Finally broke something

[qfman]

After 5 years and 55,000km I finally had something go wrong with my R12R! The centrestand had been sluggish to retract for the last couple of weeks but yesterday it broke and the bike lurched drunkedly to the right. I use the centrestand 95% of the time and tend to make minor 'adjustments' to the angle of the bike on the stand after I park.The torsion over the years has stressed/sheared the right hand mounting and caused a failure.

So be gentle with your centrestands - they break!

Tom

[thepeacebullgrunt]

"Funny!" it happened to me exactly around the same mileage... the bolt on the right side broke.

It's annoying when it happen! I was cautious before but not as much as today.
I do go real smooth in controlled motion for both situation parking & leaving.
when leaving while I release the center stand I also most of the time try to catch it
with my left feet while stabilizing with my right one this way it do not slam hard all the way anytime I start my bike...and well yes I do start it often!

On another heavy loaded bike this mega mess happened to a friend in the middle of nowhere!
but he previously neglected to re-install his side stand ... my friend hate mentioning this story.

PS: Oups! me it was about 55.000 Miles not Kilometers... sorry...

[deilenberger]

Just curious - do either of you ride off the stand? A rather common practice by a lot of owners on a lot of BMW models. The K bikes used to break stands if this was done frequently.

[qfman]

I had a K100rs and recall the stand was designed differently. It was a fair bit heavier than the R12R, too. I never rode either off the stand. I would normally mount the bike and shrug it off the stand whilst standing over it.

I think I've stressed mine by twisting it side to side after parking it. I try to unweight one side but obviously haven't tried hard enough...

Tom

[AncientMariner]

Let us not forget that back around 2002 -2004 BMW announced that they had embarked on a major push to make their bikes lighter. Things like plastic headlight buckets, skinny center and side stands, absence of any real storage space. etc etc etc. are the direct result.

Just wait until they go after the new Honda NT series...

Bruce

Still lovin my '13 Roaster