Couple of years ago I was trying to keep up with my mate. We came to a red traffic light and I was closing fast. About 30 m from the lights they turned green so I whacked the throttle open (in my imagination it was like a rolling start of the race) in a desperate attempt to get past. At the same moment my mate executed a very nice stoppie (you know- braking so hard that the rear wheel takes off). There was no way I could avoid a fantastic rear-end collision.
Turnes out he had been trying to get his bike in neutral, looking down at his neutral light, in order to perform the stoppie without stalling the engine. He never saw the lights turn to green, just green plastic flying around as my trusted Kawasaki Z200 crashed into him.
That was cool.
I have been upside down in a dry ditch once with a motocross sidecar-outfit on top of me because the throttleslide got stuck. It was a 520 Honda CR two-stroke that succed air in so hard that it flattened the throttle-slide spring at one side. After about two hours running the spring would become so flat and sharp at one side that it cut into the carb body, thus completely jamming it.
The first time we experienced this was at the end of a straight, flat out in 5th gear doing appr. 110 kph. Now a sidecar rider has a rope tied to his wrist that kills the ignition if the rider falls of. It should also work if you swing your arm backwards. The guy I rode with however had replaced it with a telephone cord because this way he could walk around the outfit without killing the ignition after minor crashes.
It ended with me (the unfortunate passenger) bruised beyond belief. It's a great sport, this sidecar-motocross.
Look at
http://www.go.to/keescross if you want to see me in action. Go to the years 1992 and 1993. Arjan, thats me.
Cheers
AJ
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2003 3:43 pm
