Agony of Defeat

Late afternoon on October 14th continued to bring me bad news from Route 66. At about 4:00PM, after getting Wheezy put back together, the service tech at Route 66 HD was getting ready to test it out. As he moved the bike, he heard a horrible clunk with every revolution of the rear wheel (even before the engine was started). Starting Wheezy is fine as long as the clutch is engaged. As soon as an attempt is made at putting the bike in gear and releasing the clutch it begins to emit horrible chattering, clicking, and grinding sounds. It has been deduced that the transmission is shot, most likely due to the drive shaft being bent. So as far as I can tell, here is the chain reaction of events that has ultimately disabled Wheezy:

1. October 5 - Vibrations start, most likely due to the engine motor mounts breaking off.
2. Engine settles against frame, offset 2-4 inches from where it should be
3. Secondary drive belt now cockeyed and pulling on the rear wheel at an angle rather than in a straight line
4. Uneven torque on rear wheel causes rear wheel bearings to fail
5. Uneven torque on the secondary's drive pulley bends the gradually bends drive shaft resulting in the destruction of transmission

So the long and the short of it is that Route 66 Harley Davidson in Tulsa now wants an additional$750-$1000 to replace the transmission. The general manager, Eric did offer to help me finish my ride back to Ohio by "allowing" me to trade in Wheezy on a new bike. He was willing to give me credit towards the purchase price based on what I'd already put in to it. At this point I explained to him my "situation" and what my ride to Oklahoma was about and that I wasn't going to put my family on the hook for a motorcycle payment that I wouldn't even be able to use into next spring.

At this point, with everything that has gone wrong with the motorcycle, I have lost confidence in it's ability to get me safely home. Even if they were able to fix it free of charge, I'd be dubious about riding it back to Ohio. It looked like I was down to my last option, which was rent a truck, load it up, and drive it home. My motorcycle journey was officially over. So I got online, reserved a 10 foot budget rent-a-truck one way from Tulsa to Columbus for Friday morning, and went on about my business.

Friday morning, Stephen took me to the Budget truck rental location and we picked up my truck. It was only a couple of miles from Route 66 HD. We arrived at the shop and they showed me everything they'd done to it and let me roll it myself so that I could feel the clunk that occurs during the revolution of the rear wheel. Here is a picture of the clip they replaced on the clutch (on the right), the middle pieces are what was left of the right rear wheel bearing, and the bolts on the right are the engine mounting bolts that had to be tapped out of the head.

They have a motorcycle lift available, so we rolled it onto the lift and then put it in the truck. Matt was kind enough to load it in the truck and secure it with the ratchet straps which I had brought on the trip with me. Now that I was loaded up, Stephen and I said our goodbyes because he had to get to the studio for work. I then hopped up into the cab, rolled over to the gas station for some coffee and provisions, and prepared myself for the fourteen hour drive home.

The drive home was long, but it seemed to pass quickly. I made two fuel/food stops and three bio breaks. Aside from that, the truck didn't stop moving from 10:30am central time on Friday until 2:45am eastern time Saturday morning. It was a gorgeous day and even though I was looking out from the window of a truck, the scenery was beautiful. The Ozark Mountains were especially picturesque. My only regret was that I didn't get to take back roads through the Ozarks on Wheezy. Interesting things to note about the drive home: my middle finger got sore from pressing the scan button on the radio so often, I was able to listen to the Yankees/Rangers game on WCBS 880 AM out of New York as long as I wasn't in a metropolitan area, there was a bad ass country music program on NPR around midnight which was all 1930's-1960's country artists, and Ohio is the most boring state to drive through.

The drive Columbus was on pure adrenaline. I just wanted to get home and get on with things. I was so happy to finally be in my driveway once I got there. It had been a really long day. Miranda and Indy were still awake and ready to greet me. It was really nice to see them.

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.

On the road again

Due to the Reds early exit from the NLDS on Sunday night, I flew back to Colorado on Monday. I got back to Denver at about 5:00PM. For dinner, Dick and Jan took me to Pasta Jay's in Boulder. Uncle Dick had informed me that it was one of my grandfather's favorite restaurants in Colorado, so I was eager to try it. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. I had the Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken and a caesar salad, washed down with a Fat Tire beer. It had been a long day since we hadn't gotten back to Columbus from the Reds game until 2:00AM Monday morning. I was pretty tuckered out so after dinner we went back to Dick and Jan's and I proceeded to pack my bags for my impending departure on Tuesday morning.

I woke up on Tuesday had a bagel for breakfast and got Wheezy packed up. It was raining pretty hard so it was time for the inevitable; the rain gear. When I left Columbus on the trip, I knew at some point I would encounter inclement weather so I came prepared. I donned my normal riding pants and jacket and then augmented the ensemble with a rain jacket, FrogTog pants, waterproof covers for my boots and my gloves. There wasn't a whole lot else that I could do to cover up so I set off for Kansas. It rained pretty steadily for about 150 miles. I really wanted to get away from the rain as fast as I could, so I postponed my ordinary 100 mile gas stop and decided to keep going until I had to use the reserve on my gas tank. It just so happened that when I hit the reserve, the rain let up. So I made my way to the next gas station and filled up. I wasn't confident that I had completely escaped the precipitation so I decided to keep the rain gear on until the next stop just to be sure. By the time I'd banged out the next 100 miles the sun had actually broken through the clouds.

Wheezy ran great and the new tires handled the rain slicked roads like it was attached with velcro. I'm very happy with my tire choice. I managed to snap a couple of border pictures while on the ride too. I of course got the Kansas sign, but I also doubled back and got the Colorado sign that I missed on my late night ride last Wednesday.

I had set my sites on Dodge City, KS as my stopping point for the day. It is over half-way to my next destination of Tulsa, OK. I had such a good experience at the Super 8 hotel I stayed at last Tuesday so I decided to try them again. I didn't have as much luck at this Super 8, but it's a decent room and I got here early enough that I could go out and grab a bite to eat and unwind before hitting the sack. Speaking of hitting the sack, I need to get up early tomorrow to get a move on so that's what I'm going to do right now. Until tomorrow...

On the sixth day....he rested

So, yesterday was day six of the tour. I didn't have anything planned so I just took the day to relax. My aunt and uncle had prior commitments, so I took the opportunity to spend the day lounging about the house and walking around the neighborhood. Even the views from the neighborhood are stunning and I snapped a few photographs for posterity.

Uncle Dick made arrangements for the "Super Shuttle" to pick me up at 3:45 and deliver me to Denver International Airport. I had plenty of time to kill so I took a leisurely stroll around the airport and had some lunch. I eventually found a secluded seat somewhat near my gate so I thought I'd sit down and get caught up with some thing on my laptop. It was not meant to be due to the fact that the Denver airport's Wi-Fi sucks. So I decided to bury my head in my book. I was blissfully reading away when my seclusion was invaded by a family of five (three of which were really loud and not down with their Happy Meals). I couldn't decide whether to be annoyed that they picked the one secluded spot or feel bad for them because their children weren't travelling well. There was probably a little bit of both.

Anyway, my flight finally boarded at at 6:45 and we were out of the gate on time at 7:10. They really cram you into the plane on Frontier Airlines but it wasn't bad for me because A) I had a window seat and B) I was able to continue reading. I"d say the most annoying thing about the flight was the LCD screens on the back of the chairs. I kept turning mine off and the flight attendants kept turning it back on about every 1/2 hour.

We landed at Dayton International Airport at 11:40 and I was reunited with Laela and Miranda a few minutes later. We drove home in about an hour and 20 minutes, almost got T-Boned by a drunk at Bethel Rd (he was literally 2 inches away from plowing into us), and was in bed by 1:30. It is so nice to be home in the middle of the trip to see the girls.

The Reds and Phillies play in Cincinnati on 10/10/10 at 8:07 (wtf kind of start time is that?) and we'll be there to cheer them on. Until then, I'll have a nice visit with my girls.