A Lifetime of Experience - Low Speeds and Highsides

[UberGoober]

Yokohama is the second largest city in Japan. It is a mass of construction; old jumbled neighborhoods of traditional wood and paper Japanese homes and small businesses, crowded narrow streets that have existed since time immemorial, and the occasional modern skyscraper all come together to make a special kind of ordered chaos that only Asian cities can achieve. The jumbled, unplanned city of the ground is often overshadowed, quite literally, by ultra modern freeways built atop steel reinforced trestles that soar many stories overhead. It is an interesting juxtaposition - futuristic roadways in the sky that often have their roots in the traditional neighborhoods below; their piers just another landmark in a sea of endless, often shabby little houses.

To be sure, I was not moved into one of those small Japanese houses that have been so often and so accurately described as “rabbit hutches.” I was instead moved to a fairly generously sized two bedroom apartment on the sixth floor of a modern building built along a wide, tree lined boulevard close to the waterfront. It was a nice place to live by Japanese standards but it was smaller than my previous home in the Osaka-Kobe area and it took a great deal of creative effort to get all of my stuff situated inside. The changes were even more drastic on the outside and my car and bike, which had always previously been just outside my own front door, were consigned to their own reserved spaces in the building’s common underground garage.

I have to confess that I was a little nervous about the prospect leaving my highly prized GSXR in a more-or-less public garage. My first trip down there, however allayed my fears. The garage, it turns out was a pretty amazing place – a clean, well lit, heated space that my much wealthier neighbors had already filled with exotic machinery. Most common were the Ferraris -at least four different models- then the Benzes, the Porsches and finally a single Rolls Royce shared space with my well polished bike and my much stinkier, much more well used Golf TDI. It was a fun place for a motorsports freak like me to hang out but, as nice as it was, it did have one problem - no workspace.

Workspace was important to me because I have found that almost every bike I have ever owned has required some amount of tinkering. Generally the more highly strung the bike, the more tinkering is required and my GSXR was no exception to this rule; brand new and showroom stock that bike would have needed a fair amount of attention. If you also consider the number of modifications it had and the fact that it was 15 years old and you can begin to grasp how much tinkering it really took to keep it in tip-top shape. Still, when the bike was working well, it was a joy to take up on those amazing expressways where I could get away from the urban mass in which I was otherwise trapped. It wasn’t very long before I found myself doing it for an hour or two every week – not as much as I might have liked, but still enough to shake off the bike’s cobwebs and to moderate my own urban claustrophobia. When it was working well...

The problem, like so many, started gradually and the effects were so subtle at first they were easy to overlook. A slight shudder here and there and a vague feeling that the bike was running slower than usual. Within a few days, it was more noticeable and a handful of throttle didn’t have its usual effect; the bike struggled to accelerate. It was soon clear that I would have to act. I ran through my options and sought trouble shooting advice from my good friends on-line. Was it electrical? It had some of the signs of a weak spark, but no backfiring. Was it fuel? I changed out the internal fuel filter and looked for pinched gas lines but found none. Was it the air filter? It seemed an obvious choice but I dreaded the thought. It was buried so deeply near the center mass of the bike that getting it out and cleaning it would be a major effort. I struggled with the decision for a week or two but finally decided I had to try. It would be a major hassle with no workbench and minimal tools, but it had to be done and I set to work.

My GSXR, it turns out, had a modified airbox. At some point in its transformation from a run of the mill 1100 into the super-machine that it was, someone had removed much of the old intake system and custom crafted a mount for one very large, cleanable air filter. Of course, getting to it required a great deal of work and required the removal of the battery, the battery box and the disconnection of several wiring harnesses that ran through the narrow area under the seat. Once that was done, I was able to reach into the vacated space and use a short screw driver to remove the four screws that affixed the filter to the airbox. It took some doing and some skinned knuckles, but I got the filter out and cleaned it in a bucket of gasoline. Putting it back together was the same tedious affair in reverse and involved even more scraped knuckles, some dropped screws and other general difficulties. Still, with some effort I managed to get it done without dropping a screw into one of the carburetors so I was satisfied. I put the battery back in, quickly hooked up the wiring harnesses and buttoned it up.

Upon completion, the bike started and idled fine and I decided it was time to take it for a test drive. Since it was just a test, I did not head up onto the expressway, but went instead on the rather smaller access road that was normally crowded with stopped trucks waiting to get into the Port of Yokohama. On Sundays, port traffic was at a minimum and so this road was all but empty, the perfect place for my test.

(Photo - a violent example of the dreaded Highside)

[UberGoober]

One crank of the throttle is all that it took to let me know I had solved my bike’s problem. Able to breathe freely once again, the GSXR was back to its normal, snarling old self and I was elated to finally put the difficulties behind me. It made sense when I thought about it, in such a dense urban area dust and pollution were bound to be a problem and so the air filter had simply clogged doing what it was supposed to. Despite the hassle, I decided, I should be grateful that it had done its job so well. Still, as I slowed approaching a red stoplight, the bike bogged briefly and then the engine stopped running altogether. Since I was already decelerating, I simply dropped down another gear, popped the clutch and used my forward momentum to bump start the bike.

Restarted, the bike idled fine as I waited at the intersection and when the light turned green I accelerated quickly away without a hint of trouble. Since everything seemed OK, I put all thought of the odd engine stall out of my mind and turned onto one of the dead-end access roads that served the port. Although the road lead into the secure cargo facility, I knew from experience that it was public and that there was a small, grassy park and an observation tower at the end of it. Since the whole area had been carefully planned with semi-tractor trailer rigs in mind, the road was three lanes wide each direction and arrow straight. Still, to get to the park, there was one set of “S” curves that required navigation and on some days taking the wide smooth curves at fairly high velocities could be a lot of fun. This was a test run, however, and I was in no hurry so I simply made my way the two miles out to the park and then turned around for a leisurely trip home.

I plodded my way back along the wide road and was moving slow enough at the entry to first S-bend that braking was not required. I eased off the throttle just a touch and, confident that my big Suzuki’s engine could pull me out of any hole, didn’t even bother to downshift to keep my engine speed up. Considering the situtation was almost identical to what happened at the stoplight, I wasn't all that surprised when the engine stalled again and I reacted automatically. As I had before, I pulled in the clutch, shifted to a lower gear and bump started my machine again. It fired back up, and pushed the bike forward just enough to get me into the middle of the second S bend - then all hell broke loose.

I was in the middle of the corner, leaned over to the right when, with a single solid "clunk" the big Suzuki died yet again. The back wheel locked up, the bike skidded and threatened to lowside as it squatted down on its suspension. As I had before, I reacted by pulling in the clutch. Free of the engine's compression, the back wheel started to roll again and regained traction. As it did, the suspension decompressed and all of its coiled force broke loose at once. In a fraction of a second, the bike snapped back up and to the left and I found myself flying off the high side of the bike as it continued its leftward roll and slammed down onto the street.

It’s an odd feeling to be thrown off a bike. In 20 years of street riding I had never been separated from a moving motorcycle and now I found myself some feet above the street just as my bike was meeting its own fate somewhere behind me. The thing was that I had not been going very fast and so, while I had a considerable amount of height over the pavement, I did not have a great deal of forward velocity. I literally hit the ground running and was able to keep on doing so until I found myself standing safely on the side of the road. I had not suffered a single scratch.

My bike had pitched up from its right side and over onto its left with some force, but like me had not been traveling very fast and had not, therefore, suffered the indignity of sliding very far. As I turned to face it, I found that it was simply laying there on its side in the street disgorging the high octane contents of its gas tank onto the pavement. It was a sickening sight, my prized bike laying there in dire need of assistance like some stranded sea mammal on a beach. I acted on instict and quickly ran over to it. With the benefit of a large amount of adrenaline that was now surging into my system, I hoisted it up onto its wheels and got it to the side of the road. I took off my helmet, hung it on a guard rail post and tried to assess the damage.

Despite the force with which the bike had hit, the damage appeared to be minimal. One of my adjustable handlebars had borne the brunt of the impact and bent itself into an odd position relative to where it had been, my left side mirror was broken cleanly off and a few small, but impressive looking scratches disfigured my lower fairing. Not too bad for this kind of an accident, but getting home was going to be problematic.

I started with the bar and quickly realized that the bar itself had not been damaged, it had simply come loose at the adjuster and with one quick application of muscle, I was able to get it back, more or less, into its original position. Moving to start the bike however, I found it was dead. That made me think, the bike had run fine but had died on me twice during my short ride and now it wouldn’t even turn over at all. I had removed the battery during my work, I reasoned so perhaps I should start there.

Pulling off the seat I looked at the battery. It was wired right and everything seemed to be snug, I checked the various wiring harnesses as well and after a moment’s work found one connection that had not completely snapped together. Because of this, my charging system was not supplying power to the bike and I had been running the bike on battery power. When the battery had finally died, so had the bike.

Cursing my own stupidity, I connected the wires correctly. After a second and third check to make sure everything was right this time, I buttoned it up and tried to push start the bike. It took almost a full city block and several attempts before the bike finally fired. The engine struggled into an uneven idle as I sat there atop it, exhausted but relieved. After taking a few long minutes to gather myself back together, I finally kicked it into gear and limped home.

In 20 years of riding I had never had an accident on the street. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I lasted that long in the first place, but despite the fact that I had come away without a scratch, I felt deflated. I had long thought this bike was out to get me, but in the end I had been the one who failed – both myself and the bike. Over the next few weeks I licked my wounds, ordered a new mirror and polished out what had turned out to be mere scuff marks on the fairing. In less than a month the bike was better than it had been before. Only my pride suffered permanent damaged.

People often tell me “It’s not a matter of if you crash, it’s a matter of when.” I hate that statement. I hate it because it scares people away from riding and because I don't think it is always true. Up until the time this happened I could use myself as an example and explain why this wasn't true, but since I am honest, can't do that anymore.

Instead, I tell them that I rode for more than 20 years and never had anything happen that required so much as a band-aid. So, maybe I'm not as proud as I was before, but I am just as smug.

[Alawicious]

Have you ever thought about putting these stories in a book?

Very well written sir

[UberGoober]

Thanks. I suppose I would consider doing so, should some publisher stumble across them and offer me a deal - of course, monkeys flying out of my butt might be more likely.

Thank you for the kind comments, everyone's encouragement is always appreciated.

[Alawicious]

Keep up the good work.

Don't wait for the publisher to stumble accross it, write it up and submit it. You might get lucky

[not2slow]

Once again a great write up UG! I always enjoy these.

[acalliste]