I dropped my baby ! Albeit with some elegance I have to say.We were camping in Cornwall.
Missed a signpost,so started to do a several-point turn , luggage and Alison hoping for the best. Unbeknown to the relatively novice K-rider he had stopped over a shallow pothole and his right foot went down to the bottom. Slowly but surely everything else followed and despite his best efforts to correct this slight oversight the baby was dropped !
Watching silently on her veranda ,an elderly lady viewed at least 6 cars drive by as the K-rider and Alison the Brave struggled firstly to free themselves then hopelessly attemp to stand K back upright !!
Its intersting how tight a crash helmet can feel when an extra litre of blood is pumped into the head and neck I can tell u !
Anyway, here is my baby shortly after the drop. I have posted this for your interest . If one drops your beloved K slowly and thoughtfully you might get away with the following. If you zoom in on the pic (if allowed) there are grazes on the right mirror housing and the lowest point of the side panel only. What may not be visible is that the pannier sheared off its anchor lock rivets.
Of course the big learning point for me is to realise just how heavy a fully laden K can be when compared to my XT600E, and TO STOP ON LEVEL GROUND.
Best wishes.

Commiserations and glad it was not too serious with no injury other than to pride.

An easy trap to fall into and just one of many possibilities along with gravel, oil etc etc.

Could have been worse could have been a GoldWing (sorry Ned) or a Rocket 3

Did the same thing yesterday on the R1150RT. The bike stands quite tall and I got back on after a stretch break, right foot went about 3" lower than expected beside the ditch, the bike did the slow-mo tip/fall. I fell down the short bank headfirst on my back into thick blackberries guarding the pasture below. Still had the key in my hand. Fortunately wearing my leather jacket, helmet and gloves, so no injury to to the body, only my pride. Heard the sickening crunch as the bike hit the ground and I headed for the blackberries. Only damage to the bike was a broken mirror lens on the right side, no body or paint damage - kind of a grassy area it landed on. My buddy with the Gwing ran over to help me - until he ran out of cable - his helmet was still wired into the console of the bike and he nearly broke his neck when that came up short. Like a bad skit...

Where is that video camera when you need one

That was a close one Club-C, this is one reason I have never liked top box's it's getting that leg up and over as you get older thank god the LT only has a small box and a low seat height.

BIG D

the only zero mph crashes I had were kickstand related. Soft dirt or a stand folding backwards till I got my K.
I've had 2 on her and a couple of close calls. It seems that the weight suprises me when i let it lean that 1 degree too far.
My 2 were a slippery spot at a gas staion right at stopping and once when the bike was skipping and sorta lurched leaving a stop sign.

I was reading Jonny's bit and feeling sorry for him, the struggle he had to make with his (presumably patient) wife on the back, the passing motorists disinterested in his plight, the follow-up commiserations. Then I got down to Clubbie's story and I'm nearly pissing myself with laughter. It's early here in OZ, haven't even had me first cuppa yet. Oh, man, I can picture it all. Too right, Phil, where is that camera when you need it!?

I got off my bike after a long day in the saddle (Broken Hill to Burke with Lightning Ridge my destination)) and placed my foot down onto the greasy diesel slime at the bowser. Of course the bike did a slow-mo away from and no amount of scrambling and clutching could stop it once it fell away towards the pump. It landed against the lip of the pump and took the right mirror off, scratched the right hand side pannier lid and the fairing's lower panel. A good Samaritan truckie bounded out of his rig to assist me in righting it, I was that tired I couldn't pick it up myself. Then he was gone, leaving me standing there feeling the fool. The telltale paint marks are still there to comfort me.

I hope the bike's are all alright. Your pride too. Best to get right back on and ride.

It is SO easy to do. Just after I got my K I decided to park it in the garage the other way round so I could just ride it out. I backed into the garage between my cupboard full of bits and my wife's car, got off pushed the centre stand down and pushed my backside out to get a good step down and heave up on the handle, bumped the cupboard and the bike started to move away from me. I could not move my mass far enough back to prevent the bike going away from me and all I could do was slow the speed that I lowered it onto my wife's car GRRRR!

With any big bike once the centre of gravity gets too far off centre it is going over and there is usually nothing you can do to stop it.
Regards,
K-BIKE

aye ...its a sad thing ...that instant you realize its on its way .....knowing whats going to happen ....and hoping that not tooo much damage will occur

i seem to recall earlier this week someone forgot to latch the sidestand down properly and leg overed to get off ...... hmmm its a classic feeling

now looking for some mushroom mounts or engine crashbars

I think I can registered to this club of unfortunate riders.
The first time that I took my wife on the K75, we went to visit her brother and I had to park the bike on the grass. I tried to put my foot on the ground, but .... it had disappeared. No way that it was a sink hole in this area!
I had parked the bike on a slanted ground and I was missing 3" on my leg to keep the bike straight.
I learn my lesson and now I am wearing platform boots for riding...... Not!

Timely revival of this thread. I was riding yesterday outside of Cooperstown, NY--fictitious 'home' of baseball and two centuries of the wealthy. I like to pull over and rest in cemeteries, as they are 'public', quiet and plentiful. In this hilly, windy cemetery I found a person whose stone said that he'd gone down on the USS Titanic. Can't remember his name, but his grave site suggested he'd left a sh*tpot of money to has descendents.

Anyway, as I was trying to decide which graveside road to explore next, I was also trying to do an uphill/downhill several-point-turn when I put my left foot in the unseen several-inches deep pothole and put the bike down hard on the left side. As it is a naked K, nearly the entire brunt of the fall was taken by the engine crash bar which has a long, heavy scrape right down to bare metal on it. It'll be coming off soon for a re-painting. There is the tiniest indication of contact made on the left turn signal, and a bit of a rash on the front, underside corner of the left pannier. Not readily noticeable to anyone, thankfully.

All things considered, pretty minor damage, and I'm glad that the only persons to witness it were all underneath me. First time I'd put it down at all in the two years that I've owned it--GRRRR.

Perhaps your 'witnesses' were beckoning you to "come, Bob, join us!" Glad you beat the ghosts.

I was proudly pillioning a sweet young thing to a local nightspot/restaurant one night in Albuquerque, New Mexico, back in the mid-'90s. I'd had only one small drink and she'd had a few. I'd dressed up and she'd dressed down (the way we like them to) and she was happy to go on the bike as it was a typical warm, desert Summer night, full of twinkling stars, hopeful with romance. We had on our helmets but as mentioned, she had on scant little else. I s'pose I was feeling full and proud, because as we rocked up to the front door in front of the gathering queue, and she was to step off the bike, I forgot to put a foot down and over we went, a slow-motion tumble into the dirty street. It was on an Airhead so the left cylinder sticking out like it does should have helped the bike to come to a stop at a certain angle. Oh no, not this time. Since we were both on the bike and neither of us attempted to 'step away' in time as the bike tumbled, the cylinder head only served to pivot the whole lot and pitch us ungracefully off. To my surprise she jumped up and smiling, offered me a hand. The bouncer and I picked the bike up and we rolled it to the car park a few metres away, unscathed. She never mentioned the incident again. We went in and danced (well, I hobbled a bit) until just before the golden ball came up that morning. Man was I sore the next day.

Wondering how much the get-off had to do with that....

Thanks for that TWB a great story, and reminded me of all the time I had spent out there I loved those warm nights in that part of states.

Close one there bobgass, best lay off them grave yards for a while tempting fate there mate.

BIG D

Hi all,

Johnyqq - whilst car drivers go past laughing at your plight, did any bikes stop to help?

I stopped once to help a guy pick his suzuki from the ground and guess what - dropped mine! both agreed the ground was very uneven etc etc and went our merry ways with a smile.

It is oh so easy to drop these once you get to the point of no return, but i bet the passing biker is more likely to help than any of the first 50 car drivers. the hardest part then is convincing er indoors to get back on..

May see you out and about as I am in the next village to you

cheers all.

Ian