rt foot down on gravel - ooops!

[philly12gs]

My '07 12GS came to a stop today in traffic on an irregular patch of road. Turns out my wheels were on a slight elevation and, as my foot went down, I must of hit some gravel because my foot slid outward. The bike went down in slow motion to the right. My hard bag kept the bike from pinning my leg and I was able to disengage with only a minor scrape, and badly bruised ego.
The kicker (and why I am writing to this forum) is that after I got the bike upright, I was unable to move it from the center of the road. Fortunately traffic was at a crawl. The brakes had apparently seized and I could not roll the bike off to the side.
Some Harley dude in a pickup stopped to help, and he noticed that the right hand guard had rotated from the fall and was depressing the brake lever, engaging the brakes. Rotating the hand guard in the opposite direction freed the lever and I was gladly on my way, healthy but likely poorer when I repair/replace my broken front turn signal and distorted windshield.

[marc]

The handguard issue is common on '05 ~ '07 bikes. The design was changed so it doesn't seem to be an issued on newer models.

Make it a point to check that the clutch and brake levers can fully retract, especially when the bike has been down.

[lagerfool]

Same thing happened to me, I feel your pain. Slow tight turn in a parking lot, lost the balance and put it down in slow motion. Got it back up and the brake failure light was on. It moved but just bareley. I was in shock, the first time I put it down, and it was broken? How could this bike be so tough, and I gentle put it to the ground and there is a brake problem? Took me 30 minutes to see the brake lever binding up with hand gaurd. First time I've ever told this story.