| Author | Message | ||
     Crazyhorus |
Was out riding in the local mountains on Sunday on some nice forrest roads (dirt roads, but by no means fire trails). Came around this bend at about 60kph or so and saw a a large rock in the road with a number of other smaller rocks. Grabbed a hand full of brakes to slow down to maneuver around them and the front brake lever simply snapped off in my hand. I managed to use the back brake to slow/slide and just avoided the large rock, but lost some control and ended up dropping the bike. No damage to the bike at all and although I hit the ground and rocks hard, I came away with nothing more than a few sprains and bruises. If this had happened on a main highway or in town, I could easily come off much, much worse that I did. Called Harley Assist when I managed to get a phone signal after an hour or so. Three hours later after waiting in the poring rain, the tow truck rang and refused to come and get me until I got onto a sealed road. Had to ride the bike out of the mountains with no front brake whatsoever. I don't think I ever got out of first gear. Finally got to a sealed road after another 2 hours or so and an hour and a half after that the tow truck arrived. I have use the brakes considerably harder that this before on sealed roads, but what I would be interested to know is if anyone else at all has had the same problem where the front brake lever simply snapped off in your hands when applying a fairly reasonable amount of braking force? | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Look on the bright side. Now you can get a new set of Pazzo levers.  | ||
| Florida_lime |
I've had the CRG shorties on since the day I bought mine, so I really can't comment on the stock levers. They work well.  Crazyhorus -- you never dropped yours before, or maybe someone bumped it hard ? | ||
| Crazyhorus |
Nope, never dropped it before this. It has been over once when someone reversed into it in a car park, sent it off it's stand but it landed on it's left. | ||
| Blake |
Send the remaining broken bit to the Quality Assurance folks at Buell if you can. I'm sure they'd be interested in analyzing the failure surface to see if they can identify any issues. | ||
| Danger_dave |
You know that joke that finishes 'Jeez you can be a *rick sometimes, Superman.' ? | ||
| Gsron |
I'm confused, roughly 4.5 hrs of waiting around in the rain because of a broken brake lever? Does the rear brake not work or is there some other reason you didn't just ride the thing home, slowly/carefully. | ||
| Court |
David: Do you have any reason to believe the failure was defective parts or workmanship? If so, I'd be pleased to send you a new lever and have a look at the one that broke for possible flaws. If so, contact me. Court | ||
| Johnboy777 |
Wait, wait a minute here; before we go any further, exactly what do your hands look like??  | ||
| Blake |
 That hurts my gut Johnboy! | ||
| Jammin_joules |
Not doubting the credibility of the author but the only levers I have heard breaking are from either direct result of falling or having fallen in the past. Curious if there was a fracture in the metal where it broke from something in manufacturing. Please keep us posted.  ~jammer | ||
| Crazyhorus |
Have given the lever (both halves) to the dealer, they are sending them to Buell/Harley. Ended up waiting in the rain because it took us so long to get to a place where we could get a phone signal on dirt roads that had turned to mud due to the rain. Harley Assist called the tow truck where we were, the tow truck rang two hours after a number of calls to harley assist only to tell me they will not come and get me unless I get to a sealed road (only a little over 20% of roads in Oz are sealed). It then took anouther few hours to get out of the mountains to a sealed road and a place where I could get a phone signal to call harley assist and the truck company. Anyway, I had a spare lever at home, the dealer shipped the bike from the city where the tow truck dropped it off back to Sydney for me (it was at their other site). I went to the dealer this morning and fitted the new lever and rode to work (carefully) |
