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Horse Clocks
Dec 14, 2004


goddamnedtwisto posted:

Sliders are pretty much an idea starter project if you do want to learn though - it's a job that's just complex enough that you actually have to think and work carefully, but simple enough that you're almost certainly not going to completely lunch your bike if you gently caress something up.

Depends on the bike.

The MT-07 series has frame sliders on the motor/frame mounts. There’s at least one Facebook post a year “how do I put my engine back in” after they removed both bolts before putting the sliders in.

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Slavvy
Dec 11, 2012

My contrarian two cents: frame sliders that bolt through the engine mounts are a crap idea and never worth it.

On both the mt07 and er6 the usual result in a drop is that you save your bodywork and damage the frame instead, usually it gets a little bit tweaked right where the round lug joins to the frame tube, the paint flakes off and the welds rust up. I don't see how that's better than replacing some plastic trim.

On fancier bikes, for example the r6, the engine mounts are semi floating and part of the bike's engineered flex. Every crash knob makes you throw that poo poo in the bin and replace it with a random hardware store bolt + simple spacer and the bike always rides noticeably differently.

I think crash knobs in general are basically a psychological device on most bikes. If you plan on falling over lots, you either need a bike that doesn't care about being dropped (commonly called a drz) or you need to stop caring about dropping your bike (commonly called being rich or having a drz).

Ultimately, street bikes are not designed to fall over. The ideal line never involves falling over, I think it's better to spend money and effort on not falling over. If you begin thinking 'i will fall over doing this' that is exactly what will happen because you'll spend the whole time staring at the ground thinking about crashing. If you have this mentality on a bike that gets really hosed up by being dropped slowly (the only situation a crash knob will do anything in), you are not ready to have such a bike and need to spend more time on a lovely ninja, drz whatever.

I await the heat.

Slavvy fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Apr 24, 2021

Finger Prince
Jan 5, 2007


Slavvy posted:

My contrarian two cents: frame sliders that bolt through the engine mounts are a crap idea and never worth it.

On both the mt07 and er6 the usual result in a drop is that you save your bodywork and damage the frame instead, usually it gets a little bit tweaked right where the round lug joins to the frame tube, the paint flakes off and the welds rust up. I don't see how that's better than replacing some plastic trim.

On fancier bikes, for example the r6, the engine mounts are semi floating and part of the bike's engineered flex. Every crash knob makes you throw that poo poo in the bin and replace it with a random hardware store bolt + simple spacer and the bike always rides noticeably differently.

I think crash knobs in general are basically a psychological device on most bikes. If you plan on falling over lots, you either need a bike that doesn't care about being dropped (commonly called a drz) or you need to stop caring about dropping your bike (commonly called being rich or having a drz).

Ultimately, street bikes are not designed to fall over. The ideal line never involves falling over, I think it's better to spend money and effort on not falling over. If you begin thinking 'i will fall over doing this' that is exactly what will happen because you'll spend the whole time staring at the ground thinking about crashing. If you have this mentality on a bike that gets really hosed up by being dropped slowly (the only situation a crash knob will do anything in), you are not ready to have such a bike and need to spend more time on a lovely ninja, drz whatever.

I await the heat.

I think there's something in between bring rich and having a drz, like buying some cheap track plastics.

RightClickSaveAs
Mar 1, 2001

Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...


Picked up some tools to add to my toolbox, including a decent torque wrench, and got the sliders installed today. Took way longer to remove all the fairings than actually install the sliders. So many hex fasteners and drat plastic pop rivets. Started running out of light so going to go through the process of putting the fairings back on tomorrow.

I was also wrong, they don't replace the engine mount bolts, I'd assumed that because that's the kind I'd dealt with before, but these mount in a specific place on the front engine mounts, there's a little hole that they use to attach with a bolt and specially curved spacer. Hard to get a great picture of it with the angle and light but here's the right side. Actually took me a while to understand the sparse instructions and figure out what was going on:

Slavvy posted:

Ultimately, street bikes are not designed to fall over. The ideal line never involves falling over, I think it's better to spend money and effort on not falling over. If you begin thinking 'i will fall over doing this' that is exactly what will happen because you'll spend the whole time staring at the ground thinking about crashing. If you have this mentality on a bike that gets really hosed up by being dropped slowly (the only situation a crash knob will do anything in), you are not ready to have such a bike and need to spend more time on a lovely ninja, drz whatever.
I've definitely gone back and forth on sliders in general. I think if I hadn't dropped a bike in a parking lot a while ago that had pegs installed which saved me from cracking up the fairing and scratching the exhaust, I'd probably just skip them, especially on a smaller, less expensive bike like the 400 I have now. I never had them on my first bike, a 300, and never dropped that one. I plan to be spending a lot of time in parking lots practicing cornering and slow speed stuff though, and have a feeling if I drop it it's going to be then. Good point about the mindset though, I definitely don't plan to drop it.

RadioPassive
Feb 26, 2012

I like buying used bikes that've been dropped and then dropping them a bunch more because eh gently caress it it's been down before.

Keket
Apr 18, 2009

Mhmm

Slavvy posted:

My contrarian two cents: frame sliders that bolt through the engine mounts are a crap idea and never worth it.

On both the mt07 and er6 the usual result in a drop is that you save your bodywork and damage the frame instead, usually it gets a little bit tweaked right where the round lug joins to the frame tube, the paint flakes off and the welds rust up. I don't see how that's better than replacing some plastic trim.

On fancier bikes, for example the r6, the engine mounts are semi floating and part of the bike's engineered flex. Every crash knob makes you throw that poo poo in the bin and replace it with a random hardware store bolt + simple spacer and the bike always rides noticeably differently.

I think crash knobs in general are basically a psychological device on most bikes. If you plan on falling over lots, you either need a bike that doesn't care about being dropped (commonly called a drz) or you need to stop caring about dropping your bike (commonly called being rich or having a drz).

Ultimately, street bikes are not designed to fall over. The ideal line never involves falling over, I think it's better to spend money and effort on not falling over. If you begin thinking 'i will fall over doing this' that is exactly what will happen because you'll spend the whole time staring at the ground thinking about crashing. If you have this mentality on a bike that gets really hosed up by being dropped slowly (the only situation a crash knob will do anything in), you are not ready to have such a bike and need to spend more time on a lovely ninja, drz whatever.

I await the heat.

Ho boy do I agree with this, allow me to tell you the tale of my cb600f's crash bung.

Bought the bike second hand with about 5k on the clock, checked its history and it'd sat for a bit but no biggie.

After a while I noticed the right crash bung was coming loose, but me not having a deep enough socket thought 'eh' and just tightened it down by hand a few times before picking up a socket and some lock tight and doing the right thing.

Cut to a few months later when I'm giving a friend a lift back at night and felt something smack me knee, yep, the crash bung finally made its escape, now for reference on the Honda this bolt goes through the frame and front right engine mount, so I was a bit pissed.

Few weeks later i managed to swing by a mechanics, and after a few attempts at different bolts we realized there was no thread left at loving all, so a triumph engine bolt and jubille clip, looks a bit ugly but no big deal, off to a couple thousand road trip to Ireland it is.

A few months later I'm walking around the bike waiting for a friend to finish up so we can go for a ride and...



Yeah I'm an idiot, etcetc chastising myself about it for weeks afterwards until I can get it over to a fabricator to help weld up a new mount and, drumroll..

The PO must of dropped the bike hard enough to break the bracket and the entire thing was jb weld and painted to match the engine, the fabricator dude ground back as much as he could and welded up and treaded on a new one for me but, yeah that's my Ted talk on crash bungs.

Greg12
Apr 22, 2020
lol I can just cut out that in-line fuse on the battery tender's positive lead, right

Sagebrush
Feb 26, 2012

Greg12 posted:

lol I can just cut out that in-line fuse on the battery tender's positive lead, right

Why would you?

If it's not blowing, it's not causing you any problems.

If it is blowing, you need to figure out the problem, not just remove the symptom.

Coydog
Mar 5, 2007



Fallen Rib
Oh boy slavvy is arguing against innovation that solves real world problems again. Countdown until he starts calling people pedophiles.

I get that bikes aren't designed to fall over. But what if, WHAT IF, they were? Because in the real world it's much nicer to replace a little bit of plastic than a tank/frame/etc. Especially for a new rider, who will forget such things as "doesn't stand up on it's own". I do agree that sliders that mess with the bike's riding or damage the frame are a bad idea. But something that protects against low speed drops should be a thing on most bikes.

Coydog fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Apr 25, 2021

epswing
Nov 4, 2003

Soiled Meat
How worried should I be about a bit of weeping at the bottom of the rear cylinder?



Horse Clocks
Dec 14, 2004


Greg12 posted:

lol I can just cut out that in-line fuse on the battery tender's positive lead, right

Do you like fire? This is how you get fire.

Finger Prince
Jan 5, 2007


Coydog posted:

Oh boy slavvy is arguing against innovation that solves real world problems again. Countdown until he starts calling people pedophiles.

I get that bikes aren't designed to fall over. But what if, WHAT IF, they were? Because in the real world it's much nicer to replace a little bit of plastic than a tank/frame/etc. Especially for a new rider, who will forget such things as "doesn't stand up on it's own". I do agree that sliders that mess with the bike's riding or damage the frame are a bad idea. But something that protects against low speed drops should be a thing on most bikes.

Nah. Like, you've got $50k sunk into a Harley with impossible to blend bass-boat glitter paint and airbrushed eagles and skulls and poo poo and more chrome than a sailboat, ok put some kind of perimeter bar around it so it's not financially ruinous if you miss a corner on the way home from the bar. You've got a sport bike that got some rash on the tank or fairing and had to spend a hundred bucks on an ebay clutch lever and peg? It's fine. You don't need crash bobbins.

Your argument is essentially the same one your grandma used to justify putting plastic covers on her sofa cushions.

Finger Prince fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Apr 25, 2021

Shelvocke
Aug 6, 2013

Microwave Engraver
Slavvy: this is my opinion

Coydog:

Slavvy
Dec 11, 2012

Coydog posted:

Oh boy slavvy is arguing against innovation that solves real world problems again. Countdown until he starts calling people pedophiles.

I get that bikes aren't designed to fall over. But what if, WHAT IF, they were? Because in the real world it's much nicer to replace a little bit of plastic than a tank/frame/etc. Especially for a new rider, who will forget such things as "doesn't stand up on it's own". I do agree that sliders that mess with the bike's riding or damage the frame are a bad idea. But something that protects against low speed drops should be a thing on most bikes.

New rider = ride a bike you don't care about dropping/doesn't care about being dropped.

If you're thinking about crash knobs and how useful they are, or how perfidious side stands are, you are basically still a new rider and shouldn't be riding anything that gets obliterated in a drop anyway.

You get irritated when I say this because it makes you uncomfortable about yourself.



Finger Prince posted:

Nah. Like, you've got $50k sunk into a Harley with impossible to blend bass-boat glitter paint and airbrushed eagles and skulls and poo poo and more chrome than a sailboat, ok put some kind of perimeter bar around it so it's not financially ruinous if you miss a corner on the way home from the bar. You've got a sport bike that got some rash on the tank or fairing and had to spend a hundred bucks on an ebay clutch lever and peg? It's fine. You don't need crash bobbins.

Your argument is essentially the same one your grandma used to justify putting plastic covers on her sofa cushions.

They definitely have value on the huge elephant bikes, I'd argue you shouldn't ride one if you can't hold it upright but sometimes there's a passenger and three fully loaded boxes and the ground is slippery etc, it's not reasonable to expect a normal human to never fall over on one of them. You still see old people put 100,000km on wings without ever falling over though, so it's hardly guaranteed.

epswing posted:

How worried should I be about a bit of weeping at the bottom of the rear cylinder?





So, this is one of those things where it's technically a fault, it shouldn't leak there, it should be fixed. But fixing it involves taking the engine out and tearing down the rear cylinder. Imo this isn't worthwhile unless it starts to really drip out of there. I wouldn't worry about it until it gets worse, which may never happen.

epswing
Nov 4, 2003

Soiled Meat

Slavvy posted:

So, this is one of those things where it's technically a fault, it shouldn't leak there, it should be fixed. But fixing it involves taking the engine out and tearing down the rear cylinder. Imo this isn't worthwhile unless it starts to really drip out of there. I wouldn't worry about it until it gets worse, which may never happen.

Right, seems to be in the worst place to get to (rear, bottom). Guessing it’s just a gasket that need replacing, disappointingly the bike only has 5000 km. Whole engine out, though?? I was hoping this could be something I could take care of myself at home.

epswing fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Apr 25, 2021

Coydog
Mar 5, 2007



Fallen Rib

Finger Prince posted:

Nah. Like, you've got $50k sunk into a Harley with impossible to blend bass-boat glitter paint and airbrushed eagles and skulls and poo poo and more chrome than a sailboat, ok put some kind of perimeter bar around it so it's not financially ruinous if you miss a corner on the way home from the bar. You've got a sport bike that got some rash on the tank or fairing and had to spend a hundred bucks on an ebay clutch lever and peg? It's fine. You don't need crash bobbins.

Your argument is essentially the same one your grandma used to justify putting plastic covers on her sofa cushions.

Not quite, right? The covers on the cushions detract from the look and function of the couch. Drop pegs/frame sliders don't affect the look much either way, nor the function. They are pretty unobtrusive yet do the job.


Slavvy posted:


You get irritated when I say this because it makes you uncomfortable about yourself.


Gentleman, reset the Slavvy/Musk countdown clock. :sigh:

Slavvy
Dec 11, 2012

epswing posted:

Right, seems to be in the worst place to get to (rear, bottom). Guessing it’s just a gasket that need replacing, disappointingly the bike only has 5000 km. Whole engine out, though?? I was hoping this could be something I could take care of myself at home.

Tbh all the metric cruisers blur together for me but iirc you won't be able to lift the barrel up off the studs because the frame is in the way, I could be wrong though.

And yeah the gasket has failed for some reason. It seems to be a Yamaha thing, I've fixed the exact same problem on an r1. Simple two layer steel gasket and it was leaking nowhere near a stud hole or oil gallery, yet oil would bubble out slowly when the bike was hot. There was no way to deck the barrels but everything seemed perfectly straight and undamaged, the gasket was fine, all the studs were tight and replacing the gasket fixed it. It looked exactly like yours does, to this day I don't know what was going on there.

Coydog posted:

Gentleman, reset the Slavvy/Musk countdown clock. :sigh:

I genuinely don't know what this means, it's like cspam sleeptalking. I wish I was a billionaire who can only fail upwards?

Slavvy fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Apr 25, 2021

epswing
Nov 4, 2003

Soiled Meat

Slavvy posted:

Tbh all the metric cruisers blur together for me but iirc you won't be able to lift the barrel up off the studs because the frame is in the way, I could be wrong though.

I asked because Harley says even a Stage 4 kit, which includes pistons, “does not require removal of the powertrain from the chassis”, so I had some hope there.

Slavvy
Dec 11, 2012

epswing posted:

I asked because Harley says even a Stage 4 kit, which includes pistons, “does not require removal of the powertrain from the chassis”, so I had some hope there.

Ahhh yes but you see, Harley actually know what they're doing. They struck this problem many decades ago and developed a head design where the studs stop about 3/4 of the way up the barrel, and the nuts have a long tubular threaded shank that covers the remaining distance, so you can pull the barrel out through the gap between the studs and frame after sliding the head out sideways.

Metric cruisers are normal bikes twisted and warped into looking like something the designers themselves don't understand, so they are inevitably covered in engineering conflicts Harley ran into and resolved ages ago. This is one of the many reasons I tell people not to bother with metric cruisers.


Waaaiiit a second that isn't a vstar 650, it's a Harley! Yes you can definitely do it in situ, it is a piece of piss, go with god my son. At most you'll need to cut down a small allen key to get at the rocker cover screws depending on how close the frame is.

Slavvy fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Apr 25, 2021

Slide Hammer
May 15, 2009

epswing posted:

How worried should I be about a bit of weeping at the bottom of the rear cylinder?





My bike's engine is absolutely slathered, just crusted in road grime from 3 or 4 oil leaks near the same area (cam chain tensioner, clutch pivot arm, tachometer cable connection, who knows what else), and it's been that way for like 7,000 miles. Only negative change to operation has been hot-oil-smell after a ride and needing to top up the oil every 1,000 miles.

some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 
Eh — less concerned about fairings, I’d hope that frame sliders keep my metal tank away from the asphalt in a lowside. I’m not terribly concerned with rashed plastic — i rode around on a torn up 250 for a while and it didn’t really bother me — but having a rashed metal tank sounds like a maintenance nightmare once it starts to rust.

That said the frame sliders did their job when I looked too close in front of me during a tight low speed u-turn and basically tipped over. Slider took the brunt and I’ll sacrifice a $100 slider to save a collective $1000+ OEM cost plastics. I know they won’t do anything at higher speeds or in any slides of consequence. Even my lovely 10mph corner lowside ended up tearing up my carefully hand-painted plastics on the 250 so I adjusted my expectations for future incidents accordingly.

But eh, it’s all risk. If I fall over my bike is going to get donked up. That’s just something you have to be mentally prepared for. Sliders may mitigate it a little but you’ll be looking at some damage no matter what, just depends on circumstances of your slide.

some kinda jackal fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Apr 25, 2021

Strife
Apr 20, 2001

What the hell are YOU?

Slide Hammer posted:

Only negative change to operation has been hot-oil-smell after a ride and needing to top up the oil every 1,000 miles.

This is a part of the Harley Davidson Experience™.

Slavvy
Dec 11, 2012

Martytoof posted:

Eh — less concerned about fairings, I’d hope that frame sliders keep my metal tank away from the asphalt in a lowside. I’m not terribly concerned with rashed plastic — i rode around on a torn up 250 for a while and it didn’t really bother me — but having a rashed metal tank sounds like a maintenance nightmare once it starts to rust.

That said the frame sliders did their job when I looked too close in front of me during a tight low speed u-turn and basically tipped over. Slider took the brunt and I’ll sacrifice a $100 slider to save a collective $1000+ OEM cost plastics. I know they won’t do anything at higher speeds or in any slides of consequence. Even my lovely 10mph corner lowside ended up tearing up my carefully hand-painted plastics on the 250 so I adjusted my expectations for future incidents accordingly.

Yes, but this is only a problem if you go to a big bike far too soon, this is one of the reasons you get told not to do that.

Like right there in your post you can see the faulty logic: I dropped my lovely learner bike, I have accepted that dropping it many more times is an inevitability, so I got a big bike and am taking steps to make it more drop resistant. But it's only an inevitability if you've accepted that you'll never be able to avoid dropping your bike through experience and skill alone. If you're still in that 'crashes are guaranteed' mindset you are still a learner and shouldn't be on a big bike .

some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 
Sure, you can argue that but I would be saying the same thing whether I was on a 250 or R3 or my 650. Yes I moved up too early, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take the same steps if I had a bike that was more suited to my current skill.

I honestly really and truly don’t mean that in any confrontational way and I have a really hard time reading the tone or intention behind some of your replies so I hope you don’t think I’m looking for a fight. To me it’s just risk vs reward. I will probably drop the bike I moved up too early on, but if I had a clean 250 or R3 I’d be trying to protect it too because I’d probably drop those a bunch too. Heck, even on the 250 I had that I dropped I still kept the sliders on because I didn’t want to deal with a scratched tank or something.

Slavvy
Dec 11, 2012

I'm never (ok nearly never, KTM's and Harley haters still exist) looking for a fight, I just can't be bothered phrasing things in a nice way. Not trying to be argumentative etc, just trying to explain my reasoning and how it fits into the larger biek picture, synthesizing wisdom via the mechanism of shitposting, if you will.

some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 
All good. I respect the argument from experience.

Slavvy
Dec 11, 2012

Remember: practically nobody here is clean, certainly not me. I dropped my first three bikes like an idiot in my driveway, I went from a 400 to a hornet 900 hilariously too soon, I spent far too much time and money trying to upgrade my way out of being a poo poo rider. I'm trying to move the needle away from the bullshit and more towards a platonic ideal I would've adhered to if I had someone to call me an idiot, like how you're supposed to drink 8 waters and exercise for twenty minutes ever day, it's the trying that counts.

Sagebrush
Feb 26, 2012

Slavvy posted:

Yes, but this is only a problem if you go to a big bike far too soon, this is one of the reasons you get told not to do that.

Like right there in your post you can see the faulty logic: I dropped my lovely learner bike, I have accepted that dropping it many more times is an inevitability, so I got a big bike and am taking steps to make it more drop resistant. But it's only an inevitability if you've accepted that you'll never be able to avoid dropping your bike through experience and skill alone. If you're still in that 'crashes are guaranteed' mindset you are still a learner and shouldn't be on a big bike .

It's more than a little disingenuous to say that the only possible reason your bike might end up on its side is through your own incompetence. One time the idiot 16 year old girl across the street backed her car into my bike while I was standing right next to it working on it. Another time I got merged into by a drunk driver while lane splitting at a safe speed. Some people in here have had assholes just push their bike over while it was parked.

Like, if your logic is that a good rider never crashes, why do you wear a helmet? You're a good rider so you're never going to use it.

If the guy wants to install frame sliders to mitigate a bit of damage when the wind blows over his totally appropriate 250cc learner bike, why does that concern you?

Slavvy
Dec 11, 2012

My logic is that any damage a crash knob can prevent is completely avoidable yeah. I wear riding gear for the poo poo I can't avoid, like actual crashes at speed not driveway drops. Other people pushing your bike sucks but it's ridiculous to try to armor the bike against something so stupid and unlikely. It's like covering your floor in shrink wrap in case you spill a drink sometime and stain the carpet.

E: you know I've just realised that what I'm saying here isn't that significant or important yet it seems to really wind some of you up, and I think it's because you parse my saying something is caused by incompetence as a personal insult. It's not. We are all incompetent until we learn how to ride properly, if that rankles imo it just means you're aware deep down that you're out of your depth to some degree. Which is fine, you never stop learning.

Slavvy fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Apr 25, 2021

Toe Rag
Aug 29, 2005

I thought the primary point of frame sliders wasn't to protect your plastics but to keep the frame and engine/clutch/stator covers off the asphalt and grinding away, so you can just replace the pucks instead of the engine, or whatever. RE: the R6 frame sliders and engine mounts, do the OEM Yamaha sliders do the same thing?

Beve Stuscemi
Jun 6, 2001




Yo. Frame sliders are good and cool. Bikes fall over sometimes.

Slavvy
Dec 11, 2012

Toe Rag posted:

I thought the primary point of frame sliders wasn't to protect your plastics but to keep the frame and engine/clutch/stator covers off the asphalt and grinding away, so you can just replace the pucks instead of the engine, or whatever. RE: the R6 frame sliders and engine mounts, do the OEM Yamaha sliders do the same thing?

There aren't any afaik or I haven't seen any. Race bikes use engine protection to do what you're talking about, they are expendable plastic shields that bolt over the side covers and are sacrificially damaged on a scrape. Worth mentioning here that street bikes tend to fall over from a height, race bikes tend to be near the ground and experience relatively gentle initial fall impact.

RightClickSaveAs
Mar 1, 2001

Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...


Got the fairings back on today. This was a good project to get familiar with tearing down the bike on a beginner level. I also feel much better having installed them myself, as I know exactly how they're attached and what's involved. In a bad crash, they seem much more likely to just shear off than cause more damage to the engine mounts, and in that case there would be a lot more things to worry about anyway!






goddamnedtwisto posted:

Sliders are pretty much an idea starter project if you do want to learn though - it's a job that's just complex enough that you actually have to think and work carefully, but simple enough that you're almost certainly not going to completely lunch your bike if you gently caress something up.
This was definitely a good project, refamiliarized myself with how to get at the guts of the bike, and finally remembered how those drat plastic fairing clip rivets work again :argh:

Going to do the oil next.

Strife
Apr 20, 2001

What the hell are YOU?
Stupid question? Maybe. What the hell is this:



Other than assuming my KLX is a boy, it looks like a vent tube that comes off the tank. There's a retaining clip nearby, so I assume it's normal and the dealer just didn't route it properly, but I removed that clip to install the bash plate. I tucked the little wiener tube up under the plate where I assume it's supposed to be.

MomJeans420
Mar 19, 2007



"note - no frame sliders so the bike stayed on one side"
https://www.instagram.com/p/COGPUpLnA0m/

I'm tricking Slavvy into agreeing with Dave Moss

RightClickSaveAs
Mar 1, 2001

Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...


Slavvy posted:

There aren't any afaik or I haven't seen any. Race bikes use engine protection to do what you're talking about, they are expendable plastic shields that bolt over the side covers and are sacrificially damaged on a scrape. Worth mentioning here that street bikes tend to fall over from a height, race bikes tend to be near the ground and experience relatively gentle initial fall impact.
I always thought that was the idea with the ones shaped like this (that set looks looks like trash though:


One of the rider coaches at the track day I did had something similar on his bike, and said he'd lowsided once with them.

Sagebrush
Feb 26, 2012

Slavvy posted:

I think it's because you parse my saying something is caused by incompetence as a personal insult. It's not. We are all incompetent until we learn how to ride properly, if that rankles imo it just means you're aware deep down that you're out of your depth to some degree.

What incompetent thing was I doing to cause the teenager across the street to back her car into my bike, looking forwards the entire time, while I yelled and waved and pounded on her trunk?

Like you already no-true-scotsman'd the idea that people would get their bikes pushed over by assholes, but poo poo does happen in the real world and sometimes it's completely out of your control. And even though in most cases where the bike is dumped it's because of something the rider did, I think that informing people that they shouldn't need frame sliders and should just quit sucking is completely unhelpful. Everyone knows that already. People aren't perfect, people make mistakes, people crash on 125s and scooters and bicycles. That is why things like frame sliders and armored gear and insurance and replacement parts and welders exist.

I don't have frame sliders on my motorcycles or plastic on my furniture but who gives a poo poo if someone else wants to do it.

Strife posted:

Stupid question? Maybe. What the hell is this:



Other than assuming my KLX is a boy, it looks like a vent tube that comes off the tank. There's a retaining clip nearby, so I assume it's normal and the dealer just didn't route it properly, but I removed that clip to install the bash plate. I tucked the little wiener tube up under the plate where I assume it's supposed to be.

It is probably either a gas tank vent or a crankcase breather hose. It could be cut a little shorter if you don't like it hanging down.

Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Apr 26, 2021

Slavvy
Dec 11, 2012

Sagebrush posted:

What incompetent thing was I doing to cause the teenager across the street to back her car into my bike, looking forwards the entire time, while I yelled and waved and pounded on her trunk?

Like you already no-true-scotsman'd the idea that people would get their bikes pushed over by assholes, but poo poo does happen in the real world and sometimes it's completely out of your control. And even though in most cases where the bike is dumped it's because of something the rider did, I think that informing people that they shouldn't need frame sliders and should just quit sucking is completely unhelpful. Everyone knows that already. People aren't perfect, people make mistakes, people crash on 125s and scooters and bicycles.

I don't have frame sliders on my motorcycles or plastic on my furniture but who gives a poo poo if someone else wants to do it.


It is probably either a gas tank vent or a crankcase breather hose. It could be cut a little shorter if you don't like it hanging down.

You have your opinion, I have mine. We aren't competing to see who's opinion gets canonized as absolute truth in the bike bible, there are no stakes. I've said what I want to say and why, idk how else to put it.

Finger Prince
Jan 5, 2007


Jim Silly-Balls posted:

Yo. Frame sliders are good and cool. Bikes fall over sometimes.

I got nothing against them, people put all sorts of farkles on their bikes. On a lot of bikes though, you have to cut a hole in the fairing to install them, which is sort of like defeating the purpose? They're just really super specific use case. You need a bike that can take them without permanent modification, you need it to be nice enough care enough about the aesthetics that you're worried they'd be ruined by some scuffs and scratches, but not so nice that you don't think they'd be ruined by having pucks or bobbins jutting out the sides. So you've found a bike that will accept bobbins without cutting, that's totally mint so you want to protect it from life's random goat attacks, even though you'll still have to replace bent, cracked, and scuffed mirrors, pegs, and levers anyway in a tip-over... like, you didn't select a bike for these qualities, did you? I mean, if you've got that bike, put crash bobbins on it. My friend bought a new 1290 KTM something with the vagina headlight and immediately bought plexiglass headlight covers for it in case a rock hits them and they break, because replacement parts are stupidly expensive. Makes sense, and you're not making it any less ugly. But are you going to go buy plexiglass headlight covers for a Panigale or whatever in case a rock hits them?

of course the flipside to this is just "I put frame sliders on it because it looks cool, also, maybe it helps somehow? But mainly because it looks cool", in which case, if we'd gone down that road in the first place, totally fine! It's like bar end mirrors or carbon belly pans or square aluminum luggage or big titty anime girl vinyl wraps. It's when people start going down the rabbit hole of "well actually in this specific circumstance that I happened to find myself in just last week, you can see that they are clearly essential and ought to be standard equipment on all bikes" that it just starts sounding like a debate on the relative merit of chainmail over gambeson should you encounter a knife wielding assailant outside Whole Foods. Which I'm all for, by the way. Just know what it is.

Finger Prince fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Apr 26, 2021

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Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



What about big harley crash bars but like with outrigger wheels so you don't scrape the chrome or even have to lift the bike back up at all to take off again?

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