So I was out camping at Mt Rainier last weekend with the family. Wife was nice enough to let me ride. So I get to the campsite after a lovely ride out, and spend about 15 minutes getting the bike parked. I knew that it was going to sit for a couple days and I wanted to be sure it was out of the way of our other vehicle (which we would be using for day trips) and far enough away from the main road that it won't get rocks thrown up at it by passing RVs. OK so I get it nice and close to the edge of our little campsite driveway and find a good solid spot for the kickstand. Cool, done! Move on to 3 nights and 4 days of family camping fun. Monday comes and it's time to leave. My wife and daughter were going to go back the short way and I was going to head around the mountain and take one more hike at Longmire before heading home. I get all geared up, make sure my wife is all set with map/directions, kiss the girls, mount up, look back and wave at the girls, pull in clutch, 1st gear, remind myslef that I am on gravel so take it easy, add a bit of throttle, ease out clutch... Wait why is my bike on the ground? I look back sheepishly at my wife who is now getting out of the car to see what happened....
Turns out, I had parked the bike so that the right tip over wing was just in front of a wooden post used to demarcate the parking area. When I started to move forward, the tip over bar hit the post and just pushed the bike over. It all happened so fast that it literally felt like I was just about to take off and then all of a sudden my bike was under me. I tried a couple times to do the solo method of picking the bike up by backing into it and using my legs, but with the gravel, I couldn't get any purchase. Had to have the wife help, but we got it up pretty quick with both of us. No real damage, just some little scrapes on the tip over bar (those things are so darn effective considering how small they are). My wife said that my 5 year old daughter started laughing and exclaimed "That's weird" when she saw the bike go down...
:
Lesson learned...
Turns out, I had parked the bike so that the right tip over wing was just in front of a wooden post used to demarcate the parking area. When I started to move forward, the tip over bar hit the post and just pushed the bike over. It all happened so fast that it literally felt like I was just about to take off and then all of a sudden my bike was under me. I tried a couple times to do the solo method of picking the bike up by backing into it and using my legs, but with the gravel, I couldn't get any purchase. Had to have the wife help, but we got it up pretty quick with both of us. No real damage, just some little scrapes on the tip over bar (those things are so darn effective considering how small they are). My wife said that my 5 year old daughter started laughing and exclaimed "That's weird" when she saw the bike go down...
:Lesson learned...
