Mid-Day update from Route 66

Woke up this morning and had a bowl of Apple Jacks. Stephen had taken Sophie and Felix to the bus stop before I woke up so I had yet to have a chance to meet the kids since they were already in bed by the time I got to Stephen and Nat's house. We got going and swung by Route 66 Harley Davidson and filled out a service order request. I let them know what was going on and told them to give me a call when they had an estimate. Meanwhile we made our way to Armstrong Recording, Stephen's studio. He had work to do and I wasn't going to be doing a whole lot of anything until I knew what was up with the bike.

Matt from Route 66 called me about an hour and a half later to give me the run down. It turns out that the clutch isn't bad, but a clamp had broken off of the clutch adjuster and that is why it couldn't engage anymore. Labor at Route 66 is $79.50/hour. Parts and labor, I was looking at about $160 for that. They also were going to replace the rear wheel bearings. $50 for parts and an hour for labor. At this point I was going to get out of there for about $300. STOKED! I called Laela to confirm and she said to go with it. Meanwhile Matt had called me back and told me that they'd have to remove the exhaust from the bike in order to do the work so it'd be about another hour of labor. That's totally understandable and I was fine with it. I called Laela to update her and we agreed that it was still cheaper than renting a truck (which is about $500 plus gas). I was still feeling pretty good about my fortunes at this point. Then Matt called again and the other shoe finally dropped. As they were working on the bike, they found that the front motor mounts had sheared off and that the engine had moved 2 inches in the frame. Matt said there was no way that anyone should be riding the bike in that condition because the engine could drop out onto the ground at any time. I guess we've found the source of the vibrations. They said it'd be two to four hours of additional labor because they'd have to tap out the bolts from the engin head before they could re-mount it. I'm now looking at an $800 bill and that's not even having the speedometer sensor replaced. He said that they could do the work today and after a consultation with Laela we decided that fixing it was the best course of action because even if I rented a truck I'd still have to get the bike fixed before I could ride it again. So with great trepidation, I called back and told them to take care of it.

More to come....

Tulsa...we have a problem

Wednesday started off great. I got a good night's sleep in the Dodge City, KS Super 8 Motel. It wasn't as stellar as the one I stayed at in Missouri, but still wasn't bad. I started the day off by going to the Dodge City Harley Davidson dealership to see if I could get new wheel bearings installed in Wheezy. I had noticed on my pre-ride check that the bearing race had worked it's way loose on my drive side rear wheel. I thought that this was probably the cause of the vibrations that I was experiencing, so a new pair of wheel bearings would solve the problem. (I'll expand on that issue tomorrow.) At any rate, they did not have the wheel bearings that I needed in stock, so I figured that I'd just bite the bullet and keep going. The parts guy directed me on how to get to the highway I needed to get out of town and I headed out.

It turns out that he was wrong and sent me on a 40 mile detour. I ended up having to adjust my route in order to compensate for the wrong directions. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. When I adjusted my route, I ended up on US-160 in southern Kansas. The views on US-160 were absolutely amazing. The country side looked just like any painting of the old west that you've ever seen. It was absolutely worth the extra effort and since my friend in Tulsa wouldn't be off of work until 5:00 it worked out great.

I finally worked my way to a north-south highway and made my way across the Kansas state line and into Oklahoma. It was there that the main tank ran out and I had to switch to reserve again. I made it to a gas station about 30 miles later and fueled up. Another record between gas stops (and cutting it a little too close for comfort if you ask me). I was definitely crossing my fingers and toes in hopes for a fuel stop.

I got on my way again and about 40 miles later, my speedometer stopped working. I didn't think much of it at first, but then I heard some odd noises coming out of my engine, so I pulled over to give the bike an inspection and fluid check. I unloaded all of my gear and got out my service manual and oil and laid everything out next to the roadkill armadillo that was setting there in the high grass decomposing. There was nothing amiss as far as I could tell so again I decided to soldier on. As soon as I put it in 1st gear and let the clutch out I heard a really high pitched whine. the same thing occurred in 2nd and 3rd gear too, but as I moved into 4th and 5th things seemed to have worked themselves out.

Back on the bike, I made it another 60 miles to a small town with a gas station. As I slowed down into the town, the bike really started making some noise and was difficult to shift. I pulled the clutch in at a stop sign and it didn't engage all of the way and tried to keep the bike moving. It was chattering quite a bit too. By this point I was starting to get really worried that something bad was going on. There was nothing that I could do though but keep going on. Again, as soon as the bike was in 5th things smoothed out and were alright. It was at this point that I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to need to be in 5th all of the way to Tulsa. I readjusted my route to take me to Interstate 35 so that there would be a minimal amount of shifting. I made it about another 50 miles or so before I needed to get off on US-64 and I just knew that things were about to get hairy.

I managed to get off of I-35 and onto US-64 while maintaining 5th gear (through two complete stops I might add). So I made my way another 30 or 40 miles to Morrison, OK where I was stopped twice by traffic lights and then once by a train. This would prove to be the beginning of the end. I got the bike going but it was super sketchy and the clutch lever seemed to be getting really soft. I passed two gas stations and then started up a hill. As I was feathering the clutch to get momentum, I pulled it in and it didn't come back out. My initial thought: "This is BAD." The second gas station I had passed was about 1/3 of a mile back and was fortunately downhill. So I crossed the street pushing Wheezy, mounted back up and walked it back to the gas station.

I got to the gas station and started assessing my options. I called Stephen in Tulsa and let him know what was going on and he started looking for a pickup truck he could borrow. In the meantime, I called Laela to let her know what was going down. So here's how I saw my options: I could A) Tow the bike to Stephen's, rent a U-Haul and drive home B) Tow it to a Harley dealership and have them asses the damage. I was very grateful that I finally had 3G coverage from AT&T so I was able to research where the Harley dealership was, got their phone number and called their service department. They told me that if I could get the bike there by 8:30PM they could get it written up for service. It was about 6:00 at this point so I knew I wasn't going to make it before they closed. The service manager told me I could just drop the bike off in the lot and come fill out the paperwork in the morning. So, now I had my destination decided. I thought that I remembered the roadside assistance that was provided by my Progressive motorcycle insurance so I set out to see how much having them arrange a tow would be. It turns out that they'll tow to the nearest service facility free of charge. That was the first piece of good news that I received. The downside was that it would take an hour and a half for the truck to get there. About an hour after the service call was placed, Cowboy Towing showed up. The driver; Jason, loaded Wheezy onto the bed and we were off to Tulsa.

We arrived at Route 66 Harley Davidson in Tulsa, OK at 9:00PM. Jason unloaded the bike and dropped my gear and me off. I thanked him for his help and then arranged my gear, called Stephen and he was on his way to pick me up. We made it back to his house and Nat graciously fed me a fantastic bowl of red beans and rice that I washed down with a Negro Modello. Stephen, Nat, and I had a great visit and turned in at about 12:30. I was mentally and physically exhausted. and slept very well.