Total Motorcycle Community Forums

I thought you folks might enjoy this one. Chris and I rode about 60 twisty country miles, got some lunch and headed out of the state fair city traffic to check out a spot about 45 minutes away. At the last light in town, we pulled away in traffic, and my throttle cable snapped just after I shifted to second gear. We were going up a fairly steep hill in solid four lane traffic with no center lane, and we were in the left lane! Things developed rapidly, and I saw a steep parking lot entrance ramp on the left with enough space to coast in across traffic (speed dropping rapidly on the hill), but only if I used the wrong lane of the ramp! No cars were using the ramp, so I quickly raised my right hand to Chris and pointed left, while signaling and turning in with my left hand. He zipped in on my right, not knowing what in blazes I was doing. He knew something was really wrong when he looked behind him and I was stopped on the ramp about ten feet off the road making a walking fingers gesture to him and waving him toward me (pretty emphatically, I might add). He jumped off the bike, ran to me, as I yelled, Throttle cable broke! He pushed and I did too, and we were at the top on the right side in no time. We were in a Parts store parking lot! I coasted down to the actual parts store and parked by a concrete wall to use for a workbench and got to work. The cable broke at the grip end, and I needed an impact driver to get the 26 year-old screws out. So I bought one and Chris ran around to local bike shops looking for a suitable substitute. In the end it was a trailer ride to the house, but I have since found a way to fix it temporarily while I wait for a new cable. Just wanted to share it...sometimes things happen fast, and we were fortunate to have found the right openings in traffic, or we'd have been surrounded by impatient fair-goers in very close proximity on all sides. We won't venture too far on my temporary fix, but it will work fine around here until the parts come. I used the auxiliary return cable as the throttle cable, so I'm counting on the return spring for now. Fortunately the kz650 has a rather unrelenting stiff return spring, so I feel comfortable with it this way. Weird story, eh?

Good thing you had a way to get off the road.

My throttle cable broke recently too. Luckily it happened while I was at home monkey'n around with the bike.

I too am relying on the return spring until I get my new cable.

Just goes to show you there is no way to tell when things will go wrong. Glad you worked it out. I just found a small piece of metal in my tire tonight. I'd been trying to figure out why I had a slow leak for a while now (without doing a proper inspection) - this slow leak was from before I went on the bike ride with those guys near Columbus. There were many times that little piece of metal could have worked its way out and caused me some serious problems. New tire in the morning!

Bummer.

I snapped my clutch cable on my 82 Katana on a ride with a mate on the back. It was about a 10 minute ride through traffic to my local bike store to purchase a new cable and it was the only time I have nearly lost a passenger. My mate who was a rider himself had been on the back of my bike before, was aware that I was capable of handling it so never felt it necessary to actually hang on to something.
I was coming up to a roundabout and saw a gap in the traffic. As I was keen to keep the bike moving for obvious reasons, I gave it a bootful to get through the intersection. My mate on the back was paying a lot less attention than I had realised, as when I accelerated I caught sight of left his foot fly past my head the same moment I felt his right foot kick me right in my armpit. Later it was established that the only thing that kept him on the bike was his flailing right leg and the anchor point it had found in me.

Now that's a close one!