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Kawinoob217 · May 12th, 2019, 07:13 PM

It's been a while since I've posted something on these forms, as university definitely pulled me away, but this all happened the day before the last semester started.

To kick off the year, my friends and I decided to have a cookout. We had all the food ready, but we were missing some small things here and there (plastic forks, paper plates, napkins etc...). I decided to take a quick ride down to the Kroger (Michigan grocery store) and grab the items with a backpack. Here comes mistake number 1. Knowing that it was going to be a sub 5-minute ride, I decided to be completely dumb, and not exchange my cargo shorts for jeans. I looked up to see the sky darkening, so I threw a rain coat on instead of my riding jacket. I did have a helmet on though. Anyway, I began to ride as the rain started to come down. Taking it slow, I came up to the medium section where I needed to turn across traffic to get to the store. As I entered the medium, a car in front of me decided last second to go to Kroger as well. I slammed on my front brakes.... only for them to be completely soft. I slammed on my rear and began slowing down as the rear tire kicked out. I was controlling it just fine, until I hit a dry spot, and the tire kicked straight. I flew off doing about 20 and went hip first into the asphalt. After I landed, I stumbled up on pure adrenaline. I ran over to my bike which had laid down on its right side. The throttle had been locked at 50% so the bike was revving on its side. The right break handle had snapped off, and the handle itself was at an awkward angle. I walked my bike to the side of the road to assess the damage. I couldn't get the throttle cable to back off from pulling the butterfly valve on the carb, so I cut it with some snips I had in my backpack. I rode back slowly, using my right hand to manually operate the butterfly valve for throttle, still clutching with my left, and breaking rear only. I parked the bike, sat down on the curb, and thought about what a great start to the semester it was. We decided to just use regular plates and silverware instead.

Now that it's summer, I'm just getting around to fixing my bike. Turns out that the brake line had a crack in the rubber, letting some air in (It's a 1998...to be expected).

May 12th, 2019, 07:13 PM	#1
Kawinoob217 ninjette.org member Name: Ethan Location: South Lyon, Michigan Join Date: Jul 2017 Motorcycle(s): 1998 Kawasaki Ninja 250 Posts: 24	A great start to this last semester... It's been a while since I've posted something on these forms, as university definitely pulled me away, but this all happened the day before the last semester started. To kick off the year, my friends and I decided to have a cookout. We had all the food ready, but we were missing some small things here and there (plastic forks, paper plates, napkins etc...). I decided to take a quick ride down to the Kroger (Michigan grocery store) and grab the items with a backpack. Here comes mistake number 1. Knowing that it was going to be a sub 5-minute ride, I decided to be completely dumb, and not exchange my cargo shorts for jeans. I looked up to see the sky darkening, so I threw a rain coat on instead of my riding jacket. I did have a helmet on though. Anyway, I began to ride as the rain started to come down. Taking it slow, I came up to the medium section where I needed to turn across traffic to get to the store. As I entered the medium, a car in front of me decided last second to go to Kroger as well. I slammed on my front brakes.... only for them to be completely soft. I slammed on my rear and began slowing down as the rear tire kicked out. I was controlling it just fine, until I hit a dry spot, and the tire kicked straight. I flew off doing about 20 and went hip first into the asphalt. After I landed, I stumbled up on pure adrenaline. I ran over to my bike which had laid down on its right side. The throttle had been locked at 50% so the bike was revving on its side. The right break handle had snapped off, and the handle itself was at an awkward angle. I walked my bike to the side of the road to assess the damage. I couldn't get the throttle cable to back off from pulling the butterfly valve on the carb, so I cut it with some snips I had in my backpack. I rode back slowly, using my right hand to manually operate the butterfly valve for throttle, still clutching with my left, and breaking rear only. I parked the bike, sat down on the curb, and thought about what a great start to the semester it was. We decided to just use regular plates and silverware instead. Now that it's summer, I'm just getting around to fixing my bike. Turns out that the brake line had a crack in the rubber, letting some air in (It's a 1998...to be expected).