Preface:

Proper maintenance of your Cavalcade is important for many reasons. Of paramount importance are those things that can limit or prevent a catastrophe while riding your bike. Simple things such as a missing cotter pin on a wheel nut, an under-inflated tire or worn-out brake pads can all have serious consequences when riding at high speeds. If the wheel falls off or a tire blows or you can't stop when you need to, more often than not the result is going to be a crash, possibly severe. But there are less obvious maintenance issues that can lead to similarly disastrous results.

This article intends to address the known issues with the Cavalcade that can lead to a rear wheel lockup. Unfortunately, and depending on the speed one is traveling when it happens, a locked rear wheel can lead to serious injury or worse yet, death. This is not meant to scare you away from riding or owning the Cavalcade, it is, however, the truth. There are numerous cases of rear wheel lockup that led to serious injury and, in October of 2002, a young woman in the UK lost her life as a passenger on a Cavalcade when the rear wheel instantaneously locked at around 70 MPH. This is an important issue.

After reading numerous horror stories of locked rear wheel experiences, the moderators of the Suzuki Cavalcade website asked me to write this article as an informational piece for ALL owners of Cavalcades and for those contemplating a purchase.

I want to make one thing perfectly clear, the Cavalcade is not prone to instantaneous locking of the rear wheel! However, if proper maintenance is not performed regularly, then the possibility of a locked rear wheel at speed increases significantly. What will be discussed in this article are simple and normal regular maintenance issues that should be performed anyway. However, many riders have become complacent with the comfort and relatively low maintenance of the Cavalcade and may overlook some "hidden" items that are extremely important if a rear wheel lockup is to be avoided.

Readers must also understand that this article addresses the known issues that can lead to rear wheel lockup but there is no way to be absolutely, positively certain that some other issue might have the same result. A motorcycle is, clearly, a mechanically complex device with many, many moving parts. Anything with a motor and wheels is going to have something break eventually. However, if riders follow the advice presented here, the author believes that the occurrence of a rear wheel lockup becomes highly unlikely and extremely remote.

Cavalcade riders have logged millions of miles of uneventful riding. However, there is some chance that ANY bike can experience a locked rear wheel.