sounds like you had a small amount of petrol in your exhaust which ignited, thus causing the back fire.

I used to use the cut off switch whilst riding at 30mph, and start the bike in full motion... causing a flame to come out of the exhaust along with a rather large bang...

Scared of doing this on my duke, for the fear of blowing my nuts off... as well as the exhausts.

However, my duke has never backed fired on me so far?!



[Edited on 28-7-2003 by thrustercat]