Yesterday was a really good riding day for the Dakar. At work, we had a “team building activity” at Whirlyball Atlanta (think bumper cars+lacrosse+basketball), which was nearby enough that I rode out to it. I noticed I was running out of gas on the way there, so I made a detour to Marietta to fill up the tank for the first time. For reference, the F650GS has a 4 gallon tank, which means about 240 miles at 60mpg. After that, I headed back to Whirlyball and had a great time there.
While hanging out in between games, I found myself pretty paranoid about having my bike stolen, after Curtis got his bike stolen a few days ago. I had to leave the bike in a parking lot for 4 hours, and so I found myself walking out and checking up on it every hour or so. In order to get some comfort in the future, I ordered the Squire Mini “D” Padlock (ML2L) for about $40.
All was well and good on the bike until I left Whirlyball at the same time as many of my coworkers. Me and a carload of them were adjacent to each other in the turn lanes going from Commerce to Alpharetta Highway. When the light turned green, they went, and I stalled in the middle of the intersection. It seems I got distracted and forgot to shift into 1st gear when I came to a stop. I had to duck-walk the bike to the other side of Alpharetta Highway and wait for the folks behind me to pass. I felt my “cool factor” drop from a 2 to a 0 instantly. I don’t think I’ll be doing that again.
I went to the pet store, picked up some crickets, and headed home. At the pet store, I found out just how hard it was to duck-walk the bike backwards uphill to get out of a parking space when the bike is too tall to flat-foot it. Not wanting to get off the bike and walk it backwards, I struggled through it and ended up turning left instead of right to get out. You would have thought I would have made a mental note about this..
When I got home, I wanted Dallas to get some photos of me on my bike in proper gear to send off to post on my website. I think she took some great photos of me and my bike. By far the best photo is the one of my bike lying down at the curb, but sadly, no photos were taken of the couple of minutes beforehand. I was trying to duck-walk my bike backwards uphill again to pull out of the driveway after a few photos, and gave up. Instead of getting off my bike and walking it, I decided that I would just leave the bike in neutral, coast down the wet grass, and drop off the curb into the street. When I dropped off the curb, I expected the bike to coast in a straight line far enough into the road to stop on level ground. This did not happen.
The front tire dropped off the curb easy enough, but when the rear tire dropped off, the bike basically came to a stand-still due to the slight dip on the edge of the road where the curb comes down. If I was in gear, I would have fed the bike a bit of throttle to get out, but I was in neutral like a dumbass. When the bike began leaning to the right, it caught me by surprise, and I struggled to keep it up with my right foot. Not having solid contact with the ground, my foot gave way, and the bike fell over slowly into the grass. No big deal normally, but I noticed fluids pouring out of my bike. It seems that the lid you open to pump gas into the F650GS only locks into place by turning your key, but looks deceptively locked if you just close it shut. So, at least a gallon of gasoline poured into the street before I picked the bike up. Once I verified that me or the bike had no damage, I rode off, and Dallas took more photos.
So far, I’ve only dropped my bike twice, and both times were due to curbs and my lack of skill. Thankfully, both times were when I was going at a near-standstill speed. Should this trend continue, lets hope for no damage again next time. 
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