i was just thinking

[oops-sorry]

i was reading through some of the older posts about using the centerstand. some people were having a hard time while others said they had very little problems getting it. i was thinking maybe some of the people lowered their bike or they are using a shorter fatter tire, therefor also lowering the bike. if this is the case, their bike would be sitting lower to the ground and it would take alot more effort to get the bike up, since they would be lifting the bike up higher. i use to have a big heavy bike and im only 5'7 and it went up on the centerstand easy, but i wasnt having to lift the bike up very high to get it, so it went up without much of a fight. does this make sense to anybody else?

[kwebbel]

wouldn't know my gf rides a cb1000f she is only 5.3" and has no problem to put the lowered bike on the centerstand.

[KatanaSoldier]

When I first got the Kat, I asked the previous owner if he ever used it. He said the bike was to heavy at over 400 pounds. I tried a few times and could do it only after fighting with it and doing it all wrong. I lift weights and am in good shape but it was not worth the struggle and strain so I gave up on using it.....Until I saw the advice on KR!! It is so simple now following the advice I read when I first joined.

[Jax]

It's all technique...there are around 5-10 different ways to get your bike on the center stand but you have to find the one that works for you...the guy I bought it from had his way and it didn't work for me...After much work and trying different ways I found what works for me...

[KatanaSoldier]

Well said. After reading that KR advice, it is just a rolling back as opposed to lifting. So easy a caveman could do it!

[md86]

Yup , technique . I bought my Kat from the guy who looks like the weightlifter type , and he was AMAZED that my little 6' 150lb self just popped it right up there . He was like "how the hell did you DO that ?" .

[The CyberPoet]

Re: i was just thinking

i was thinking maybe some of the people lowered their bike or they are using a shorter fatter tire, therefor also lowering the bike. if this is the case, their bike would be sitting lower to the ground and it would take alot more effort to get the bike up

That makes perfectly rational sense from a physics perspective. The lower the pivot is, the less the stand can rotate down before it contacts the ground, and the more force it would require to get it up (quite a bit more for someone with an 1" drop on the bike at the centerstand pivot point).

I've run into a variation of this issue at times when I park on uneven grass, where the dirt between the wheels is substancially higher than that under the wheels... It's also funny watching the bike immediately sink down on the centerstand until it hit's the cross-bar against the ground (I stick around if I see it start to sink-- almost lost the bike over on it's side once when one side sunk all the way and the other side didn't).

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet