Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge D'oh!

This should make everybody else feel a little smarter. I'm riding down MLK (Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd) in Pompano, not a nice area, but a good shortcut, when the main tank went dry. No problem, I'll switch to reserve. D'oh! It's already on reserve! I coasted onto the sidewalk, got off and started pushing. About a half a mile later, I got a little gas from a construction truck.

The moral of this story is: If you're dumb, you gotta be tough or lucky. And switch back to the main tank after a fill-up.

Better to be dumb and lucky than smart and unlucky?

Ya wanna hear dumb and lucky. About 15 years back, I had a 1976 Kawi H1 (500 3 cyl 2 stroke) along with a few other bikes. The H1 was my daily rider, and I was headed home one night. It was pretty late, my wife was pregnant at the time, and the bike was noisy as all hell. Didn't want to wake the wife, so I coasted the last 100 yards or so and into the driveway. I parked the bike behind my ElCamino being I didn't want to run up the garage door and make noise.

Next mornng, I had to head to the shop early. So I head out the side door of the garage, hop IN THE ElCamino and........... You all know what happened next

After the crashing crunching noise, and slamming on the brakes, I realized the ElCamino was sitting a bit higher then before in the rear.

So here I am, 5:30 am trying to jack the sucker up enough to pull the poor bike out from under the bumper. I finally get it out, stand it up and push it out of the way.

The lucky part was that the only real damage was the right mirror, the headlight bucket, and bent bars. Even luckier was that it actually handeled better after I ran it over.

That's one reason I always shut fuel off when I put my bike up. I never remember to switch from reserve after gassing up.

You have to get yourself into a routine when you stop for gas.
Reset trip odometer, switch back to main, then fuel up.
I've gone anywhere from 100 to 142 miles before reserve,
depending on conditions.

That's a good idea, BEFORE! I've reset my odometer rolling more than once.

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Even luckier was that it actually handeled better after I ran it over.

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LOL! Now THAT's funny!

I remember staying in west palm beach and had to take one of my kids to the hospital in the middle of the night. There was a cop outside the hotel for evening security which gave me directions to the place right down the center of a similar type town with the same name street. He said dont stop for red lights. As Im driving I realized I was driving on fumes. Fortunetly for me I didnt run out of gas. I was a little nervous though

Running out of gas is one thing, running out of air...that's a little tougher when you're underwater. Talk about dumb stuff and not following procedures! About 25 years ago I was scuba diving off Gloucester about a half mile offshore. Had a tank with a J valve you'd pull to go into reserve. Pulled it...nada, no air. Was already on reserve when I went in the water. Long swim back and had to sacrifice a weight belt to stay afloat. Yep, didn't wear my MayWest that day either!
Got to shore and when I'd recovered, borrowed a tank, went back out to prove to myself I could do it and have never dived again.
Dumb can be fatal, do your safety check EVERY time you ride. Want you all around for a long time.
SteveB

Back when I didn't care about germs and cleaned my hard contacts with my mouth, coughed and it flew on top of the kerosene space heater in Korea. Fried it like an egg. No back-up glasses. Worked for one week with only one eye. I'm always on the look out for my next stoopid endeavour. You are not alone.

My first bike was an old Ducati, with baffles removed. We were newly married; it was a sunny Saturday morning. I went for a ride, sending notice to all my bleary-eyed neighbors, while my wife decided for a leisurely bath.

A couple of blocks away I too ran out of gas with it already switched to reserve. I didn’t want to leave it there so I pushed it all the way home.

Needless to say, all that my wife heard was the back door slamming open, and heavy breathing as I dragged my sorry butt down the hall.

She truly thought she was dead as I burst through the bathroom door and exclaimed, “I ran out of Gas”.

Gerry

Seemingly I too ran out of gas yesterday. I had just gotten to my destination. However, I put it on reserve and made it to the gas station.

I know a guy with an extra 3 gallon Tour Tank who ran out of gas on a Sunday night at 9:30 pm. He forgot to twist the trip counter back at fuel-up time. He gets xx MPG, so he won't run out! (Mm-hmm!) Good thing his wife was around to bring the lawnmower gas up.

I have the best one running out of gas when you are riding or driving is one thing at least your feet are on the ground. I ran out of gas in the air.

When I lived in Colo Springs I worked at the FBO at the airport fueling jets and there was a flight school in our building and I decided to learn how to fly.

I was pretty far into my training and was doing my solo cross countries and I was scheduled to do my longest solo cross country on Sat. and I just happen to have to work on Wed. to cover for a guy who could not make it in and got off around 1:00 in the afternoon I saw my flight instructor and he talked me into going up and praticing short take off and landings and soft field landings (God's intervention).

I take off Sat. and fly out to Arapahoe on CO\KS border very boring and uneventful trip out. I land get my log book signed and file my return flight plan and head back out to the field. During my pre-flight I check the gas and I see I burned only a 1/4 of tank on both tanks and figure I have plenty to get back. (Major mistake) Rule # 1 Always top off.

I take off and now I'm heading back west and for every inch you go forward the ground is always getting closer so basically you are always climbing to maintain altitude. I was flying a Cessna 150 and hit a temperature inversion which made holding my altitude even more difficult.

About half way back I decided I’m not going to make it on the fuel I have remaining and I would not make it back to Arapahoe if I turned around. I check my charts and I see (SKY RANCH) about 25 miles to the northwest. I call Denver air control declare an in-flight emergence and divert to Sky Ranch, by now I’m down to a 1/8 of tank on both tanks. I raise the place on my radio but they do not have radar and can not give me a vector, so Colo Springs air control gets involved and have me on radar and they give me the vector. Which I had figured right on from my compass and my charts. I finally see the field when the right tank goes dry and what do I see a dirt field runway. Now two days ago I practiced landing on dirt field, but you do not actual land just practice the procedures (God’s Intervention).

I entered my down wind leg and I’m about 25’ off the tops of the trees and make my final turn to line up with the strip right then and there the engine sputters re-fires and sputters again then quits. Now not only I’m I making my first soft field landing I’m now flying a dead stick to boot. The whole idea on a soft field landing is keep the nose up off the ground until you lose all your lift and it just falls out of the sky hopefully by then your two main wheels have been on the ground for awhile and you’re on the brakes with full flaps to slow you down. The fact that I’m writing this tells you I made it actual my landing was perfect, a little bumpy but any landing you walk away from is a good one.

By now the flight school and the entire FBO have been listening to the whole ordeal through our in-flight radio and everyone knows about it. My instruct is on the phone with the owner of the place and soon as I could stop shaking long enough he tells me I have to fly the damm thing out of there. Something about being in your twenties and having survived my tour in NAM this would be a piece of cake. Well I did it landed in Colo Springs and tied the plane down completed my paper work answered a million questions from the FAA went home and have never got back into one of those tin cans ever again. If God wanted me to fly he would have given me wings.

i fill up around 100mi every time and here is why. a long time ago (a whole nother life ago) i had a 47 knucklehead chopper with a peanut tank, i ran outa gas with that and was in the middle of farm country without a house or help anywhere to be seen. soooooo i started pushing, after what seemed like 20mi (i am sure it wasnt more than 2 or 3) i stopped at the end of a driveway which was about a 1/2 mi long and just sat down on the seat to tuckered to go another step. it wasnt long and mr. farmer came along on his tractor and went and got me a gal. of fuel, he told me of his younger days of rideing and when i offered to pay him he said no thanks, just try not to ever let it happen again, i told him he could count on it, as i hoped i would never have to push a bike that far again. so to this day i fill up around 100mi. always shut the gas off with a little blip of the throttle to let the floats rest, and nowadays carry a cell phone hahahahahaha

All great stories! I met a bunch of friends at our local watering hole for a Sunday ride. Before I left the house I was thinking I should stop and get gas, I was running late and figured I'd hit up gas on our way out. Got to the bar and everyone was there hangin out having some breakfast. We actually ended up lagging a bit and the thought of the my gas situation slipped my mind. We got on our bikes and got about 2 miles down the road and my bike sputtered out and began to die. Just then I realized S!*%, I forgot to get gas. The thing is, I was on reserve. IT SUCKED!!! I was at the back of the pack so it took a while for them to figure out I wasn't there. No one had bags on so I had to ride on the back of my buddies Duece to the gas station and back up with a gas can in my hand. My buddy still jokes about this and calls me his B*T$H! The shame. Needless to say I will never run out of gas again.

from riding old bikes all my life I always shut the gas off when ever I shut the engine off so never have to remember to change from res. cause its off. If I forget anything it is to turn it back on and all that happens then is the carbs run out then I have to reach down and turn it on.