2 Sundays ago, I started my bike and rode out of the car park. As I approached the minor road exiting the car park, I flipped my signal light switch to the right. Looked down at my dashboard and there was no indicator showing that my right signal light was on. I leaned forward to the right of my fuel tank and indeed, my right signal light was not blinking.
Flipped my signal light to the left and again nothing. The strange thing was that my neutral gear indicator was working. My speedometer and tachometer were all working fine. I was running late, so I ignored that and assumed that one of my signal light bulbs died. As I was merging into the highway, a thought came to my mind. There was still one indicator light on my dashboard that I had not tested, my gear shift light.
First gear at 50km/h, I opened my throttle. Hard. As the RPMs rose to my preset gear shift at 14k RPMs, the indicator started blinking. Yay! Then, all of my sudden, my RPMs dropped! I was losing speed fast! I looked down at my dashboard and it gave me the shock of my life. All the lights went out, as if there was some sort of power failure. I quickly counter steered by pushing my left clip-on and veered the bike to the road shoulder. Just as I entered the road shoulder, a delivery van zoomed past on my right. If I didn't enter the road shoulder, the van would have ran over me. Some drivers are just idiots.
I slowly braked my bike to a halt. Lifted up my visor, stared at my dashboard and noticed something you wouldn't believe. My key was in the OFF position. How the hell??? I turned the key to the ON position and cranked the starter. The R6 roared back to life and my hazard lights came on. This time, my signal light indicators were working. Checked the indicators by flipping the signal light switch to the left and right, and the indicators were working fine.
I gave it much thought (all 27 seconds of it) and attributed the bizarre occurrence to either of the following 3 explanations:
1. I somehow managed to start the bike with the key in the OFF position. (Tried that a couple of times after but didn't get it to start)
2. I started the bike with the key in the ON position but then somehow, the vibrations from the monstrous 599cc engine shook the key to the OFF position. (Ridiculous but I like this explanation)
3. The key was in between the OFF and ON position when I started the bike and once again, the monstrous 599cc engine shook the key to the OFF position. (Didn't try this, anyone care to try it and confirm?)
The last explanation is probably the most plausible. I would assume that the electrical circuits are half active with the key in between the ON and OFF position. That would explain me being able to start the engine but not have the signal lights working.
If you have any inkling as to what happened, please leave a comment.
As for the second unlucky incident that happened to me. Well, a picture speaks a thousand words.
This paragraph was just added because Eric commented below why I didn't mention him haha. The tyre was too deflated to be ridden. Eric, my knight in shining red armour dropped by and helped to inflate it with his electronic air pump before I could go ride it as fast as I could to the nearest repair shop.
Fixed that at a nearby motorcycle repair shop with a tyre plug for SGD$5, heh.
Oh, and that first incident happened again this week. This time, I noticed the key in the OFF position and quickly switched it to ON, with the engine running. Weird indeed.
That's all for this post. Review on my recent brake reservoir sock purchase coming up!
2 comments :
And you forgot to mention the Knight in Red Audi that saved you :P wahahahahaha
Nope, I just updated the post LOL
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