KymcoForum.com

Many years ago when I was aspiring to Superbike and GP class racing, I took Kenny Robert's dirt track training class at his ranch in California. Imagine a road course in the dirt and everyone is on XR100 Hondas. I thought I was a fair MX/Desert rider back then but I came out of that class knowing how a bike behaves in extreme unusual attitudes and how to recover from high speed traction loss. So much more fast and smooth on the street or track days after that course. There is no better training than aggressive dirt riding to produce great street riders. I trained both my sons in the dirt on 50/70/80/100 Honda XRs starting them out at age 4. We still have the XR100! Well, I never became a great roadracer, but I don't fall off much either! My point is, if you don't stir a bike around in the dirt past the limit of traction, you won't have much of a plan for when trouble happens on your street bike. I remember King Kenny was listening to a couple of dudes at the training session during lunch talking about the top speeds of their rides. "Your bike can go 165, said KR, but how fast can you stop from 165?" Sure makes ya think.

Sorry about your misfortune but glad you weren't hurt. Stop light intersections are repositories for all kinds of slippery goop that leaks out of cars & trucks. Add a little rain and a short wheelbase scooter with little wheels and you have a recipe for wipeouts. Motorcycle and scooters aren't quite the same animal in a skid. Did the front or rear skid first? Could be worn tires didn't help but when's the last time you practiced wet stops on that particular bike?

Yipe! I commuted 110 miles roundtrip when I was working in Cali for many years. I lane split every trip. But in the carpool lane, you don't split between the car and the wall!

If you have just a few miles on the bike, you may not need to replace the chain and rear sprocket...going up 1 tooth on the front...usually just let out the adjusters a bit.

I'm a gun dealer (FFL) and I've done a lot of business over the phone, on a handshake, and on the internet. Here in Texas, we call a fellow who reneges on an agreement a "crawdad". It happens on occasion. But those gentlemen, once identified, don't do business with me again. We live with the choices we make.

So you offered $600 and he accepted? You made a deal and now you are contemplating backing out? Bad form, old boy.

When I go on a trip, long or short I like to set up my GoPro to capture a stop action sequence. 1 frame every one or two seconds doesn't take up a lot of space on the camera. You get home and have a fast action movie of the whole trip and you can pick out and save the best individual still frames.

Park rangers in national and state parks used to use rock salt loads in small bore shotguns to run critters out of camp sites. Are you a gun guy? Also there's pepper spray.