So my wife was a driving the 2020 today and I was on my Triumph Bobber. We came to stop sign to make a right, my buddy up front took off but there wasn’t enough room for me to get her and I out, I stopped, she was looking left and thought I went, hit the gas realized I was still there and jammed the brakes. Now to be clear this was entirely her fault so I’m not blaming the SS, but it probably wouldn’t have happened the way it did or as hard as it did if the autodrive hadn’t bucked. She bumped into my rear tire and pushed me over and I fell down on top of the bike,
The challenge with the Autodrive is on quick gas/brake or even just slowing down the system bucks a little bit. It can’t move as fast with the clutch in/out as say a DCT would. So when she jumped on the brake the SS bucked, jumped forward and right into me. Yes she was too close to me had she been a few feet back and paying more attention she would have stopped in time, but she’s still learning the SS and it’s a little clumsy on the start stop type scenarios. The combo of the two put me on my ass.
Damage. Well me and my buddy were able to disassemble the front end somewhat, find all the brackets that were bent, remove them, bang them straight again and then with our trusty tape measure get everything back into spec. the only issue now is one of the tabs is broken on the passenger piece below the headlight (the black/blue part that connects to the lower spoiler) and the hood panel has a couple scratches and gouges. Some gonna try to order those new panels and just replace them and it should look as if nothing happened to it. It did push the passenger front corner up and back about 2” and bent a bunch of little brackets. We got that sorted pretty well though.
The Bobber thankfully I had crash bars on it or it would have really been screwed up. It needs both brake levers, a mirror and some paint touch up on the exhaust and crash bar (which we had to bend back into shape). Overall it coulda been much worse. I’m a little scraped up but nothing big and thank God for helmets. A big scratch mark in the back shows where i would have smashed my head on the ground. I know my head hit the ground but with my helmet on I never actually felt it at all.
One takeaway I would say for anyone with the automatic is give your self some room in front of you, this thing kinda bucks and jumps when coming to a stop, it’s not as smooth as a DCT or regular automatic or even as smooth as someone who’s experienced driving a stick. it’s a little clumsy and bucks around a bit so give yourself a few extra feet just to be safe...
A couple pics
