Unless that aluminum was a real good alloy, I would stick to the stock steel.
One day I while riding a nice smooth dirt trail down in Mexico, I looked back and the
wind took my sunglasses off..
While I was stopped to get my glasses, my buddies kept going..
I knew they were heading for another main road, but I didn't know the way.
There were way too many intersecting trails. I needed to spot those guys,
before I became extremely lost in an unfriendly area.
I was speeding to catch up. I was looking in the distance, but couldn't see them.
Suddenly, my Honda 90 hit a deep rut. It jarred the heck out of me.
I bounced a bit and my feet left the foot pegs.
In the next second, I realized that I was going right into a dry creek bed.
I think the vertical drop was about 2 feet. Without my feet on the pegs, it felt a lot like 4 feet!
When the bike hit the gravel, all my weight was on the handlebars.
The bolts holding the handlebars, weren't tight enough to keep the bars
from rotating downwards about 70 degrees.
Meaning that I couldn't do anything but brake and wait to slam into the
other side of the river bank.
It took me 20 minutes of grunting to pull those handlebars back up.
If they had been even slightly weak, I would have broke them during my crash landing..
I did have a chance to ride a big dragster once. Didn't do too well. 1/4 mile in 17 something.
But I clearly remember the miniature handle bars. It was a short aluminum tube, (thin walled)
and was so short, you would never think of using it on a highway.
Why did I get asked to drive a dragster? I had been sick that year and weighted only about 120 pounds..
