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43 Posts
So, I had the unfortunate opportunity to test out the crash protection of the OEM off road kit the other day in my garage. I've used a harbor freight motorcycle dolly for several years to move my bike around the garage. The Desert X is bigger than my last bike but still seemed to work fine. However, the side stand is very long, so the lean angle when parked is pretty small. Anyway, I was moving my bike around the garage and one of the wheels on the dolly got stuck and the bike tipped over on the right side. It hit HARD. The contact points to the ground were the crash bars, hand guards, foot break, both right side foot pegs.
The result:
What next:
My perspective:
Pretty annoyed that I made such a dumb mistake while not even riding! I should have known better to push the dolly from the side stand side of the bike instead of pulling from the other side. While I could do this with my last bike no problem, the desert X is just too tall and the lean angle when parked is too slight. That said, the protection I invested in did its job even though it was intended to be for off/on-road... For sure I would have smashed my tank and front fairing with out it. The off-road kit has paid for itself, so I'm considering it a pass although overall, although I'm not sure about the hand guards and the plastic...
The result:
- zero body damage
- rear foot peg has a very small scuff that isn't noticeable.
- zero issues with the foot brake and rider foot-peg
- zero scuffs on the engine guards (looks perfect), but it did get bent so that it's now much closer to the tank
- the hand guard took the most damage. I'm pretty sure that's where it hit first. Not only did the metal get scuffed up (not a big deal), but the bolt is bent bad and the plastic part of the hand guard did break at one of the screw points.
What next:
- I need to replace my hand-guards + order a new factory bolt. While the hand guards did do its job in protecting my levers, I think the plastic design is faulty and I will be replacing with aftermarket
- My bent crash bars are not noticeable and actually took me a day before I even saw it. I'm going to try and bed them back, which seems to be normal after a drop. If it doesn't work I'm going to replace with aftermarket
- I'm getting a center stand. The side stand is way too long. I felt like it was going to fall over before when parking on the ride side of the road with a slight incline down to the right. I saw a video somewhere where someone said they were going to trim the side side, which I'm not doing.
My perspective:
Pretty annoyed that I made such a dumb mistake while not even riding! I should have known better to push the dolly from the side stand side of the bike instead of pulling from the other side. While I could do this with my last bike no problem, the desert X is just too tall and the lean angle when parked is too slight. That said, the protection I invested in did its job even though it was intended to be for off/on-road... For sure I would have smashed my tank and front fairing with out it. The off-road kit has paid for itself, so I'm considering it a pass although overall, although I'm not sure about the hand guards and the plastic...