> A story & cautionary tale. Just taking a short lunchtime ride through
> a suburban neighborhood, running a few errands on a warm sunny day.
> What could go wrong. I came to my turn and lightly applied the brakes
> to slow for the turn, when - screeeeeeetch. The rear wheel suddenly
> and completely locks up on me. I kept it upright through the skid,
> and came to a stop in the middle of the road. WTF?
> It was seriously locked. Tried backing it up, pushing it forward,
> nothing. I had the on-board tools, so I disconnected the brake arm &
> rod so the wheel could free spin, and managed to push it out of the
> road until help came with a trailer. All was well that ended well;
> and I'm mostly glad I wasn't doing 80 when it happened.
> Here's what went wrong, should anyone out there be at similar risk.
> It's an old bike, a 1983 Honda Shadow 750 (VT750C). When I bought it
> last year, it had a mere 7800 miles on it, so its likely the brakes
> were never changed, and I hadn't either. Even though they had
> relatively low mileage on them, they were still 25 years old; and
> oxydation under the pads had popped the pads off of the shoes. When
> it came loose, it jammed up the wheel immediately.
> So if you're running on an old but low-mileage bike, I'd suggest it
> would behoove you to change those brake shoes. I was lucky. You may
> not be.
Yup, old brakes in need of rebuild can do that. Any older bike needs
to have that checked. I took care of the problem before they locked up
on an '82 buike I had. My friend's '82 GW locked up tigh in his front
yard because of this. Yes, be thankful you weren't really moving fast.
Greg
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> a suburban neighborhood, running a few errands on a warm sunny day.
> What could go wrong. I came to my turn and lightly applied the brakes
> to slow for the turn, when - screeeeeeetch. The rear wheel suddenly
> and completely locks up on me. I kept it upright through the skid,
> and came to a stop in the middle of the road. WTF?
> It was seriously locked. Tried backing it up, pushing it forward,
> nothing. I had the on-board tools, so I disconnected the brake arm &
> rod so the wheel could free spin, and managed to push it out of the
> road until help came with a trailer. All was well that ended well;
> and I'm mostly glad I wasn't doing 80 when it happened.
> Here's what went wrong, should anyone out there be at similar risk.
> It's an old bike, a 1983 Honda Shadow 750 (VT750C). When I bought it
> last year, it had a mere 7800 miles on it, so its likely the brakes
> were never changed, and I hadn't either. Even though they had
> relatively low mileage on them, they were still 25 years old; and
> oxydation under the pads had popped the pads off of the shoes. When
> it came loose, it jammed up the wheel immediately.
> So if you're running on an old but low-mileage bike, I'd suggest it
> would behoove you to change those brake shoes. I was lucky. You may
> not be.