The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate

[coolpoolnorm]

As I've said before, I'm pretty new to motorcycles, and my '79 XS650-2F is my first bike. I live in a pretty small city of Cold Lake - about 12,000 people, and all the bike riders here are quite friendly, and people in cars seem to have a reasonable amount of respect for us 2-wheelers, so riding here is a blast. I have found however, that big cities are a whole different ballgame.

I was in Calgary a year or two ago, having just received my new license, and was visiting my sister. I forgot that Calgary is now a "big" city with well over a million people, and all the traffic problems a city of that size has. I got caught in Rush Hour traffic (why do they call it RUSH Hour when everything is at a standstill....?).

I hadn't had the bike long, and the P.O. hadn't done much work on the carbs, so it was a bit finicky, and had a bad habit of stalling at the worst possible times - and of course, Rush Hour is one of those times.

I was pulling up to a busy intersection to make a right hand turn, playing with the throttle to keep it from stalling, and watching traffic so I wouldn't get killed..... and pulled up to a stop. That's when the unthinkable happened - I put out my foot and my foot landed on ..... air. If you remember "Laugh-In" and watching Arte Johnson falling off the park bench after getting hit by Ruth Buzzy - you know how I felt. I fell over in slow-motion, as my foot desperately moved around trying to find the edge of the pothole that had appeared beside me. No luck.

I'd been picked on by the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate to be the amusement of everyone in Rush Hour Calgary. I took my lumps and laughs and picked up the bike, climbed on and started it again - luckily, no damage - except to my Ego.

It was pretty embarrassing at the time, but at least I can laugh about it now.

Ride Safe, eh?

[angus67]

I got my boot lace around the brake lever once, ive tucked them in since then.

[nmaxx5]

I hate to laugh at someones expense, but I had to chuckle a little about your story. Once I was moving my bike at the work parking lot, stood on the left side and pushed the bike off the center stand and it decided to take off on me. I had a firm grip on the handle bar, but the Left grip came right off in my hand. The bike fell over on its side and all I could think of was 'is anybody watching?'. No damage to the bike, but yes, i had the embarrassment rush going, though nobody was around.

[bikermandg]

You gotta laugh at yourself or end up crying. I came home from work on my 71 650 Yam, backed up to the curb and stepped off the bike. As I walked away, the bike hit me in the back of the legs on it's way to the ground. I had forgotten to put the side stand down. Instead of calling myself stupid, I prefer thinking of it as being pre-occupied about work. ;D