The walk up technique really does work quite well (Dont ask me how i know)Just make sure if you put the bike down on its right side that you have the kickstand down to hold it when you get it upright.
Bright side was your bike needed gas so it was a little lighter!!!......

 

Never drop a bike in front of a CROWD. (One person is fine, so you have help picking it up and then kill them so no witnesses to the dropping! LOL)
Almost everyone drops a bike sooner or later. Builds confidence (so I say!).
No biggy....usually hardly any damage done.

chuck

 

dude, you got to stop smoking those funny looking cigarettes.

 

Don't feel bad, I can see how that could easily happen. A buddy of mine had a few too many, came up to a stop sign and forgot to put his feet down.....he went over like the guy did in the comedy "Laugh In" on the tricycle...... lol.

 

The kickstand set up is a little shaky sometimes. I dropped a bike at a dealership, it was parked on a slight downslope and when I set the kickstand down I noticed the bike moving forward very slowly. I reset the stand and it continued to move again so I figured it would stop, but it didn't. Next thing I know I'm fighting to keep it upright and fortunately there was a pillar just to my left so the bike fell against it, breaking the fall. I thought my reconstructed left knee was going to blow out in the process. I called a salesman to help get the bike upright and I pointed out the problem with the "creeping" bike. He got on it, put the kickstand down a couple times and said, "see, theres nothing wrong with this bike". I felt like telling him to F off. From that point on I make sure to put my bike in gear before setting the stand at a stop, first gear. Even at a gas station once I kind of gave my kickstand a second look after getting off the bike, a little paranoid I guess and some guy came up to me and said he had a RK too and he makes sure the bikes in gear as well. He just knew what I was doing when I stared down the kickstand.

I've had the bike six months and haven't dropped it yet, I know it will happen someday. I'm extra careful during those situations where it most commonly happens, but you never know. They are so incredibly heavy, sometimes I wonder why Harley doesn't explore other lighter weight materials, its amazing how much add on stuff weighs, like chrome or anything you put on a Harley, all of it weighs a ton. When I get on my 400 lb Ducati 999R, having the Harley makes the Duc feel like a dirtbike, a very fast nimble lightweight one. Its stange, on the Duc the goal is to loose weight, on the Harley its quite the oppisite. I have replaced many parts with titanium, carbon fiber and magnesium, the bike came stock with a fair share of those materials anyway. But having a lighter bike doesn't make you immune to dropping it, I did just that when it came off a funky wheel stand last year. Fortunately it went down with me holding on to it for dear life and onto a big rubber mat I had under it.

 

yep they tend to "roll" foward a little and lock in. its scary. i think im going to the first gear approach besides the not dropping the bike approach.

 

I did something similar one time. I pulled up to the pump, opened the gas cap and forgot to put the kickstand down. Went to roll off the bike and it pushed me into the pump, my shoulder punched out the glass on the gas pump, and gas sloshed out all over me and the hot engine. I was also pinned against the pump, lucky I didn't go up in flames.

 

It sounds like with your luck, it would still roll off the kickstand and the first gear would be like a kick start for it...... then it would be off to the races......

 

Back in the day when there were air and water at the pumps, I pulled this same stunt but with several people looking on, I simply went over to the air hose and proceeded to check and fill the air in my tires. They gave me a funny look but once I grabbed that air hose and rotated the tires so the valve stems were easy to get to they knew immediately what a friggin' genius I was.

 

The crash bars do a great job of minimizing damage in a drop like this. The guys that take their crash bars off are nuts. When these bikes start to go down there's no stopping them. The bars make it a non-event vs an insurance claim.