Wednesday, November 7, 2007

How to pick up a dropped motorcycle

As happens to most riders at one time or another in their riding career, a bike gets dropped. It can be from inexperience, unexpected circumstances, going too slow in a tight turn, forgetting to lower the kickstand, gravel, etc. Even seasoned riders sometimes drop their bikes.

When a woman drops their motorcycle it is a greater challenge to right the bike, mostly because of the weight involved. If you can find anyone around to help you, don’t hesitate to ask. Just because you follow the methods described below and are ‘able’ to right the bike, first ask if anyone can help. If that isn’t feasible, try it yourself.

This You-Tube video is also a great example of what to do if your bike falls:



I have found several places on the internet that describe with pictures the safest and easiest method for a woman to use to lift up her bike. I seem to always refer to V-Twin Mama when I need advice. These are some of her links: A lady from Georgia named 'skert' who has a great instructional page on lifting your bike. She makes it look so easy in her mini-skirt and boots. She's on another BMW site with more valuable instructions. The Minnesota Motorcycle Safety Center also has an excellent site with photos about lifting your bike safely.

I haven’t actually tried these methods myself so I can’t verify that they work. When I partially dropped my new Vulcan a couple of weeks ago, I remembered seeing these pictures and tried to do what they describe. I didn’t have the details I needed to be successful. Next time I will know what to do. It seems that all the advisers agree that a woman CAN lift a bike by herself if need be.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL..Becky this is funny cause I was going to add this same kind of post to my blog. I've dropped mine and I remember searching all over trying to find the proper technique for picking it back up.

BTW great picture of you with your new toy.

John said...

Hi Becky!

Love the blog - keep up the good stuff. You are right about dropping a motorcycle - I have been riding road bikes since I was 16, but still managed to over-balance mine whilst pushing it into a parking slot a few weeks ago. Luckily a friendly Spanish local came over to help. I will try the method in the video next time as I have always used a similar approach, but facing the bike, and it's very difficult, even though my VTR1000(Super Night Hawk over there, I think) only weighs about 200kg (440 lbs).

Will look forward to your next post,
John

Anonymous said...

Hiya, I had my first experience of attempting to pick up my fallen cruiser by myself this morning. Much to much of a disaster resulting in pulled muscles :-/ I reckon with this technique I could do it, however, my side stand is spring loaded so how can i lift it if fallen on the right side? I can't prop out the side stand in preparation. Stick situation if it happens again.

Can i use this technique but using the centre stand?

I hope someone can offer a bit of advise?