Rider Down - Me :(
 

I fitted some GB Moto rearsets and while out testing them, I binned it on a right hand bend. I lost the front, the bike went down the road on its RHS, glanced off the kerb, and came to rest on the opposite side of the road.

Purely rider error due to a combination of rustiness, cold tyres on a cold road, unfamiliarlity with the handling characteristics of a new bike and new rearsets which were not yet positioned correctly.

It could have been really nasty, but thankfully no vehicles were either following or coming towards me at the time.

I limped the bike home, which considering I had no brakes or a RH peg, was a triumph of forward planning and reading the road over common sense.

Bike:

Top fairing cracked
RH mirror gouged and glass broken
Front brake lever snapped off
RHS fairing gouged
Clutch cover gouged
RHS clip-on scraped
Slight scrape to front wheel
Forks slightly twisted in the yokes (hopefully not bent)
Seat unit scraped
RHS rearset peg snapped
RHS rearset brake lever bent.
RHS indicators snapped off (front and rear)


Me:

Very sore big toe on right foot
Hole in right elbow
General aches and pains

Kit:

Arai RX7 Corsair gouged on back of lid
Alpinestars 360R oversuit torn in various places.

Bugger. :mad:

Thats putting it mildly

Sorry to hear the news, its always annoying to come off your bike but even more so when you haven't had it long
Hope you get it sorted and enjoy some better times with it

Aargh... bummer.
Hope the fixing is quick and as cheap as possible, and that you mend soon too. All the best....

i may have a set of indicators, if there of any use? Will have to check though, will also kep an eye out for any other bits

Adam

Check the spindle as they can bend quite easily

Sorry to hear about your off. I hope that you and your machine make a speedy recovery.

Regards.

Hello zhed44

sorry to read the news, hope you get the bike up and running again.

regards

TopiToo

hi zhed, just had a look at my collection of bits and i have the following,
Standard clutch cover (-gasket)
a standard set of rear indicators

as i said earlier, ill keep an eye out for some bits

Sorry to hear this having just gone through the same thing, insurance estimator put my cost's at £3200. Scandalous the cost of repair and parts just because of a Brand name even e-bay is as bad and don't expect to see anything as a good bargain cause I did'nt that did'nt either incure a repair or respray. Some of the item's were good but again silly money was being spent. I wish you all the best in getting the bike back together again. 4D

Thanks for all the messages of sympathy etc.

I'm very, very sore today, and have picked up knocks in a few unusual places, namely the inside of my left thigh and my right groin. Most of all, I have a swollen knee, a huge purple bruise running half the length of my forearm and an extremely painful toe, which I think may be broken. I might go to A&E tomorrow if it gets no better.

I've also had a good hobble round the bike today. Apart from the stuff I'd already noticed, the RH mirror stay has snapped (some previous herbert must have replaced the proper shear bolt, which is supposed to snap off in the event of an impact), the front wheel has a slight "ding" on the LHS of the rim, and there is a bit of a sort of intermittent rubbing/moaning noise from the front wheel area (query wheel bearing or spindle itself?). Fingers crossed, the forks seem straight and the lock stops are intact.

Accident debrief - this was the first time I've really ridden the 748R in anger on a twisty road, and as I approached a sweeping bend, which I know very well, I simply throttled off a bit as usual, rather than braking. However, the slipperyness of the slipper clutch took me by surprise (the R6's slipper had much less slip compared to the 748R), and it felt like the bike was free-wheeling or had jumped out of gear. This had the triple effect of making me go into the turn faster than usual, made me run wide and just generally distracted me. As I'd not had the engine braking I anticipated, I'd had to use a bit of front brake rather later than was advisable, and I was still on the brakes when I turned in. The combined effect of braking whilst turning on cold tyres, on a cold, slightly damp, off-camber, bumpy road made the outcome inevitable.

Sorry to hear about your off. I can sympathise as I crashed my Hornet 900 at 55mph in the wet. Lost the front and went sliding down the road.

Ached for days and nice purple bruising fromt he left elbow down.

Anyway back to what I was going to say, are you sure you didn't miss a gear? From your description of the slipper clutch it doesn't sound right.

My 748r always had tremendous engine braking, I was expecting you to say you lost it on the throttle not off it, as mine was very agressive on the throttle.

Hope you and the bike get fixed soon.

Rich

well my friend it could have been worse...You can replace your bike not so yourself.ALL THE BEST

Yes, sort of. As I alluded to in the orginal description of the accident, the rearsets were not adjusted correctly. The gear lever was miles out and it made gear changing really awkward with the result that I went into the bend a gear higher than I should have.

DAMAGE UPDATE FROM MD (In addition to the damage already noted in my other posts)

Frame true and undamaged. Phew!

Ohlins forks true and undamaged apart from one caliper carrier on the fork bottom being slightly bent (can be remedied with a spacer). Phew!

Warped disc (1.2mm out - may have pre-exisited the accident)

Front wheel spindle bent.

Front wheel trueness to be assessed.

Nothing unusual there

the disc can be straightend aswell, all you need is a dti guage and something to spin the disk on (best to keep it on the wheel), (im assuming you have done this as you know how far out the disk is, then gently tap it with a RUBBER hammer, and it should slowly come back true, i have dont this many times with absolutly no problems, just check the carrier isn't cracked BEFORE the use of the hammer but this is very rare.

Adam

27/02/09

UPDATE

I spoke to Hagon today and they have managed to straighten the wheel and both the discs, although they said the wheel was an absolute swine to repair and it looked touch and go more than a few times.

Now I just need to order a RHS Ohlins fork bottom and then in the process of fitting this, Mike will strip the forks to check for any internal damage.

Fingers crossed, the bike should be roadworthy within the next couple of weeks.

The cosmetics will have to come later, although I've started gathering the necessary bits as and when a bargain turns up. I recently landed one such item on eBay - a yellow 2001 RHS mid fairing (I was intending to retro fit early type panels anyway), repaired and then professionally restickered and resprayed. I can't see where it has been repaired, it looks mint. The auction ended at a really daft time (1am IIRC) and I'd even forgotten that I'd placed a bid days beforehand, so I was really pleased to receive an email the next morning asking me to pay an invoice for, wait for it, £2.99 + P&P. :D

Have another look on e-bay, there's quite a few Yellow panels at the moment. Glad you're OK and the 748R will soon be up and running again !

glad your all right and as others have said the bike can be fixed and gear replaced so its your pride thats left.

I was tempted to say at least its yellow so the replacement panels will be cheaper but thats just a cheap shot.

Hopefully you will find everything soon.

I have a "748 fairing" new ebay items email notification, but nothing especially cheap apart from my £2.99 panel has come up recently. Having said that, I haven't been searching very hard because the front end looked quite poorly and I didn't want to spend money on plastics, but then struggle to afford to replace, for example, a bent fork.

The Supersonic Canary flies again!
 

I got the bike back today. All mechanical repairs done.

Ohlins fork bottom

Front wheel spindle

Front tyre (SH)

Straighten and weld front wheel and straighten both discs

Strip all front end chassis and suspension and check for damage

Strip RHS fork and assess for internal damage

Test ride


Total: about £1000. Cosmetic damage still to be priced/repaired :(


But by God it's good to be back on a Ducati again, although my wrists and shoulders are a bit sore!

Not to mention your wallet :(

Glad to hear about your return, and hope its not too painfull
btw my offer of the paint still stands and if you are quick im going to pick my paint work up hopefully back end of next week and i could get yours done while im down there?

Adam

Hi again.

Thanks - I'd love to get her looking pretty again but,

(a) It's due to be serviced, and money is tight.

(b) I'll probably only fall off again. :lol:

hope not zhed