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I replied to an email i got recently, I know this subject has been debated numerous times here.
thought I'd light the fuse on it one more time...

Debunking myth's and explanation of the stock BMW side stands found on Airheads...

ok. im going to try n make this as short as possible....Ive recited this info countless times.
1st, we are talking about only a good working, not bent or worn out stock side stand on Airhead BMW motorcycles....
2. take advice from people and filter it. many riders are simply quoting info told to them and or forming opinions formed from limited experience; i speak from experience...lots of it.
3 aftermarket sidestands for Airheads only occur in America.
4. the stock BMW sidestand is well thought out by BMW engineers, anyone who thinks they can out engineer BMW I have to wonder about....
5. BMW considers the sidestand a secondary stand mainly used to aid in mounting & dismounting the bike. the center stand is the primary stand to leave the bike park for any length of time. only when off pavement is it sometimes better to leave the bike parked on the sidestand & even then sometimes the centerstand works better than the sidestand...
6. DO NOT modify the stock side stand to stay out when deployed. the sidestand is hidden under the left cylinder and sooner than later you will forget to retract it and it will scare the hell out of you or even crash you if you take off like that. TRUST ME, its happened. its dangerous and foolish to mod the stock stand. PLEASE heed my warning.
7. the brown sidestand is only good for street riders who get on & off frequently(think motorcop or courier) or if you have an injury preventing you from properly using the side stand...brown sidestands are ony useful on hard tarmac in limited circumstances. brown sidestands will punch right through hot asphalt & sink into dirt etc. Ive seen bikes loaded with gear topple over on a brown sidestand because they are mounted right at the pivot point on the bike. add a little too much weight to the rear of the bike and the bike can and will tip over because the bike is literally teetering on a brown sidestand.
8. don't start the bike or leave the bike idling on the sidestand. there is NO good reason to do this.


proper use of the stock sidestand.

Mounting the bike,
rock the bike off the center stand, put the bike on the side stand THEN mount the bike. when you mount the bike and stand the bike up straight the sidestand should auto retract and you are ready to ride.

Getting off the bike...
while sitting on the bike look down and you can see the leading point on the foot of the side stand sticking up(on post 81 bikes there is even a little arm sticking up for you to use. put the toe of your boot on the point sticking up and push the sidestand out as far as you can then lean the bike to the left till your heel and then the sidestand touches the ground. pull back on the bars & make sure the side stand is fully extended. lean the bike till its sitting on the sit stand safely....then dismount.

IF you are parking on a surface with an incline park the bike facing UP the incline, If you are parking off road in soft dirt, mud, loose gravel, mud etc you can use a sidestand plate or a flattened drink can for extra extra stability but rarely do you need to do that.

I hope this helps,
see you on the road.
Matt

There were many different designs for Airhead sides stands. Some definitely better than others. I liked the stand on my R90. I had no problem with that one. The one on my R100 looks so beautifully made. It has a nice casting on the frame to mount it. It has a replaceable bushing. It even has a grease fitting. I have been diligent greasing and re bushing but the stand leans over too far and it has never been abused. It is insufficient, and now I had to buy a Browns which works better, but I wish the original was operational.

I almost bit it on a WaterBuffalo a hundred years ago;
took off, 3 right handers, accelerated to 70mph, tried to go left and the stand dug in,
I had enough room to straighten out and flip up the stand, nothing happened.
Could have been dead.

Enough people crashed and died that way so they made it a law that sidestands must auto-retract.
I'm not in favor of any bike laws, I believe in natural herd thinning.
Those little rubber tangs they added (post '75 jap bikes) so the stands would flip up only extended 'the compleat idiot''s life until fate took it some other way.

If you insist on a stay-down stand, test it in an assortment of left handers to BE SURE it always flips up.
It may flip up at walking speeds but dig in at high speeds.
It can kill you if it doesn't flip up.

If you absolutely NEED a stay-down stand, or if you tend to be forgetful,
install an ignition kill switch, neutral/clutch interlock, or in the very least,
a prominent warning light.

I have no issues with the stock auto-retracting stand.
I liked the idea behind the old K bike clutch lever stand release,
but I didn't like the additional complexity.

gspd wrote: I liked the idea behind the old K bike clutch lever stand release,
but I didn't like the additional complexity.

Yeah, I always thought that was a great concept poorly executed, but I don't actually know how they could have done it better.

My 81 rs has a stay down side stand. Every time I've used it for the last bloody long time, I've bent over and deployed it by hand. No big deal. Every time I welded something on there to allow me to use my foot, the road would eat it, I gave up.

A good deal of the floppiness in the '81 OE side stand design is to allow the stand to retract when one rides off with the stand down.
I've not once ridden off with the side stand down. I've done it lots of times.

" LOTS OF TIMES " now there's a blast from the past.

I studied my worn side stand, and from a welders point of view decided it was easier to find increasingly sloping ground until I could afford a new stand.
Trees are good too.

Airhead side stand is the worst part of the bike - I hate it.

Sounds like fighting words to me Matt! Fortunately (for me) I'm not a fighting kind of guy. But I do like an intelligent debate.

I'll start with an inflamatory statement. It appears to me that BMW designed their airheads for experienced, tall, agile, teutonic dudes, with at least a 32" inseam. (Well, I guess that wasn't all that inflamatory.) I'm a heavyweight dude getting increasingly older and creakier. And I find myself appreciating the airhead sidestands less and less. Though I have a long inseam I need to mount and dismount the bike from the sidestand. I've watched my brother-in-law, with his short inseam, struggle to get on and off my S bike. Of course he was unpracticed, but so was every airhead rider at first. And the slightest slip of the foot when getting on or off the bike could (and did) precipitate a gentle lay down.

It's not mounting the bike from the sidestand that is the problem, no matter what your inseam. You get on the bike, lean it to the right, the sidestand clangs (or thumps) into place, and you're good to go. Dismounting is where the rub lies. Two difficulties can arise, finding the tab on the sidestand and keeping the sidestand deployed against the spring load as you lean the bike to the left---if you're able to readily find the sidestand tab. The toe grip you have on it isn't quite right to perform the layover maneuver. You have to squirm your foot to do that. True, the squirm becomes automatic, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Airhead sidestand, is it?

I need a sidebar here to say that there are airhead side stands and then there are airhead side stands. I have no problem with the /6 and /7 sidestands. I can find the tang on the foot of the sidestand and with my longer inseam I can simply extend the sidestand as I lean the bike over. My inseam is short enough though that I can't extend the sidestand all the way against the stop. So there's always a slight concern that if lean the bike over the sidestand might not be extended enough to catch the bike's weight properly.

The sidestand on my '82RS is the worst I've ever seen! There's no tab on the sidestand to toe-find. You (or at least I) have to dismount the bike first, then deploy the sidestand. Worse, on this particular bike, the sidestand pivot was worn, which means that to deploy it you have to lean the bike away from you as you deploy the sidestand with your foot, then lean it back to the left. Not a very secure feeling to be sure. And sooner or later I would make a mistake and the bike would thump over to its right, possibly breaking some plastic in the process. (After I got the bike I did learn that the fairing had been pushed to the left, but I don't know that was "caused" by the sidestand.)

Well, it's not very fair of me to bad mouth a WORN stand then is it? Well, fair or not I do. I bought the bike from the original owner with 34K miles on the speedometer. The plastic had been re-painted but it was still a cherry bike with no significant evidence of use or abuse. For a sidestand to be worn out that soon was unacceptable. And it wasn't just the bushing either. there is a snug fit between the tab on the frame and the clevis on the top of the sidestand. And it was worn badly. My /6 and /7 bikes have acquired many more miles than that and their sidestands, thought worn a bit, were just fine.

But even if the pivot hadn't been worn I would still have had a hell of a time developing my sidestand-extension-from-the-saddle technique. The sidestand came off that bike and a Brown went on. I maintain that the BMW designed sidestand DESIGN was inferior.

Then, when I acquired my '81 RT (editing: Oops, I meant to say '91RT here) it came with both it's original sidestand and a Brown sidestand. I didn't get along with the Brown all that well. I couldn't get my heel on it well enough to catch the sidestand and deploy it. The stock sidestand has a tab welded on it further up the shank. But damned if I could easily get a toe hold on it. Ultimately I ended up fabricating an aluminum "shoe" that bolted to the bottom of the stock sidestand. The shoe has a toe-tang on it emulating the design of my /6 and /7 bikes.

For what it's worth I'm not a huge fan of the Brown sidestand either. The main problem is deploying it, since there's no handy tab on the stand to catch with your boot. On the '82 RS I ended up putting a hose clamp on the Brown shank such that I had a "sharp" projection to catch with my foot. The Brown sidestand on the '91 RT came off because my fabricated shoe tab works good enough for me.

Of course if I were a lanky, agile, tall inseamed, teutonic kind of guy I would likely have regarded the Airhead sidestands as just fine.



Ken

Ken in Oklahoma wrote:I'll start with an inflamatory statement. It appears to me that BMW designed their airheads for experienced, tall, agile, teutonic dudes, with at least a 32" inseam. (Well, I guess that wasn't all that inflamatory.)
Ken

The hell it wasn't.

There is an 'improved' sidestand available for the 81-84 models, however it is still impossible to deploy from a seated position and it holds the bike rather too upright and one of these days it will go over!

The surefit side stand made in the UK is a bit utilitarian in appearance, but works well, can get ground down during enthusiatic cornering.

With a packed bike and short legs, I am finding that getting on and off is getting more difficult!

Major Softie wrote: The hell it wasn't.

Oh man, how thoughtless of me!

I simply wan't thinking. I should have put, "Except for Major Softie," in front of my inflamatory statement. I simply overlooked it that your superior Airhead mounting and dismounting skills merited such an exception.

One thing's for sure. The next time I'm inclined to bad mouth Airhead sidestands you will pop up in my mind.

And that should be punishment enough!


Ken