Getting TO New Orleans turns out not to be the Big Easy!

i didn't post last night because I hit the sack 120 miles short of my intended destination, and many hours later than planned. Rolled into Lee Vining at nine, grabbed a burrito at the store next door and crashed. Here's why.

I left home yesterday bright and early--HOly CoW! I'm typing this and some kid is playing God Bless America at the NLCS on a Trumpet as big as he is...pretty cool! (Sorry, but GO GIANTS!)

...anyway, I was at the bright and early departure. All went as planned --beautiful bride there to see me off (as was our dear friend Becky. Thank You!) and things went swimmingly for 1 hour and 17 minutes, when my front brake calipers seized bringing me to a sudden and complete halt in the middle of a freeway over pass with shoulder space of about two feet. I managed to come to a stop with most of the bike out of the traffic lane, but about a foot was still in the lane. Semi truck traffic was heavy yesterday a.m., including several oversize loads that fortunately did not come from opposite directions at the same time. Since the front brakes were locked on, I could not move the bike an inch. Putting it on the side stand would have leaned it even further into traffic and increased the danger to all. I tried to pop it loose with the engine and clutch (more on this later)...no luck. So I was sitting there un-calmly trying to figure out what to do when...

..... the CHP happened by pretty quick and slowed oncoming traffic and called in for a tow. Getting a small harley secured on the back of an oil slick flatbed tow truck with a bed large enough to hold a semi tractor trailer is an interesting experience but the two drivers sand i managed. Equally fortunately, I was only two miles from our local dealer, who because of the economy had cut back to one mechanic. Even more fortunately, the economy was so bad this one guy had nothing pressing to do except attend to me. Nevertheless, it was 3 1/2 hours later that I was on the road with a new set of front brake pads and a 'new' master brake cylinder. It turned out that the cylinder in the master had corroded sufficiently --probably due to the fact that I live 80 feet from the ocean-- that the spring could not return the piston to the "off" position, thus effectively locking the brakes on, leading to over heating, leading to complete seizure. It took the time it did to fix because the mechanic had to go home and get a used master cylinder out of his garage to "sell me" for cash under the table, as the dealer did not have a new one in stock. So all in all, it could have been a hell of a lot worse both in terms of results on the road (which is all that is really important) and financially. (However, see clutch below).

Most irritatingly, my first day towards NOLA was more than half over, and I was only 36 miles closer to NOLA than I had been the night before. I was also not in as good a mood as I had been the night before. I decided I had to cut my objective short, but still get over to the east side of the Sierras, which I did at 9:00 that night. It is difficult to make hotel arrangements while riding, and I am not equipped to do so. Enter Elizabeth with mapping software and telephones and --it turns out-- access to the hotel reservation/'confirmation information which I had carefully compiled, and then forgot at home. So I know where I'm supposed to be, but only she knows at what hotel! She comes through like a trouper and makes cancellations and new reservations for me. otherwise, I'd be frozen somewhere like the Donner Party in the high Sierras!

In case you are ever tempted to try it, let me tell you that the Tioga Pass (10,000+ feet) at night, in October is cold and spooky when you're the only vehicle on the road. I kept thinking, do these other people (those that aren't here) know something I don't? As if getting to the motel frozen and hungry at 9:00 wasn't bad enough, the motel parking lot was steeply sloped, leading to the discovery that I didn't have much going in the clutch department.

The mechanic who fixed the brakes alerted me to watch the clutch, as he had adjusted it but wasn't confident that it wasn't toast. Sure enough, I adjusted it periodically during the day today, and it ran just fine, but you sure could smell it. I called ahead and located four dealers within a reasonable perimeter of he general direction of travel I had planned. Each of them said they could work me in (on a Saturday!) to look at it if I could get there by 3:00, but on checking, only one of them had the parts as well, should they be needed. Sure enough, it was the dealer furthest to the west (NOLA is EAST of me).

So at 3:13 p.m. this afternoon I rolled into the Riverside HD dealer and rolled out two hours later with new clutch plates and a bank account that was $525 lighter. 9Not that there is or was anything IN that account, but lets not advertise that.) Riverside is the second largest Harley dealer in CA (first being San Diego) and it is HUGE. I have to say that they were very nice, went out of their way to work me in on what was obviously a very busy day, were very professional and brought me the burnt clutch plates to see and take with me (a practice, by the way, that I hope surgeons do not get enamored of)...and very expensive!

The cause? Well, obviously my --quite frankly a little desperate-- attempt to "pop" the front end loose to get the bike out of the traffic lane undoubtedly is a principal cause of the burnt plates. However, the wrench in Riverside said they had been slowly toasting for some time. I have earlier shared with mechanical mentors of mine that I was experiencing a pungent oil odor out of the clutch/transmission area. I think this may be the explanation. The mechanic said he replaced a bent piece in the clutch mechanism that because of its 'bentness', meant that the bike had been constantly 'riding' the clutch for some time. He believed this alone could explain the condition of the clutch plates. I'll never know, or really care. I do know the clutch feels far better that I can remember it, the smell is gone entirely, and tomorrow is a new day and will be one with NO mechanical problems!

Ah well, in a parallel universe I am actually in Williams AZ tonight getting ready to ride around the Grand Canyon, instead of alone in the Motel 6 next to the Harley dealer in Riverside (gotta be a song there!). However, I will wind up in Flagstaff AZ tomorrow night back on schedule. Somewhere, sometime tomorrow I will catch up with my doppelganger and at least by , say 7:00 pm. will be relaxing in the same room in Flagstaff.

The Giants just WON game I!!!!!!

It was odd chance encounter today that made all this worthwhile. Here I am in the middle of the high California desert, with the wasteland of the Mojave to my left and the wasteland of the LA freeway choked basin to my right, doing nothing but stressing out over how I was going to get the bike fixed on a weekend and salvage the trip, when I stopped for fuel at a middle of nowhere Texaco station. I was inside paying for fuel and a couple of bottles of water, when this "skinny little thing" (as my grandma used to say) who was seventeen if she was a day, walked in and asked the station manager if he had any plastic bags, as she was sleeping in her truck on her way to join her family in LA, and her dog had peed all over the only sheets she had! (I am not making this up!) She needed something to put the sheets in.

Alas, the station manager had none, but I did (as I carry extra for rain protection) which she could have. In this delightful East Texas drawl, she asked me where I was going and when I explained said something predictable, like "how cool!" Ten or fifteen minutes later, as we prepared to pull out on our respective trips, she stopped as she began to get into her car, looked over at me across the pumps and with this very longing look said just: "livin' the dream, huh?" Because of my mood I replied, "some parts don't seem so 'dreamy" lately!", to which she replied --"but its an adventure, still!" And that seventeen year old sure was right.