Noah's Ark style rain + sidestand on grass.... panic

[cyberface]

OK I should have seen this coming, but as soon as I get off my arse and actually buy a proper motorbike after years of procrastinating, the weather turns to utter st. Monster thunderstorm, heavier rain than my power shower at full blast.

Trouble is... I've parked the bike on a handy piece of concrete that is in the middle of a grassy area - the concrete is for an old Tesco trolley park. So it's surrounded by HUGE fat steel piping for people to throw their trolleys in. So on the other side, there's a foot of concrete, where my two tyres sit, with a fat chain round the huge steel pipe. I used to park my scooter there, it's an ideal place for a bike.

But I haven't quite worked out the centre stand on the CBR600 and so it's on the side stand. Which is on the grass. And we've had 6 inches of rain in 4.6 milliseconds... so I ran out to find the bike miraculously still standing. Remembering those plastic hockey pucks given out at race meets at Brands, I bunged a metal jam jar lid under the sidestand in a hope to spread the load and not sink into the earth and fall over.

Is this the right thing to do? Or do I need something more substantial, like a piece of wood or one of those pucks from Brands? The jam jar lid bent a bit when I let the bike back down on the stand, but it's an ally frame CBR and quite a light bike. There's no more concrete (tyres almost against the pipes) and I'm not parking it inside the trolley park because it'll either get vandalised by kids dicking about with the few remaining trolleys, or actually be infringing Tesco's property (?) - currently it's outside the trolley area, chained to something secure and not causing anyone any trouble or inconvenience. But I don't want it falling over!!

Apologies if this sounds like a stupid question but I'm newly back to biking, and it's my first sports bike. I've ridden scooters for years but they all have easy centre stands to flip onto, and the CBR feels a little bit faster than any of my scooters

[Talya]

I used a brick when I had a similar issue, but I only have a YBR125 so much lighter....

[HRG]

The wider the base the lower the pressure on the ground. Spending a few mins finding a larger base now is far better than spending hours sourcing new panels later

[Yoda954]

cyberface said:

I bunged a metal jam jar lid under the sidestand in a hope to spread the load and not sink into the earth and fall over.

Is this the right thing to do? Or do I need something more substantial, like a piece of wood or one of those pucks from Brands?

Yep - good temporary measure...although wood might spread the load a bit more as long as it doesn't split if it gets wet! The plastic 'pucks' can be bought cheaply & I always keep one under the seat for such eventualities

[cyberface]

Yoda954 said:

cyberface said:

I bunged a metal jam jar lid under the sidestand in a hope to spread the load and not sink into the earth and fall over.

Is this the right thing to do? Or do I need something more substantial, like a piece of wood or one of those pucks from Brands?

Yep - good temporary measure...although wood might spread the load a bit more as long as it doesn't split if it gets wet! The plastic 'pucks' can be bought cheaply & I always keep one under the seat for such eventualities

Wise, and with a username like Yoda that's pretty neat.

I'll order a plastic puck ASAP, there's space under the CBR's seat for it and having double checked, there's only an inch of earth on top of concrete where the sidestand sits. So it *should* be OK for the time being. But a puck will be better than a jamjar lid!!!

[308mate]

cyberface said:

But a puck will be better than a jamjar lid!!!

Jam jar lid would be fine for your bike. Smaller than the plastic thingies, although they do have the benefit of having some grip underneath them, unlike the jar lid.

If ever youre in a jam (see what I did there), all you need is to stamp on an empty coke can and that works fine too.

[cyberface]

308mate said:

If ever youre in a jam (see what I did there), all you need is to stamp on an empty coke can and that works fine too.

I'll see what I can do. (see what I did there?)

[dern]

A jamjar lid is exactly what I use and it's been fine so far.

[RizzoTheRat]

I've got a couple of those plastic pucks, you quite often find them being given out at shows, and they do the job pretty well. It's not just gras and wet weather you need to watch out for, I've had my sidestand sink a couple of inches in to tarmac on a hot day.