Total Motorcycle Community Forums

So for my first bike I got a used 2005 Suzuki Bandit 1200S. Absolutely love the thing but I've mainly had some problems with keeping the bike up. With practice in empty parking lots, I'm good on things such as starting, stopping, shifting and turning but find that I'm having a little bit of trouble not dropping the bike. I've gotten much better and I've learned to keep my balance and proper foot placement when stopped but still seem to have some difficulties. Staying up at a complete stand-still is fine for me but I seem to have most problems with keeping my balance in <5mph situations. What tips or techniques did you guys learn to keep the bike up? In the case that I do drop my bike again, what can I buy to make sure nothing gets damaged on the bike. I know there's crash bars and frame sliders but I don't know which would be better for simple drops on the bike. Which would be better for my situation. I apologize if these are obvious or stupid questions but I'm not very mechanically inclined lol. Thanks.

Kind of hard to answer this in general, but are you keeping your eyes up? Don't look down, especially when <5mph. Find an object in the medium distance that's basically aligned with the direction you're intending to go, and fix your eyes on that. The old "you go where you look" maxim works for the vertical plane as well as the horizontal.

As far as protection goes, I don't have any experience with frame sliders. I see though that SW Motech makes crash bars for the GSF1200S. I had SW Motech crash bars on a V-Strom I used to have; they worked well. (Don't ask me how I know they worked..... )

Old thread I know, but if you know how to ride a bicycle, it can be easy to get proper balance somehow.