Parking Your Motorcycle on Hills

[Social Distortion]

Hi Gang
Never really thought about it until it happened recently here in Chicago.
We dont have any rolling hills here, but i ended up in a Suburb that has some pretty good sized hills. So my questions is any rule of thumbs on how to park your MC on these scenarios

Scenario 1-Parallel to the Curb facing Up a Hill
2-Parallel to the Curb facing down a Hill
3-Angled to the Curb facing Up a hill
4-Angled to the Curb facing down a hill

*In Scenario 3 and 4, i wonder if my kick stand is stable enough to hold the MC and not have the slop complicate things or do people park thier MC differently when on a grade/hill. When is it better to back into a spot? Should the kickstand always be facing the up slope?

thanks again!

[darsek]

Hi,
I have been wondering about this too as I live in San Francisco and am bound to have to deal with this. I have been looking at how others do it and it looks like most park perpendicular to the curb(90 degrees) with the kickstand on the uphill side.

[jonnythan]

Depends on the geometry of your bike/stand.

My bike doesn't lean over very far, so if the kickstand is touching ground higher than the wheels, it will likely fall over. I can sometimes put the stand slightly downhill of the wheels and be fine.

When on hills, I try to get as parallel to the curb as possible while keeping the downhill wheel touching the curb. Generally, when parking uphill, I will be at a slight angle to the curb, back wheel resting against it. When parking downhill, I put the front wheel up against the curb.

[Sev]

Put the bike in first gear and it won't roll around on you.

[oldschoolorange]

All I do is put it in first and then make sure that the kickstand is going against the direction of the hill, I am sure you could park it perpinducular to the hill and have no problem

[Social Distortion]

thanks gang.....hmmm....i still think to put more thought on this...
though the point about putting our MC in 1st was a basic MSF basic.

[qwerty]

Front tire uphill and in 1st. On very steep hills, a small piece of pre-cut wood wedged between the footpeg and rear brake pedal is an easy parking brake.

Front tire downhill, any little bump plus gravity can fold the kickstand.

Sideways across hill:

Kickstand uphill, bike can be too vertical. Any little bump and the bike falls away from the kickstand.

Kickstand downhill, bike can be leaned to far. Any little bump and the bike levers over the kickstand too easily.