17,000 miles later...
 

17,000 miles later and my buddy discovered while replacing his chain on the R1 that the nut on the front sprocket was missing. He's the fastest rider in our group and runs the hell out of that R1 it's amazing it never came off. Damn....

he should buy a lotto ticket

No shit!

I would have my doubts that it had been gone for 17,000 miles. For it to be gone that long without catastrophic failure is just beyond my comprehension.

Also, he has done 17K on the same chain on an R1? Wow.

Yep! and he's not nice to that R1 either. I wonder if it came off at some point or just never there. I mean he's had this bike for 3-4 years now.

My buddy lost the steering stem nut on his R6 at the track.

fuckin yamahas

I left to go out of town and did a bunch of work on my bike. Rode 180 miles and when I got to my destination I noticed all four bolts on the bottom of my forks that crimp around the axle were about to fall out. Exciting!

He is VERY lucky! Wouldn't that have made the chain loose in some way where he would have noticed something wasn't right?

When following him I could sometimes hear his chain, "pop and cackle" as he took off from a stop, it was stretched a bit and he knew it was time to replace it but he works at a rock quarry and usually rides the bike to work and travels down a dirt/gravel road each day which wreaks havoc on that chain as well

It probably wouldn't do anything different until it came off.
Then he would have noticed something was very not right!