NEWBIE MISTAKES!!!!

Ok, this is NOT to critisize ANYONE! I just thought this would be a cool topic. What is everyone's most memorable mistake you made as a newbie! Let's see if we can find some trends here!?!?!?!?! Ok, I'll start. Let's see.....I almost spilled mine in my drive way, forgot to put the kickstand down!!!!! LOL. Also, how bout drivin with the blinker on for a minute or two before you realize it!!!!!???!?!?!? I'm curious to see what others have done!!!

i still leave the blinker on...how about ridding with passangers at night and on the freeyway with just a permit. lets all i can come up with right now.

My first time on a bike was in an open empty parking lot....except for 1 light pole. You guessed it, I hit it square at about 10 mph. Didn't have the hang of turning yet, well I didn't grasp the countersteer notion real well. That's all I can think of.

i parked my bike on a hill in the direction that would make the kick stand go up and it was not in gear........ so ya i turned away and look back and by bike is rolling away i almost got a hold of it but it spilled over i broke the blinker and mirror oh well that was a ninja 500 not my honda so i was not too upset the blinkers were coming off sooner or later thank god no one was around to see

the one that is worse is my buddy just got his 05 rr. well he goes to start it to pull it in his garage and i dont know what happened but he lost controll and parked it into the side of the garage. broke his blinkers,windscreen,and upper faring. all this with 2 miles on the bike we just got it off the truck

HOLLY CRAP!!! That sucks!!! Send my condolenses!

Ill take one for the kickstand. 2, always leave my damn blinker on. Oh well... one of these days Ill learn

the 2nd day i got my bike, i was wearing shorts. I didn't have great clutch n throttle control yet. So i was sitting on the bike n pushed the bike into the garage with my legs. I burnt my leg on the exhaust. Got burnt pretty badly. I now know never ever to wear shrots on a bike. still have a scar

Took me a while to remember to strap my helmet when stop for a bit. When you hear the button slaping the side head it kind of reminds. Hey stupid strap on your lid. LOL

i still forget to strap on my helmet sometimes

That damn helmet strap hurts when its flapping in the wind. +1 on the blinker. I dropped (almost, never touched the ground, I sacrificed my body and limbs) my bike at five in the morning in my neighbors driveway.

I still leave the blinkers on.
And one time I started the bike and tried to go with a disc lock still on the front rotor... Almost dropped it.

Most recently I was at a gas station(quite crowded) started the bike, put it in gear and it died. WTF? back to neutral and tried again, and it died. This happened about 4 more times until my friend quit laughing for a second and said "Dude your kickstand is down".

I never knew that you couldn't put your bike into gear in nuetral.........

+1 on the helmet strap

+1 on the silly blinker...

+1 on that damn kick stand and putting it in gear it took me almost all day to figure it out on my own.

Here's one I've seen often and almost did myself last year. Stopped after a long day of riding in the hot August sun to at dinner with a friend. I thought it would be about an hour and the sun was already going down so I didn’t' think it would happen. After the four of us sat and talked for about 2 and a half hours..... we walked out to the bikes. My bike was at a greater than 45 degree lean. I knew better, but I thought the black top was cooled off enough. Our kickstands will cut through blacktop like butter when it's hot. I had about 2" if my kickstand buried in the parking lot. I've seen a lot of bikes fall over sue to this. Most places that have bike parking have metal or use concrete for our kickstands.

+1 on that damn kick stand and the blinker.

+10 on the damn blinker....you would thing by now they could put some sort of bank/turn sensor or even a timer on the darm thing...id gladly give up 0.25-pounds of extra weight for the black box...

I used to carry around a 3"x3" piece of 1/2" plywood in the rear bag on my xr650-L when i had to park it in wet grass, soft dirt, etc...They actually make a Kickstand plate in the shape of a foot that you can put down under your stand...

Dont know if this is just something on the 1000, but this is the first bike ive had that didnt have a kickstand-light in the panel....any of you RC51,600,900,929,954 guys have one??

quote:

ORIGINAL: WolfPack

+10 on the damn blinker....you would thing by now they could put some sort of bank/turn sensor or even a timer on the darm thing...id gladly give up 0.25-pounds of extra weight for the black box...

They have it on the Goldwing... both items, turn sensor and timer. So they have it, don't know why they don't use it on more of their bikes.

quote:

ORIGINAL: OldFatGuy

They have it on the Goldwing... both items, turn sensor and timer. So they have it, don't know why they don't use it on more of their bikes.

I guess its the same reason they didnt put a CD-player on my CBR....

Yeah, my bike has the kickstand light on the panel, that's what made my gas station incident more embarassing.

they do make a blinker warning look at jc whitney after the blinker has been on for too long it makes this annoying buzz sound loud a hell

no kickstand warning on the 929 =/

none on the 05 600rr's either!!! Man, this thread is turnin out great! Thanks to everyone for their input!

I went to take my license test on a 04 harley davidson soft-tail i'd borrowed from a family member, which i was told not to do because of how big it was and how hard they had been hitting motorcycle riders. I was one point away from failing going into the final obstical. You had to go 20mph and swerve to the left of the ten foot red line, and then right to get to the other side of it, and you had to stop within five feet of the other side of the line...all this on a 950lbs harley. So I went into the obsticle, got a little squirlly, and being inexperienced, slammed on the rear brake. that slammed my tail around which put me just around the side of the line and to a stop on just the other side......Basically I passed my test by being completely inexperienced. THANK YOU STATE OF ILLINOIS.