Frame Sliders... Necessary?

[TheDuck]

See, I am the extreme in most aspects of my abilities and characteristics. I am the biggest guy in our group, riding the smallest bike. I am the most aggressive rider, yet never wrecked a bike. (I did dump a bike at low speeds a couple times as a teenager many years ago from doing stupid things like the ONE TIME I put Armorall on tires...nobody educated me on this, I learned the hard way.) I have friends with much bigger bikes that don't ride as hard as I do, and can't nearly ride as fast as I do, yet most of them have frame sliders and I find myself helping them rebuild their bikes after wrecks at the rate of at least 1 bike a month.

I don't need frame sliders, and I don't like the way they look. If I was some kind of stunter with a bike intended only for that purose I would cage the engine and put sliders on everything, but for my regular street bike, or the occasional spirited riding I don't find the need... and for the guys that had them, their bikes still got messed up, LOL! The sliders did nothing, and in some cases did MORE damage by shattering their frames or engine mounts or BOTH from where the sliders were mounted.

I find myself thinking this today as I replaced my friend's ZX-14's engine mount and replaced the severely bent bolt in his slider (which needed to be custom welded, but thats another story.)

I think these guys need sliders on their asses, they spend more time on them on the asphalt than on their seats.

Anyone elses input on this?

[Alex]

Some discussion of them in this thread. I think they can certainly help in certain incidents, depending on their design and the type of incident. I think the ones that have been released for the ninjette so far are almost useless though, and I'm not even sure if they'd do more harm than good.

[TheDuck]

Originally Posted by Alex

Some discussion of them in this thread. I think they can certainly help in certain incidents, depending on their design and the type of incident. I think the ones that have been released for the ninjette so far are almost useless though, and I'm not even sure if they'd do more harm than good.

Yeah, I saw that. I guess I didn't read down far enough, haha. I thought it was just a sales pitch thread.

[aloh]

I feel that if you fell hard enough onto a slider, you could bend the frame pretty bad. That costs way more than some paint and plastics...

[HKr1]

Lots of pros & cons about them. I have only put them on one bike, thats my R1. I was getting some woodcraft case covers, and got deal on everything from Motomummy.
Will they help my bike ...... ? Who knows, from what I see at the track. Your bike comes away without hardly a scratch...... or freaking destroyed

[KJohnson21]

I got my YZF600R at a bargain price because the plastic looked like crap and the seller was trying to dump it in winter. I bought it from a third party, but it looked like the original owner did a few low speed drops. You know, once or twice on each side to get it evened out.

Of course I looked it over closely, and the seller was cool and let me drive it (also because my wife was there at the time). Later, when I got it home, I took all of the plastic off and totally verified that it was purely cosmetic damage. Anyway, this is the type of damage that a simple set of sliders probably would have prevented. I added a set because the engine side covers are exposed on the YZF600R and they're already scuffed up a bit on this bike.

Today, I put sliders on our 250. Thank you Kelly and CG for the DIYs!! The short-legged newbie riders here are definately anticipating some low speed drops. So they all insisted on the sliders as just a bit of insurance.

As far as dumping it at speed, I agree with you guys that the sliders are just as likely to cause damage as they are to prevent it. But, "at speed" there are a lot of what-ifs and should-haves that can step in.

[SF-Dug]

From what I have read frame sliders can be a bane and a boon depending on the accident. Then again frame sliders were really only meant to protect the frame and not the plastics when they first came about but people assume they are there to protect the plastics and the frame. Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't a moto need a frame to be setup correctly to benefit from frame sliders period?

[Alex]

Dug -

I think you're on the right track. In terms of what sliders can protect or not, depends on their mount, their design, and the type of incident/crash. For bikes without or without the traditional concept of a frame, there would be some differences, but it's not iron-clad that a traditional perimeter frame is necessary. Many folks put sliders on the old 12R's even with the frame that went over and around the engine instead of around the side of it (just like the new ZX-14's). But you have a point, some of the strongest frameslider mounts tend to be right at the frame where the engine mounts to the frame as well (R6's and many other supersports are like this).

[Sailariel]

Duck, I`m 5`11" and weigh 210--a bit heavy for a 250, but I don`t see a weight reduction in the offing since I do a lot of weight lifting.

[NICUNinja]

Sliders were the first thing that I wanted on the bike. A friend layed his bike down last year in an intersection that had a bit of gravel. His foot slipped while standing still. Could have saved himself the heartache if he had sliders.