So, my oil filter arrived today, and I thus, I did my first oil change on my Savage.  Everything goes well, I get the oil in, stick her in neutral, and leave her to idle for a little bit.   Alls well and good.   After a few minutes of idling, I hop on, pop the clutch, and shift her into first.

She stops dead... Won't start until I shift into neutral either.  Soon as I go back into first, stops dead again.  Continues doing this.  I started panicing, wonder how in the world I could have crappity smacked it up changing the oil... I mean, even a monkey can atleast change it's oil...  How could I possibly screw up the clutch with an oil change?

I sit there thinking.....

And thinking.....

And suddenly, it occurs to me......

















The kickstand was still down.

I disabled my kickstand switch when I went with Ed L's controls. Dont feel too bad. I usually keep the bike in nuetral when im not riding but ive had it lurch out from under me two or three times before i really got used to it and i VERY nearly let it go down the first time. Caught it with 1 hand about 6 inches from the tank hitting the pavement .

Ha ha.  About two weeks I'm hanging outside a gas station standing next to my bike.  This stranger pulls up not far from me on his completely decked out V-Star 1300.  He cuts the bike off, drops the kickstand and with helmet still on he immediately starts messing with the clutch lever adjustment.  I walk over to him to strike up a conversation.  I first notice that there's not a place on his bike that's not adorned with an LED.  Honestly, I've never seen so many LEDs on a bike.  And there's chrome everywhere.  He's half talking to me cause he's trying to adjust his clutch and he seems to be struggling to do two things at once.  I start peppering him with more questions of course.  "Where ya from?", "Who do you ride with?", "Does your dog hump your leg too?".  Anyhow, he stops fiddling with it, turns the key, starts the bike, pulls in the clutch lever, pops it into first and the engine instantly it dies.  He does the whole process again.  I can see he's starting to get frustrated.  He pulls his helmet off and places it behind him on the lazy-boy inspired passenger seat with custom passenger arm supports.  Again he commences to messing with the clutch lever adjustment.  "Ahem", I say to him, "You're kickstand is down.  I'm pretty sure you've got a safety switch on your bike".  He mumbles a little to acknowledge I said something but I could tell he didn't hear me.  Key, start button, engine on, clutch in, first gear, engine dies.  Again.  And again.  He gets off of the bike, his countenance conveying his degree of irritation that an audience (me) is watching.  It was starting to get painful for me to watch.  I could feel a bystander trauma developing.  I politely suggest the kickstand again, being careful of my choice of words and tone knowing that people often react unpredictably in stressful situations.  Unfortunately, my words drift off again like dust in the wind.  He scans the bike for a few moments.  He walks around the bike slowly until he goes full circle.  His hands go on the hips in a sort of half defeated posture as he now stares defeatedly at his bike.  I'm thinking to myself, "yew can dooo eeet!", Rob Schnieder voice and all.  A few more moments of silence pass and then I see this little light bulb suddenly pop on in his head, figuratively speaking.  "Aha!  The kickstand is down!".  Aha, I think to myself.  "Yep, YOU are right!" I said to him.  I saw a slight smile of satisfaction upon his face that he figured out the problem all by himself.

I would much rather have that embarrassment than the one that occurs when you take off with the kickstand DOWN.
I was on a group ride and the brand new HD ahead of me did that.  I managed to get along side him and point out the error of his ways before the sweeping left turn that was coming up.
Could have been ugly.

I had one time that only my Wife and I know about. We were leaving somewhere one time at the end of a dead end road. I thought for sure I was in 1st gear, went a little bit and it died out. Tried it again and same thing. I was like WTF??? Then after messing with it for .02 seconds I found out I was in 3rd gear LOL. Did want to go up the hill for some odd reason that way. OOPS.

My biggest kickstand related snafu was actually the opposite.  Sitting in front of my garage, idling in neutral, straddling the bike, getting ready to take off, fiddling with gloves or some stupid thing.  Remember I forgot something, and go to lean it on the stand to go get it.  By the time I got it over enough to realize it wasn't hitting a stand yet, I about pulled some very important muscles trying to get her back up!  Thankfully, I was the only one in sight, which usually doesn't happen to me when I pull some bonehead move like that.

bill67 wrote on 04/24/09 at 15:55:18:


The Savage most certainly doesn't. The other day I made a stop and was set to shut her down; when I spied a better, more protected parking spot. As I went to claim it, I felt the "chud" of the kickstand whacking the pavement. It didn't fold up even then. I had to grab it with my heel, while in motion, and raise it up. Scary moment, as I was just about to make a narrow left turn. First time I've don that after the EdL instal. Gotta be more careful.

I've done the kick stand brain fart a couple of times myself. I think the most embarrassing time was when a a few guys came over for a ride we had planned. Just a bunch of a guys going for a ride with no where particular to go.

I was the last one to join the group. I fire the bike up, straddle it and start putting on my gloves. Grab the bars, kick it into gear, and pfft, it dies. WTF? Look around an OH, dumb a$$, the kick stand is still down.

Then there is the petcock snafu. Now you all know I have swapped the stock tank for a Road King tank, the Harley petcock is on, off, reserve. I kept forgetting to turn the fuel off when I killed the bike. Went for a ride with some buddies, all proud of my mods, stopped, forgot to turn the fuel off, and flooded the thing so bad I had to be trucked home missing the ride.