Long Story.......Almost lost it.....Bent Front Rim Today. Questions.

[HappyMan]

My son and I left for our trip around Lake Superior today. I got sick yesterday and felt like dung this morning but by golly I wasn't going to ruin this for my son!! Got a couple hundred miles out and hit a massive pot hole that ran the length of the center line on the freeway a good twenty feet. I was lucky it didn't take us down. It bent the rim quite badly, the damage begins and ends in about two feet of the tire/rim. Thank God it didn't blow my tire! Went into an immediate shake and got off the road to check. I knew it was bad. Called into Duluth but no one could help so unfortionately I cancelled our trip and headed back home. (Thought I felt like dung when I left but this felt more like I was run through a manure spreader.) I called ahead to my dealer and drop shipped a rim for Tuesday along with a new tire. We'll leave again Tuesday......I told him we could go back and take the DRSixFiddy but evidently his butt is a discerning butt. He prefers the Beemer.....

 

O.K. Long story part done. Now the questions. I'm replacing the wheel and tire. The bike shook like my old Yamaha vertical twin so I'll go through the bike and look for anything shaken loose. I definitely bottomed out the front. The rear appears to be fine visualy. Is there anything else I should be looking for? I am replacing the wheel. I could still try to repair the damaged one. Should I? Do I need a spare?? Should I fix it and try to sell it or try to sell it damaged and let someone else fix it? Should I just toss it?

 

Side note: The shop I contacted in Duluth guessed where I hit the pot hole. Said he had a Wing in that hit the same one and split the tire and cracked the wheel. This is a great example of my MN taxes at work.....

 

My honey just mentioned something about telling me before I left that I wasn't supposed to leave before I put the new drapes up.........I better start looking for the Voodoo Doll.

[smiller]

Ouch. sorry to hear about that. Glad you weren't hurt. You might want to ask the road maintenance people why they didn't have that damage blocked off so no one gets killed...

 

By all means inspect the bike, but I would expect that the rim took most of the energy. As for repair, depends on how bad it is. A good shop can make perfectly safe repairs but I would let the pros tell you for sure... send them a picture and see what they think. If it can be repaired it would make a nice backup if you should ever have something like this happen again.

[HappyMan]

Ouch. sorry to hear about that. Glad you weren't hurt. You might want to ask the road maintenance people why they didn't have that damage blocked off so no one gets killed...

 

Yes, I intend to especially since I'm the second victim. If I had been on a lesser bike I don't think I'd be posting right now. On the bright side, I've got a couple extra days to get over this flu...

[Blake]

Ouch. sorry to hear about that. Glad you weren't hurt. You might want to ask the road maintenance people why they didn't have that damage blocked off so no one gets killed...

 

Yes, I intend to especially since I'm the second victim. If I had been on a lesser bike I don't think I'd be posting right now. On the bright side, I've got a couple extra days to get over this flu...

 

hell, i'd go so far as to try and find a way to make them pay for it, especially if it was as bad as you say and the shop you called has another bike in for the same reason (can you say material witness(es))! judges just LOVE videos, photographs and witnesses that help corroborate a claim!

 

again, like the rest said, i'm glad you're ok, but you shouldn't have to foot the bill for something like that when someone else procrastinates - or whatever you want to call it! what would the consequences have been (and to whom) had you been seriously hurt, or worse?!

 

just my $.02, nobody asked.....

[arbee]

The BMW wheels are soft which probably explains why it

bent & didnt crack like the Wing rider

The wheel need to be tossed out as it would be elongated

and would wear your tyre dramatically

[VinnyR11]

I noticed you have a '96 RT. 3 years ago I blew BOTH rims on my '96 RT on a NY pothole while riding two up in a curve. Very exciting, but thankfully the only issue was the two blown rims.

 

In any case, although BMW says "no", I am 99% positive the replacement rims are made of a different material than the original '96 rims. Two things make me feel this way:

1) We've hit other similar potholes with absolutely no damage to the new rims. After years of use, they just appear much stronger.

2) The original rims were a pain in the butt to clean since new. They seemed to be porous and "absorb" the brake dust and road oils. Just a royal pain. The new rims are a zillion times easier to keep clean. So something is different.

 

In any case, luckily nobody was hurt, and the one positive is that I think you will appreciate the new rims as an upgrade.

[HappyMan]

I noticed you have a '96 RT. 3 years ago I blew BOTH rims on my '96 RT on a NY pothole while riding two up in a curve. Very exciting, but thankfully the only issue was the two blown rims.

 

I bet that was expensive!!! My front end looked like I hit a brick wall. The rear looked o.k. No change.

 

Laying here in bed this morning I was kind of glad to be waking up in a nice soft bed instead of the cold hard ground. Stomache still doing flip flops and all from being sick. On the bright side, maybe I needed a new front end anyway.....

 

The dealer spoke of replacing the bearings. Anyone know anything about that?

[Stan Walker]

The dealer spoke of replacing the bearings. Anyone know anything about that?

 

Which bearings?

 

New front wheel comes with new bearings.

 

Stan

[HappyMan]

Thats what I thought. It was the parts guy and not the service guy that was talking about bearings. He wasn't sure but said he'd order them just in case.

[David]

If you bottomed hard, chances are the shocks were damaged. Look for leakage, and be prepared to replace them at some point, earlier than before. The two worst things you can do to shocks are a) leave them unused and b) bottom them out.

[HappyMan]

If you bottomed hard, chances are the shocks were damaged. Look for leakage, and be prepared to replace them at some point, earlier than before. The two worst things you can do to shocks are a) leave them unused and b) bottom them out.

 

I'll watch it closely since she bottomed out quite hard. Like an explosion. the sound alone scared the crap out of me! Thanks for the advice David.

[HappyMan]

I'm still replacing my wheel because I don't have time to do this the cheap way but this is some pretty amazing repair. Have any of you heard of these guys?

Frame Straight Systems