How to pick up a dropped bike?
A couple of days ago my Kawasaki ZR-7S fell over due a bit of stupidity on my part. No harm done and no big deal I said to myself. I easily picked it up a couple of times in the past. Just grabbed the handlebars and yanked. But on this occasion I simply could not get the sucker upright on my own.
I then realized that each previous time the hard bags had been mounted and this resulted in the bike being propped up at a helpful angle. Without the luggage the bike lay very flat on the ground. The engine guards are stubby things which do their job but don't help the geometry of the situation. Add to this the weight of a completely full tank (22 liters) and all of my efforts were in vain. I know and tried the system of getting your rear end up against the seat and using your quads to lift. I've seen the demos of small people lifting Harleys. But it was not workable given the low angle available. I needed another pair of hands.
But what could I have done on my own? I needed some trickster little gadget to raise the bike just the few degrees off the ground necessary to change the physics of the situation. The emphasis is on "little" since there's no luggage in this scenario.
Norm
|