask me to go riding with you, I'm gonna have to see a topographical map first

Larry Seale
I choose to ride