Alas, we don't stay young forever. There are aspects to this about which we are seldom warned. When I was young, if I wanted to lift something, I grabbed it and heaved. If it was too heavy, I heaved harder. If I couldn't lift it, end of story. Here's the deal, when you get older, the end of the story might well be that some relatively important body part fails. In my case, I was doing a U-turn through a break in the median when I spotted oncoming traffic. I foolishly stopped before getting upright. The fully laden Vstrom settled onto the road despite my best efforts to hold it up. I'd seen an article about hoisting bikes by backing up to them. Unfortunately, the guy posing for the illustrative photo hadn't read it either. He was backed up to the bike like a squatting frog. I found out that didn't work, so I turned around and tried to heave the sucker up by the handlebars as I was able to do when younger and with lighter bikes. Upon applying super-max effort, my right achilles tendon let go with a sickening feeling. Fortunately, it was not the left one, so I was able to shift gears and ride home. Who uses the back brake anyway? It might have been nicer if I hadn't been down below Vera Cruz, Mexico, but I made it home to Nebraska within a few days. When I had the doc check me out, he said you have about 5 days to repair those ruptures. I was in surgery the next (5th) day.
A couple of lessons learned: 1. Don't let embarrassment make you be stupid. Within a second of my popping my tendon, there were Samaritan hands on the bike, helping me right it. Had I been less frantic to avoid eye contact and get out of there, I might have noticed that there was help available. 2. The correct technique for picking up a heavy steed is to make sure it's in gear, put your butt against the seat, turn the front wheel toward the ground to a. provide a smooth, rocking fulcrum and b. move the contact point under some of the weight, making it easier to lift, and with your legs almost straight out to the side, where it takes little effort to straighten them, walk that thing up little by little until it's at balance, swing your now uninjured leg over it and ride off.
Sounds good but when I had opportunity to test it on a freshly graveled campground road, the gravel just swallowed my heels. The technique requires traction for your boots. Fortunately, in that instance I was able to grunt the thing up by the handlebars without sacrificing any body parts. The 650 is 40 lb lighter than the 1000, plus I'd already made camp so it was mostly unloaded.
Here is "Skert" Youorski demonstrating the technique.
I'm sure you can find video of her doing so on YouTube.
So, don't fall over and don't be stupid, from a guy what did.
A couple of lessons learned: 1. Don't let embarrassment make you be stupid. Within a second of my popping my tendon, there were Samaritan hands on the bike, helping me right it. Had I been less frantic to avoid eye contact and get out of there, I might have noticed that there was help available. 2. The correct technique for picking up a heavy steed is to make sure it's in gear, put your butt against the seat, turn the front wheel toward the ground to a. provide a smooth, rocking fulcrum and b. move the contact point under some of the weight, making it easier to lift, and with your legs almost straight out to the side, where it takes little effort to straighten them, walk that thing up little by little until it's at balance, swing your now uninjured leg over it and ride off.
Sounds good but when I had opportunity to test it on a freshly graveled campground road, the gravel just swallowed my heels. The technique requires traction for your boots. Fortunately, in that instance I was able to grunt the thing up by the handlebars without sacrificing any body parts. The 650 is 40 lb lighter than the 1000, plus I'd already made camp so it was mostly unloaded.
Here is "Skert" Youorski demonstrating the technique.
I'm sure you can find video of her doing so on YouTube.
So, don't fall over and don't be stupid, from a guy what did.
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