So there I was, motoring down US 101 S, just before the I380 to I280 split, when a fellow rider on a sport bike pulled up alongside me and, at some peril to himself in heavy high-speed traffic, turned around and reached back to point frantically at his tail light. Twice, because I'm a slow learner. Then he shrugged his shoulders and rocketed away.
Are my blinkers on? Nope.
Is my brake light out? No: his gesturing was much too urgent for that.
Then I saw it in my right mirror: my tail light was pointing 90 degrees to the left and was sitting just above my rear tire. A quick glance back confirmed: the whole rear assembly from the seat back to the license plate was, to quote Bob Dylan, blowin' in the wind.
I threw on my right blinker and gingerly made my way across multiple lanes of traffic to the right shoulder. Sure enough, only the left portion of the sheet metal tapered box section was attached to the bike, but barely. Three other attachment points were deformed and clearly detached. The rear reflector support bracket was bent almost into a fold and the rear reflector showed why: it was covered in burned-on tire material, explaining the fresh clean stripe on the right edge of my rear tire.
Luckily, I had three Rok-Straps in my backpack and managed to jerry-rig the tail assembly back onto to the bike, almost in perfect alignment (I DO like a brake light showing rearward!) and had enough battery remaining to make it back to San Francisco to Scuderia West who cannibalized one of their showroom floor Empulse's to put me on more solid footing than the Rok-Straps provided.
The scary thing is that if that last attachment point had failed, which it was obviously close to doing, the only thing connecting the tail assembly to the bike would have been the electrical connection cord, which would have probably been long enough to allow the whole part to entangle in the rear wheel spokes: at 70 mph things could have ended badly.
I'm no engineer, though I do have a “feel” for mechanical design, informed by working as a machinist for 7 years. IMHO, this assembly is too heavy to be supported by 4 sheet metal attachment points.
Compounding the problem: the two forward bolts are separated from the two rearward ones by a couple of inches only, not much of a moment arm to support a 15” long assembly which is constantly subject to vertical impact forces from the stiff rear shock and potholed streets. At any event, the design has now been field tested (5217 miles) to be no match for metal fatigue.
Of course I have no idea how Brammo will remedy this. I would be looking at fabricating some sort of piece that would bolt on to all 4 attachment points and extend backward down the center of the box tail assembly, with a vertical ridge down the center (a small angle iron?) to add vertical rigidity in order to splint the whole thing from too much movement, leading to fatigue/failure/disaster.
Call me lucky. And inspect your tail light/license plate support arm: no wiggles!
