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Being a new rider I try to vary my rides to practice different skills. To day I intended to do some parking lot stuff, town driving followed by an excursion on the highway. The first two went off without a hitch. The highway portion started off well and I was quite enjoying the ride ( it was a beautiful day). Then I felt a click in the throttle and the bike started slowing down. Yep, you guessed it, the throttle cable broke. So I spent about 1/2hr driving back home using the choke. Sometimes getting into secound and once into third going downhill. However most of the time it was about 10km on the flat. Fortunately the portion of the TransCanada hwy that I live on has paved shoulders, so I was not interfering with traffic. I did pass several signs indicating that driving on the shoulder was verboten!! I ignored them. Got back safely and ordered new cables. Hope to be back in the saddle by the middle of next week.

I am taking the motorcylce safety course next weekend. I am looking forward to that.

obfg wrote:I am taking the motorcylce safety course next weekend. I am looking forward to that.

Somehow something tells me you're gona do just fine.

I had the throttle cable break on me on my old BSA once; fortunately I had a pair of vise-grips in the tool bag and rode home by wrapping the cable around the handlebar and yanking on it with them. They also came in handy as a temporary replacement when the shift lever fell off on the autobahn one time (don't ask) and regularly used them when the clutch cable ferrule would snap. Great tool, those vise grips!

Well today the throttle cables arrived and I installed them. Everything seemed to be working so off I went and finished the ride I started several days ago. The weather was great, just a hint of coolness at hwy speed. Tomorrow we be some more parking lot practice in anticipation of the safety course.

I will have to put a pair of vice grips in my tool kit.