Front fender fell off while riding

[toadstool]

I was going 60 mph on a highway when I heard a screeching and started sliding. I realized my front tire was locked up and then felt my right foot peg get bent upwards. I saved the bike from a spill and the front fender released itself from under the bike. I was able to pull over without incident. It looks as though the bolts were sheared off the forks. I am clueless as to how or what caused this.

 

[pknowles]

Someone could have over torqued them at some time or you could have picked up something off the road that jammed between the tire and fender. Glad you were able to get her stopped.

 

[Dragonslave]

Damn! I would have shit my pants

 

[toadstool]

I am attempting to figure out why this happened. I have a question regarding oil lines on the front forks. I have an attached picture showing oil lines on the forks from them being compressed. The top oil line presumably shows the maximum distance the forks have been compressed. This marking seems high to me, leading me to question if the fork fluid could be so low as to allow them to travel to a point of pushing the triple tree onto the fender causing it to strike the tire. Please review the picture and offer input.

 

[pknowles]

Is the fender so mangled that you can't see if it did hit the tree.that does look like a lot of travel.

 

[toadstool]

The fender looks like a pop can that was smashed. There is no way of me telling what it hit. I do not see any markings on the underside of the triple tree however.

 

[JR03CHOPPER]

Glad you are okay. Never heard of that happening before.

 

[liferider]

Wow, slow down & give your Guardian Angel's a rest.

 

[garyb69]

Damn you was lucky, someone must be watching over you as that could have ended a lot worse. Bit of a strange one really, there does seem to be a lot of travel there but i am guessing you would have noticed if it had bottomed out that much to hit the triple tree and if something had of come up from the road and got wedged between the tire and the fender i would have thought the fibreglass fender would have given before the bolts would have sheared.

 

[Brew]

Wow, the travel on the forks look a bit extreme. I would think you didn't have enough fluid in them to have the lowers to be traveling so far up. Glad that your ok, could have been very bad...

 

[Bigkurtie]

Holy SH*T. Glad your ok.

 

[francoblay1]

 

[TimNY]

Man that's unreal .
Great save - took a bit of riding there.Well done .
As for the fender ? amazing that it could sheer the bolts like that ?
Couldn't happen in a parking lot doing 5MPH ..

 

[FrankBDPS]

My forks only travel about half that distance. From the looks of the rust on the broken bolts they look like they have been broken for a while. Maybe only one was left and it finally left go.

Glad you are ok.

 

[bearman]

The forks shouldn't have enough travel for the fender to hit the triple tree, even bottomed out, and if they ever did it would definitely leave a mark on the soft polished aluminum.

My forks travel that much when I have to get on the front brake because some moron pulls out in front of me.