- This topic has 3 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 6 months ago by Clay Dowling.
Learning on a Magna VF750c
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October 14, 2008 at 6:33 pm #2247Clay DowlingParticipant
My own experience should be a cautionary tale for others looking at a midsized bike. First, I love this bike. It doesn’t give me any trouble, the large engine doesn’t try to launch me into orbit, the ride is very smooth.
Two weeks ago though, I managed to stall it while performing a U-turn. Now, when I had practiced U-turns before, it was on a Kawasaki 125. If I stalled that, it wasn’t a problem to keep it upright. A magna, however, has a gross vehicle weight of about a thousand pounds. So when I tried to stop its fall with just my arms, I played hob with my wrists and elbows. I didn’t do any serious damage, but my doctor made me lay off any heavy lifting until my wrist stopped hurting.
So a little bit of advice. The midsized bike won’t let you get away with the same shenanigans that the little bikes will. I won’t be trading in this bike, but next time, when it starts to go over, I’m just gonna step off and let it do its thing. It took maybe a minute to stand the bike back up. That beats the week and a half that it took my wrists to recover, especially since I still had to pick the bike back up.
October 14, 2008 at 7:13 pm #13844CandiceParticipantThank you, I will keep this in mind when shopping for a new bike. Maybe I will abandon ideas of a bigger, heavier bike and just be happy with what I’ve got. YES, that’s it, thank you so much!
I am also sorry to hear you hurt your hands/wrists. I hope you feel better soon.
October 14, 2008 at 7:49 pm #13846eonParticipantI found these pictures on a local forum of a guy putting a Gold Wing through its paces. I think he would have noproblem with a U-turn!!
October 14, 2008 at 8:01 pm #13847Clay DowlingParticipantMy wrists are better now. The doctor recommended flexibility exercises to keep the muscles in my wrist and elbow from tightening up (which was the source of the pain). Turns out that massaging my wife’s back was the ticket. It was an imposition upon her, but she finally caved….
I was actually doing a u-turn because the road was closed and I couldn’t go forward, so no risk of oncoming traffic.
As to the reason for the stall, it was the usual one: too much load on the clutch and not enough throttle. I had cut my idle speed down from 1500 RPM to 1000RPM before setting out on the ride, and I wasn’t used to the lower power. That’s a good lesson too: after making adjustments on your bike, test it out and get a feel for how it handles.
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