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I had a moderate low side spill on a 2004 1100S. The bike slid about 150 feet. The last 10-feet of the slide ended up with the bike upside down in a grass-lined, three-foot deep ditch. The left Delrin valve cover guard was ground down to the valve cover. The city lid and 52l GIVI top box were ground off on the left side. The tube frame of the main fairing was bent and the right mirror stalk was bent straight down, parallel to the forks. The left Motolight was ripped off and hanging by its wiring. The left clutch lever was curled and the left bar end weight lost about 1/2 inch.
The forks were tweaked hard enough that when, a month later I was trying to remove the front wheel to replace the fairing-frame, the front axel would not budge. It was necessary to loosen the bottom clamp and do the old motocrosser’s trick of plunging the forks hard with the front brake applied to release the twist.
With a motorist’s help I got the bike out of the ditch. The clip ons were on top and had the anti rotation straps in place. In this case, which is pretty much textbook low side I doubt that just the clamping force of the clip on’s pinch bolt would have kept the clip on from twisting. There is very little slack in the push pull cable, wiring and plumbing especially when the clip ons are moved to the top of the top clamp.
The bike would have been disabled if the left bar and cluster had twisted and ripped out the above mentioned stuff. I was about 200 miles from home and had another 300 miles left on my trip. Since the clip on held, I was able to zip tie, lock wire and muscle all the damage back into place in about 1/2 hour and be on my way. That the clip on didn’t rotate acted as an upper crash bar and saved the left upper main fairing from damage. The tube frame was bent when the mirror stalk was yanked down. No fairing plastic was damaged.
The anti rotation straps are a very low cost of avoidance item in the scheme of things. If I was sure I’d never crash, I wouldn’t wear a helmet either…
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