I miss the parking brake from my Burgman.
Malaguti might have thought since the Spidermax is not a scooter but an automatic motorcycle, hey regular bikes do not have a parking brake so lets safe some money. - But they have a 1st gear to put in what serves the same function, so they have a parking brake.
Since we have some nice hills I once a while have to park, I want a parking brake.
No luck after market here and the rubber band is no solution for me.
So I got a general idea on how it should work and look, but to test it I went for quick and dirty.
I tried my idea with some copper wire and it seemed to work. Rummaging through my tool shed produced some hooks.
So the rest was just cutting off what I did not needed and bend the hook so it would hold the hand brake.
During the road test my wire holder moved towards the brake while I was involuntarily twisting the hand grip. Well, normally the left hand grip does not twist, but after removing it was easier to get it back on with some personal lubrication. So the twisting should stop when the saliva has dried up. Now I needed to iron out all the snags and safety hazards.
So if the wire holder moves toward the brake it is under the brake and gets easily squeezed from the brake. No noticing a difference in applied pressure to stopping power.
The wire holder can only be locked if the hand brake is pressed really strong and then the wire holder has to be pressed over the brake lever.
All this can be done just with the thumb while the hand is on the grip and the fingers pull the lever.
After bending the thumb point of the wire holder a bit towards the inside, the wire holder does not move involuntarly forward any more if the handgrip is twisted. The wire holder is easy to spot when it is engaged, so driving with the parking brake engaged should be not very likely. It happened several times with my Burgman since the warning light was nearly invisible in the bright sun.
To see my parking brake in action, click on the play button below.
Update July 2009
I just got a mail from my friend Sloper in Italy who modified my design a bit.
Well done.
Update 2009.09.11
After nearly a year the brake still works flawless!
Update 2014.08.27
Still works without problems!
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