Crash in Destruction Bay, YT

I suppose we are supposed to ride with a camera recording the area to show the failure before the crash they cause.

And never do any of the maintenance late or yourself...

Nerver rely on the goverment to get anything right!!! 4 bikes.... I wonder how many more there are out there.

Morons...

Time for a beer

This is not the first incident I have heard of where the F650GS forks have failed. I believe there is mention of it on the Chain Gang website, a site for the 650 owners. Anyone riding one of these machines should be looking for telltale signs of cracks or oil seepage especially if the machine has been used in rough country a lot. The fact they could fail on a relatively good chipseal road scares me. Especially when we own two of these bikes.

Pappy

After riding dirt bikes for many years and seeing how well built the forks are on smaller off road bikes(450's), I have always been surprised at how under built bigger "Road Bike" forks are compared to their size.

http://faq.f650.com/GSFAQs/Photos/WheelPhotos/FrontSpacereje4.jpg

Just look at how small the effective mounting surface area is on a GS 650!! Its unnerving what keeps that fork together. Are you kidding me? That bike is almost twice the size as most off road bikes.

Scares me!

I would like to thank the OP and those how helped create this informative thread for their input and specifically the Op for leaving it up.

I hope all is well with the RedBaroness in her further riding ADventures.

I now know what to look for while Milady and i shop for her ADV bike. the GS is a prominent forerunner in this.

Another machine with axle mount failure

http://www.b66ama.com/

Scroll to the very bottom

Machine seems to have been purchased from a dealer with the damage, cause unknown

For real. Look at that spindly flange holding the front wheel on. It should be at the bottom of the fork with a lot of metal around it.

The more of these I see, the more glad I am that I swapped out my forks to the 03 and later model with beefier lugs.

Will it ever end?
www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=393785

I wonder, have there been other failures that happened on the highway in traffic where the rider was killed and the bike so mangled that no one knew that a fork failure was the cause?

It's been a few years since your crash but it still looks like it hurt quite a bit . I just got back from my ride from Southern California to Deadhorse, and on my way back I went through Destruction Bay. Seeing the pictures of your accident make me appreciate my bike and my luck even more.
I took my Kawasaki VN900, which by all means isn't made for a trip like the one I did. More than once I hit an enormous pothole where, I'm pretty sure, I bottomed out on my front shocks. I guess I'm just lucky that nothing broke , especially since I was riding alone.
Hmmm...not sure if any of this makes sense but once again, I hope you made a complete recovery...

Ride on...

Thank you for your sentiments. I *am* fully recovered now. Glad you had a good ride to Alaska. In spite of how it ended, that was a fantastic journey and I hope to return there someday.

Glad you came out of it ok. From an engineering perspective without seeing the parts it looks like the metal was too thin and the casting was of poor quality. It looks like there is a lot of porosity in the metal which makes it weak. It also makes it full of cracks to start with and very brittle. I was under the impression that most fork lowers were made from billets not cheap castings but maybe I am wrong there. Fatigue should not have been an issue here since there should have been more than enough metal to prevent much deflection. Also the metal should have been made of a rather mild alloy which should not fracture like that unless it is full of holes to start with (poor casting). I have seen this type of fracture in really cheap castings or really weak metal like magnesium. Even if it were a really good alloy I think I would have added a little extra meat in there.

Perry

The answer is to sell your BMW and buy something else.

I for one send this link to anyone I hear considering the F650 or any BMW for that matter.

I think I have ended up with the remains of your motorcycle,minus the luggage and front forks.Your insurance company has written off the machine,and I am wondering if you still have the Title?I have ordered a set of yamaha yzf450 front wheel and fork assembly,and plan to put the bike back on the road if I can get hold of the original Title,which I need to import the bike into Canada.If I cannot,I will just use it for offroad.Hope you recovered okay,and if you ever make it back up this way,look me up in Haines Junction.
































EDIT BY ANNIEGS: I changed this one to a link 'cuz it's a bit graphic (broken arm).
http://red-baroness.net/Motorcycling/images/BrokenBike/arm2.jpg


Rest of the crash photos: http://red-baroness.net/Motorcycling/images/BrokenBike/

We googled a bit and found this on the ChainGang site: http://faq.f650.com/FAQS/ForksMaintFAQ.htm#GS%20Catastrophic%20Fork%20Failu re


If anyone knows about any similar incidents with the GS, please contact me or comment here.[/QUOTE]

Put some Yamaha forks on there and you have a pretty sweet bike.

Hey, wait a minute... why didn't those geniuses at BMW think of that?

[/QUOTE]

Hello! I sent you a PM (personal message) about this, which you can see in the top right hand side of the page. Look forward to your reply. :)

This accident reminds me of video that I saw a few months ago. A guy is riding on a dirt road on a BMW wearing a high definition camera when you see the fender just shoot out from its normal position above the front tire foward from the motorcycle, at the same time the front tire instantly stops rotating throwing the rider foward. It seems to me that this could very well be what happened to you. It seems unlikely that the forks would just suddenly break like that on pavement... If the brake line that is routed between the two forks catches in the tire, or even the fender catches the tire, and instantly stops it on pavement, it could have caused enough stress to rip the tire off the forks as in your picture. Do not take my word for it, this is just speculation, and do not dismiss it either, find the video and watch it. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video worth a million !

Mike

"It seems unlikely that the forks would just suddenly break like that on pavement... "

Yet, amazingly that is exactly what has happened numerous times! BMW is still trying to stonewall and BS their way out of the product liability and continue to sell an inferior product at inflated prices to unsuspecting novices who think that they are paying for "fine Germany engineering" but getting low bid Chinese components.

The Chinese motorcycle industry is really making huge improvements, but I still think you should know what you're paying for.

That's Joe aka lost rider, formerly chitown.