Passes & Canyons Blog

Yeah, I felt like an idiot.

Of course when you do something really bone-headed you’re sure to have a large audience. I searched the web for some stories riders have told of their most embarrassing moments, and they are presented below. Up above in that photo is one of mine. On that particular day I could not for the life of me simply rock my Concours up on its center stand. Fortunately, the people in front of whom I embarrassed myself were the ones who then helped me get it back up.

By the way, a number of these stories come from folks in New Zealand, thus the odd–for us–language used at times.

• Pulling out of Croucher st onto Queen st, right outside the Star and Garter, hit neutral, revved to max, smashed it into second gear and the front wheel took off skywards leaving me hanging off the back heading into oncoming traffic. Much excitement from all the drinkers at the windows. Ignominious.
• 1986, Stylin it up hangin off the Benelli doing a very good Freddie Spencer imitation trying to impress a chick. Dropped it and as I slid down the road looking back thinking I may get some sympathetic concern, was horrified to see that she hadn’t even noticed.
• 3.05 pm one busy afternoon outside high school I gave the bike a solid kick to get her running and a big handful of revs to make sure everyone had noticed me. I proceeded to give it plenty of revs and subsequently dropped the clutch to find I’d left the lock on the front wheel and dropped the bike in front of all my mates. They still take pleasure in reminding me about it 15+ years later.
  (Reply on this forum: Hard luck mate. I had a similar minor fall in a forest once but luckily there was nobody around to see or hear me fall, so did it even happen….I think not.
• One of my better ones with an audience was going full tilt on my pushie past the girls college in Blenheim, eyes left at all the skirt on the tennis courts. Straight into the back of a parked car. Got me plenty of attention, although not quite the kind I had in mind.
• One fine day @ the Paeroa races, I’d had a good day watching the racing & hopped on the bike to head home with the then G/F. She jumped on the back, I let out the clutch & the Disc lock stopped us dead. I managed to hold the bike kinda up, but she fell off the side & onto the grass. Of course I managed to do this with a LOT of other people that we knew around. My popularity went to zero in an instant :)
• I have a sticker on my helmet that says “turn the gas on stupid”. It was given to me last year at bike week after trying to get the bike started in the middle of a crowd of 300 at Hooters. Damn near ran the battery down trying to get it started-with the pet**** on “off”. When I realized what was going on, I dismounted and made a big show of checking all the mechanicals, battery, etc.(fully knowing what I had done). Got back on and miraculously the bike started. I’m guessing that of the 300 people, 150 thought I was an awesome mechanic and the other 150 knew exactly what happened. Couldn’t fool my bro’s though. 30 minutes later at the next stop, I had my new helmet sticker.
• I was leaving the local biker bar and I figured I would be real cool and take off kind of hard so everyone would hear my nice sounding exhaust. It would have been much cooler if I had buckled my helmet so I didn’t have to go back and get it out of the middle of the street.
• I was washing the bike one day and Penny decided to help, so she grabbed the Armorall and started to shine up the seat. A couple of friends stopped by and wanted to go for a ride. Well you guessed it, Just as we were pulling out of the driveway I dropped the clutch and off went my wife right in the middle of the street.. The only thing that got hurt was her pride and now she never ever puts ANYTHING on the seat besides her butt.
• This was back when I was young and stupid (I’m not young anymore). There were a bunch of us who used to ride dirt bikes up near the lake not too far from my house. Usually after a day of riding we would have a fire by the lake and drink some beers. Of course every now and then one of us would get on the bike and do some donuts or a wheelie, or something stupid. Well my famous trick was to ride toward the edge of the lake, where it was about a 5 foot drop to the water which was about 10 feet deep right there, and just before I got to the edge I would lock the back brake, skid sideways, and then jump on the throttle doing a 1/2 donut about a foot from the lake. Yep, you guessed it. Got just a little too close one time and went right over the edge. Both the bike and I hit the water making a big splash and of course getting a big cheer. I went back the next day with a truck and pulled the bike out, which believe it or not ran just fine after it all dried out. For years I was known as “Splash.”
• I had just bought my brand new Vulcan 2000. I picked it up at the dealer and rode it home ahead of my wife. I decided to go around the block before she got home and had to stop at the top of the hill. The street had just been paved and had a lot of asphault gravels on it. Soooo….. my foot slides out and the bike goes down, I jammed my leg under it to keep the tank from getting dinged and was pinned. I had to yell for my neighbor to come out and help me get the bike back up. This is one heavy bike! I then pulled onto the carport and got off…..kickstand still up, rider pinned face first against the wall. Luckily, all before the wife got home.
• Ok I too have had a moment in which I went to move my wife’s bike which was setting in front of a bunch of bikers. As soon as I let out on the clutch I went down. Now that wasn’t bad enough, so I jumped up and looked around to see if anyone saw that…..they did. So I started the bike up again and did the very same thing, this time breaking off one of my wife’s mirror’s……….Moral of the story ……Don’t forget to remove the front brake lock stupid!!
• Well years ago, before I married I met this girl at a rally who wasn’t really into the bike scene just the party atmosphere. Got to talking about how difficult it must be for bikers to pick a one-nite-stand,and make the most of it…..well I decided to demonstrate how it could actually be done on a bike, my cunning little plan almost worked until things got a wee bit hot, the stand flipped,bike fell over, end of one-night-stand.Embarrassing wasn’t the word, and of course being half-tanked I told my best mate……needless to say he did not tell a single person at the well packed rally, he just told the lead singer of the band, who decided to share the information with everyone.

Biker Quote for Today

God made some girls perfect; the rest she put in cars.