Yesterday I finished what is probably the worst ride I've had. I still enjoyed it, but SO much went wrong, it was ridiculous. Here's the rundown...
I live in Springfield, Virginia, which is just outside of Washington, DC. Me and another FJR rider decided to spend the day running out to Seneca Rocks, WV to check out some of the roads we heard about. Also, it's getting real close to "impossible" riding season and we're not going to be able to get out much for a few months, so we wanted to get one more before it got REALLY cold. We met up at the local coffee shop and headed out on I-66. We stopped in Gainesville for gas and coffee and headed on down the road. A quick hop on I-81 south got us to route 55, which we took all the way to Moorefield, WV. We were really quite surprised to find 55 turn into a brand new four lane empty highway for several miles. I was expecting it to be miles and miles of bad two lane, so it was nice to be able to pass a few trucks instead of getting stuck behind them for miles. We headed on to Petersburg and then took 55 out to Smoke Hole Rd, which was kind of our original goal.
Anyway, we'd stopped a couple of times on the way and I noticed my rear tire was a little more worn down than I was comfortable with, so I took it kind of easy on Smoke Hole, but we still had a good ride. That's kind of a cool road, but it would be a LOT more fun if it wasn't covered in leaves and if it wasn't absolutely freezing... it was probably hovering around 36 degrees for most of the day.
We stopped at the end of Smoke Hole and checked my tire again... totally toasted - showing little metal reflective bits around about half the tire. Not a good sign. So, I checked the GPS and found that a few motorcycle shops were in Elkins, which was about 30 miles away. We were overdue for lunch, so we headed to Elkin to get a tire and figured we'd have something to eat while we waited on it. That's where the REAL fun started.
I was doing everything I could to save the rear tire on the way to Elkins, so I was using a LOT of front brake and no rear. We also found out that it was more like 50 miles... it was 30 miles as the crow flies, but there aren't any straight roads on the way to Elkin. So, we head up some mountain on the way to Elkins, with me being really conscious of my lack of rear tire, when it starts snowing. Whee!
So, we make it to Elkins and I stop at a gas station to find out where the Yamaha dealer is. We get directions that it's about 4 miles "that way". So, I go about 4.5 miles. We're heading very rapidly back into "wilderness" and I'm seeing a distinct lack of civilization, so we pull into a restaurant parking lot so I can play "hunt the dealer" with my cell phone. Unfortunately, I'm cold, hungry, unhappy about my tire and a bit torqued that we've been given bogus instructions... so, my brain promptly shuts down as soon as I'm stopped. I forgot to put the kickstand down. :( It's not possible to hold up an FJR when it's already halfway down. So, I now have a nice gouge on my stator cover and my hardcase.
Anyway... we get it back up and find out that the Yamaha dealer is less than half a mile away, right around the next corner. We got in and talked to the guys and they didn't have a tire that fit. :( Luckily, they did know a dealer that did! We had to go get the tire and bring it back, but they'd install it. So, we ran down to the Suzuki dealer and picked up a Continental "ContiForce", which I carried on the back of Jim's bike.
So, we dropped the tire back off at the Yamaha dealer and I asked them to check out a noise I heard on the front end after I'd dropped the bike. We then ran back to the restaurant where I'd dropped it and settled in for coffee and calzone for a bit. Two hours later, we head back to the dealer and pick up my Feejer. The tire was $160. The install was almost $100. Ouch. Oh... and my front brake pads were now toasted and the noise I heard was the base of the pad scraping the rotors. They don't have any new pads. The short solution is "don't use the fronts till you get home". That's about 200 miles. Whee!
Let me do a quick recap... we've got five mountains to cross in 30-36 degree weather, I've got a brand new (slick) rear tire that I don't much care for, it's been snowing while we were eating lunch, I can't use my front brakes and it's now getting dark.
We leave the bike dealer and are less than half a mile down the road when my right hand starts burning. Not a little itch or something, but BURNING! I rip off my glove and drive another half mile to a gas station and pull over. I use heated gear. My left glove connector has shorted out, so my right glove got all the power and burned the snot out of me. :( Unfortunately, this is the second set of Widder connectors I've destroyed. In my mind, it's a design flaw and I'm tired of it. The last time it did it was on top of a mountain range in California. In other words, it dies when I most need it. I think the plastic on the connector gets brittle when it gets real cold and then it cracks. Part of this is because of the way the connector plugs into the glove... it basically pulls against itself and breaks. It sucks and I'm pretty much done with them. They're going to eBay soon.
So, now I'm not only riding home with lousy traction, greatly reduced braking, in freezing weather, in the dark, probably in the snow, without heated gloves. Fun, fun.
It was actually a nice ride home, other than the all of the above. Full moon, riding next to a river most of the time, interesting roads, great scenery, sheep (yes, there were sheep... in the road), deer, etc... But it was COLD!!! I bought heated gloves for a reason! My fingertips still hurt from yesterday. Jim and I both mentioned how awesome the ride would be if it were just 10 degrees warmer and I had front brakes.
We had several stops for coffee on the way home... mostly because I needed the heat to bring my fingers back to life.
But, we made it... I got new brake pads today and I'll swap them in tomorrow. I think my daily commuting is eating up my tires and pads. I checked them both less a little over a week ago and neither were that bad.
All in all, it was a really good day out on the bikes. I kind of feel bad that Jim had to sit around waiting on me being stupid for several hours, but he still enjoyed it as well. I'm thinking that the best part for him was that he was watching all this stuff happen to someone else. ;)
Subscribe