The Road No One Wants to Travel

This has been one of the most challenging blogs for me to write.  I've been back from my trip out to Alpine, TX for a few months now.  I had planned to blog during the trip, but things happened and I just couldn't write about it while I was living it.  This trip was actually three trips in one and two of them were just about as perfect as a day on the bike can be.  That middle trip though....Maybe that's the one I should start with.

After a great weekend of off road riding with Mr Man, I got up super early, loaded the bike, fed myself, and hit the road just as the sun was coming up.  I didn't have a real long day to Alpine,TX but I really wanted to beat the heat.  The trip started great.  I hit I-10 for the first time in my life and was really enjoying the 80 miles an hour through some pretty lovely scenery (at least it was still lovely until I hit about Ozona).  I made sure to get gas at Ozona knowing that Ft. Stockton was about 90 miles away.  By the time I came close to Ft. Stockton, I was so over I-10.  The novelty of 80 miles an hour on a highway had worn off about 20 miles ago and I needed gas, a bathroom, and food in that order.  My gas light came on about 14 miles out of Ft. Stockton.  I contained my panic because that light should mean I have about two gallons left.   Plenty of gas tot get me there.  As the first exit for Ft. Stockton Cam into view, the bike started sputtering and surging.  Well shit, I thought, my gas mileage must be awful right now.  I pulled off the highway as the bike continued to surge and sputter and I continued to downshift to give myself some more torque (it doesn't have to make sense, I was panicking).  The bike died on me at the last intersection but fortunately I was facing downhill.  The weight of my bike coasted me into the gas station and up to a pump.  I was still a little panicky and suddenly realizing that my skin felt like it was going to vibrated off me so please excuse me for not realizing that the bike was not acting quite like it was running out of gas.  I also noted that I put in 4.25 gallons of gas into my six gallon tank but the significance of that fact escaped me until later.

Facebook was my friend during this whole trip

After I gassed up and watered myself, I decided I was still to frazzled to get back on the road and should have some lunch first.  I found something that passed as a restaurant and ate something that resembled a burger then got back on the road for my last leg.  At this point the bike was running normal and she started fine.

I turned on to HWY 67 for my final leg.  I had about 79 miles on the long, straight road of desolation and broken dreams and then I would be in the gorgeous Holland hotel debating dinner and drinks and thinking about a pretty ride tomorrow.

I looked down and saw a dash light on.

My first thought was that it was my oil light so I started to IMMEDIATELY pull over to save my engine.  Before I got stopped I looked closer and saw that no, it wasn't my oil light but my battery light.  So I got back up to speed and kept going.  I figured if I stopped I might not start again so I should get as close to civilization as I could.  The first gas stations of Alpine were in sight when the bike starts to sputter and surge again.  This time, I knew it wasn't lack of fuel, it was my battery...or something related to it.

I didn't make it.  She died about half football field from the nearest parking lot in Alpine.  I started to push the pike down the shoulder.  After a while a Sheriff stopped and helped me get her into the parking lot of a taxidermy office.  They proceeded to call the one bike shop in town,  Alpine Motorsports and Alpine Motorsports agreed to come out with a trailer.

The most important thing to know is that from the moment the Sheriff pulled up I was safe.  I was in no danger from anything except my own anxiety and stress.  Of course, any the folks I interacted with could have been dangerous to me including the Sheriff.  But they weren't.  I was lucky.  And I know it.

So the guys from Alpine Motorsports got the bike to their shop and got to the battery.  They really thought the connectors were the problem.  They were terribly corroded.  They started to charge up my battery and replaced the connectors.  They drove me to my hotel and were going to pick me up in a few hours to give the battery a chance to charge back up.  I showered and caught up with Mr. Man then went back to the bike shop.  Per Mr. Man's advice, I asked them to be sure and check my alternator. Well, check it they did...and the alternator was not charging the battery.  I called Mr. Man to discuss our options.  We would have to get the alternator to the shop but they were happy and capable of installing it once that happened.  This was certainly going to delay my trip.  Mr Man suggested that they check the alternator belt.  I instructed them to take the front cover off the bike.  When they did, the belt fell on the ground in pieces.  We all rejoiced.  We would still have to get the belt to Alpine but once it was there, replacing it was going to be a much quicker job that replacing the alternator.  Not to mention cheaper.  They drove me back to the hotel with plans for me to start calling around the next morning to see about getting a part over-nighted to me.

Let me pause here to talk about the hotel I chose.  Alpine has a couple of hotels but The Holland Hotel is the only one walking distance to food.  So of course that's where I stayed.  My room was gorgeous. 

My home while stranded in Alpine

 The lobby had many places for sitting and relaxing and even had a few private side rooms with chairs and couches in them. They served breakfast every day and had a decent but expensive

One of the small private rooms where I curled up with a book for a while

restaurant attached.  They were also across the street from an excellent pizza place and a block away from a great little Tex-Mex place.  But it was the people who really made the place stand out.  I often find that traveling alone on a motorcycle as a woman brings out the best in hotel staff.  They get to know me and they watch out for me and for my bike.  Once the staff realized I was having bike problems, they offered to extend my stay.  I let them know that I may not need to that since I would hopefully get my part in time. They suggested that I go ahead and extend my stay one more day just in case and if I didn't need that extra day, no problem.  I was going to be there three nights already.  One more night would put there the day before the labor Day Weekend.  They did warn met that getting any room in Alpine over Labor Day weekend would be almost impossible so I knew I had three days to sort things.  In three days someone could come and get me in a truck if I had to do that so I wasn't worried. 

I got into Alpine on Monday night.  After a meal and a drink, I fell into bed too exhausted to be worried about anything.  I got up early on Tuesday and went down for breakfast.  After a really good breakfast and just about the best coffee I'd had in a while, I went up to the room and started calling Motorcycle dealers.

The couch in my room where I spent a lot of time on the phone getting my part.

I had a few options.  Lonestar BMW in Austin was my first choice.  I know the guys, they know me and I was pretty sure they had the belt.  My next choice was El Paso because it was closest to Alpine.  Both of those shops opened at 9:00 and my third choice, San Antonio opened at 10:00.  

I’ll just get to the outcome and bypass several hours of frustration at people who didn’t seem to understand that I was STUCK IN ALPINE and I needed an answer ASAP about overnighting a part. I really like Lonestar BMW and I really admire several people who work there but they have recently merged with a new management company into a new location and it hasn’t been smooth or trouble free. They lost some employees over the move and the ones they gained don’t quite yet understand BMW riders and our rather high expectations of service from our dealers. I’m choosing to believe they will understand this as some point. Let me just say that Lonestar had the part and I decided that the most trustworthy way to get it to me was to have Mr Man leave his super busy and important job and take it to FedEx himself. He did this of course because he knew I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to and I know who his first priority is (hint: her name is Sidecar Adventures). So my part was shipped and would be to me Wednesday by 4:30. I checked with the local shop and found out that yes, if they had the part by 4:30 they could get it in that day and I could be on my way on time. I spent the next two days resting and poking around Alpine. It would have been great if I wasn’t wound up and stressed about my bike the whole time. With no one else with me to share any of the burden, I couldn’t let go of the stress. I’m grateful to Mr Man who provided me much support via texts and phone calls and also to my dear Zippo who provided me dinnertime conversation about our mutual bike woes via Facebook.

Sure enough on Wednesday afternoon my parts came in. They were quickly installed and I went to get the bike. When I got there she was running wide open with the throttle lock on.   I had never even had the throttle lock on although I knew in theory I had one. I didn’t really like the sound of her but the alternator belt was clearly fixed. I also felt like I had reached the end of the shop’s knowledge about my bike. They did a great job but they aren’t BMW mechanics and they aren’t real familiar with modern bikes.  I payed them an obscenely low amount of money got on the bike and took off. She ran horribly. I had a hard time keeping her going at stops and she still kept sputtering and surging slightly. But not like there was a charging problem. It felt like riding a very, very badly tuned bike. This made no sense because they didn’t touch anything like that while changing out the belt. I took her to get gas and rode her around town a little to see if things would settle out. Nothing settled. I parked her in front of the hotel and began plan Z. I went to the front desk and got the number for the nearest U-Haul place. I had one more step to take and if that didn’t find any solutions, I was riding her into the back of a U-Haul and taking her home. I sat in the lobby and called Mr. Man. After a few moments of trying to tell him what she was doing I finally said, “If it were the R90 I know several things that could be wrong but they don’t make sense on this bike.” 
    
“Tell me” he says. 

So I did. I told him if felt like the bike was de-tuned very badly. Like the idle was set wrong or the fuel mixture was off….way off. Or even like the throttle cable had become off-set to the carburetor. Especially that last one…that is exactly what it sounded/felt like. 

Well, he asks did you check that? 

 Silly man I think, I don’t have carburetors. What I say is that I didn’t think you could check that. I mean, where does the cable even go? The answer? The throttle cables go into my throttle bodies.

Things seem to happen in themes with bikes. Mr. Man had just finished rebuilding his throttle bodies. So we had both gotten pretty familiar with them. He talked me through finding them on the bike (difficult to do when I was so full of tears and anxiety but we managed) then talked me through checking the cables. When I went around to the sidecar side I could see that the cable was sitting offset of the little cup it lives in. The bike was very hot still so I used my key to push it back into place. The bike started up easily after that but I still thought it ran like crap. Mr Man thought maybe it was the higher altitude. I was willing to accept that although I didn’t remember it running as rough in Colorado where I was much higher.

After a very un-restful night I got up, packed, loaded, fed and hit the road….sort of. First I discover that the headphone jack that lives under my seat and pokes up between the seat and the tank was fully under the seat and I couldn’t get to it so no music for me. Next, the bike was hard to start and it wouldn’t stay running. I finally got it running enough to get on the bike and I decide to risk it. I’m close enough to Ozona that if I have to, I can be towed to my hotel and there I will sit and wait for Mr Man to come and get me in a truck. Because if I break down again, I am done with this trip.

The lack of music was hard. I couldn’t relax at all with nothing to get my brain off of my bike. At speed the bike ran fine but every single bump and rough patch in the road sent my nerves skittering away. I started singing. I stumbled into Steven Schwartz’s “Meadowlark” because it’s long and I know every word and it’s an old favorite of mine. It turned into a love song to my bike as I found myself actually singing to her to encourage her to stay strong. There were many tears and many prayers. Every time I felt overcome with fear and stress I found myself shouting Psalm 23 at the top of my lungs right at my tank. We made it to Ft Stockton again and as I rode through town I was getting the horrible rough idling I had that morning. My baby sounded almost like a Harley and that’s not right. I pinged Mr Man and then went inside for a bio break.

 While I was in the AC I googled “Rough idle on BMW GS 1150”. Everything was pointing me to the throttle bodies. I knew I was nowhere near due to have them serviced so that wasn’t it. But since the concept of throttle bodies kept coming up and since the bike had cooled down by this point, I went back out to look at the cable again.   A real close inspection showed me that while the cable was no longer off-set, it wasn’t firmly seated in it’s cup. I managed to get my fingers on it and pushed it firmly into the cup. All the way this time. I went to the other side turned on the key and the electrics, put it in neutral and hit the ignition button and….she roared to life easily and sat there in the parking lot humming along at her normal even idle. I may have hugged the tank. As she hummed along I could hear her, “Jesus Christ Mom! What took you so long to figure that out. That has been bugging me ALL day! I’ve been telling you very loudly since this morning. Sheesh!” I let Mr Man know all was right with the world and we hit the road.

The rest of the day was event free and I even had some pretty riding. I still couldn’t shake loose of my anxiety. Apparently dealing with the bike and then a rough morning of riding had used up all my nerves for a week. There was nothing to be done but accept my anxiety level and keep riding. We stopped at every small town with a gas station for me to check my idle speed and everything was normal like nothing had ever been wrong with the bike. My anxiety stayed with me like a burning knife in my belly until I reached my hotel. Thankfully, the bland sameness of the Holiday Inn was just the right amount of familiarity to calm my nerves. I had a wonderful night of binge TV watching and a fantastic night’s sleep.

 My next day would be a glorious ride almost completely off the highway into Kerrville where there would be husband, friends, and some emotional support. But that’s a post for another day.  Let me just end with this Facebook post.

This is How a Team Works

Basic HTML vie 

I recently had a bike working on weekend.  I’ve been having some mushy brake issues with the Big Girl since I got her.   We’ve bled the brakes numerous times but the problem never completely went away so we decided to overhaul the front brakes by installing some new spiffy stainless steel cables.  This would also allow us to bypass the ABS system.  Disabling the ABS has been on our list of things to do since we bought the bike.  I understand that ABS can save your life but I only have ABS on two of my three wheels.  There is no real way to put ABS on the sidecar wheel.  I don’t think having two out of three tires with ABS is safe.  On top of that, the ABS system has been malfunctioning for a while.  It’s a stuck piston according to the code.  I’ve had it repaired once only to have it go out again so it’s coming off the bike.  However, pulling the system is lengthy and not something we are up to right now so bypassing it was the right answer.  This was the first big work I’ve ever done on brakes so it was a good time to learn about brake fluid.  I learned that you always want to use a new bottle of brake fluid for every job because brake fluid, once opened, pulls moisture out of the air into itself.  Using opened brake fluid opens you up to getting water into the brake line.  Looking at the dark brown fluid in my master cylinder, I almost wonder if that was part of the problem I was having.  Apparently, your brake fluid should be straw colored .  To translate, my fluid should have looked like Sauvignon Blanc but it looked like Tawny Port.  Time and then some to settle this brake issue.

I did do some of the hands on

Old Cables

I had wanted/ expected to be doing most of the work myself.  Mr. Man wound up doing a lot of it while I watched and asked a bajillion questions.  I was ok with this at the end because I learned a whole lot even if I didn’t get as dirty as I wanted.  The whole process started me thinking a bit about the concept of teamwork and how it works between Mr. Man and myself.  A  lot of the reaching up into the bike and unfastening things was done by him while I held the light and asked about a billion questions.  His arms are longer and he’s more bendy than I am so that made sense.  Also, he’s the main mechanic for the bike when we off road so it makes sense that he works on Nightingale more than he does on Skylark.  Some things are easier with two people, like bleeding the brakes and he had my full help and cooperation there.  Some things, I need to do myself so I know how to make basic adjustments if I’m traveling by myself.  My biggest job often does seem to be asking about a billion questions. This time I also helped by going  inside and getting dinner in the oven so we could eat when we were finished.   Sometimes Mr. Man’s job is looking up schematics on the computer.  Sometimes he’s handing me tools, sometimes I hand him tools.  Early in our relationship we had to establish that teamwork does not mean equal.  That fair is not always 50/50.  He has always made more money than I have so to establish an equal power dynamic in the relationship we set up roles and duties.  He puts in a higher percentage of his income into our joint account than I do but I take care of paying bills and most of the grocery shopping.  When we travel, we are responsible for different things.  When we work on the bike, especially Nightingale, we are responsible for different things.  I like it.  I like the fact that in our relationship we are allowed to bring our strengths to the table, not an arbitrary 50/50.  We don’t keep a ledger.  I don’t think, well, I picked up all that oil and filters for his bike so he has to pick up the groceries for me.   At least, I don’t think that too often.  I am, after all, still human.

New cables

In the end, I had shiny new brake cables and my goodness, my brakes work well now!  I also had a better understanding of my braking system and that’s maybe the most important thing for me to take away.  I know why we moved to stainless steel lines from rubber.  I know why we went with two lines instead of one line and a splitter and I understand how we bypassed my ABS system.  Also, I have a much better comprehension of the mechanics behind a braking system and what brake fluid does.  So even if I didn’t turn every wrench and run every line, I educated myself making myself a better partner for off-roading.  My better familiarity with the brakes will help me troubleshoot on the road.  Mr. Man helped me learn and isn’t that what a team should do?  Shouldn’t it make you better?

Always remember, safety third!

 I totally want to  give a shout out to the great guys over at Boxer Metal for the speedy delivery of the parts.  Feel free to check them out here.

Why is a Raven Like a Writing Desk?

I've always been told that my sidecar handles more like an ATV than a motorcycle.  Today I got the chance to find that out for myself.  I'll cut to the chase and tell you that they are mostly correct.  I remember thinking at one point in the ride that a sidecar is all the fun and twice the terror of an ATV.

I had rented and ATV and went on a guided ride with a local company here in Ouray.  That means that I had someone riding in front of me with more experience and who knew where they were going.  I had chosen to do a half day ride to Yankee Boy Pass because it was considered an easy ride.  Since it was my first day on an ATV and since I have to ride to Pueblo tomorrow, I didn't want to push myself.  It was a glorious ride, the scenery was wonderful, the weather was cool, and the road went from easy peasy to just challenging enough.  After we did the pass my guide offered to take me to an Alpine Lake.  The trail would be more technical that what we had been doing but he let me know if I got into trouble to just stop and he would come back and help me out.  I didn't need any help.  With the ATV, I could go places the sidecar can't.  However, it is an easier machine to handle than the sidecar is so I actually was a bit ahead on my skill levels than another novice ATVer.  Like I said, all the fun and twice the terror.  I enjoyed my day and  would like to ride an ATV again.  Is it better than my sidecar.  Nope, not by a long shot.

I did get some pictures from my ride but haven't processed them yet, they'll be up soon. Tomorrow, I start my homeward run.  I'll be in Pueblo tomorrow and it will be hot (like 101).  So I want to leave early.  See everyone in Pueblo.


By the way, although I don't want to get into the details here, this was a very significant date for me.  Not just Bastille Day. Today three years ago I lost the most important woman in my life.  Today's ride, today's new experience, was in honor of her.

I Got My Bike Blessed and Then This Happened

What can I say about today except that it was close to perfect.  The weather was cool enough that I wanted some layers but not so cool that I was uncomfortable.  We checked the radar this morning and saw that bad weather was coming in from the North so we swapped our routes and rode tomorrow's ride today.  We went South so we missed the storms.  We had a little rain this morning first thing but then it was done.  I got to play with half a dozen water crossings today and the rig did fantastic.  I also got to bounce through rocks and the rig again did fantastic.  My shoulders are killing me right now but the rig did great.  I concentrated on maintaining  speed today and I'm very pleased with myself.  I ran a fairly steady speed of between 25-35 miles an hour over just about all the terrain I encountered.  We didn't see any deer and no animals tried to kill themselves in front of my bike.  My bike did not break down and the sun was not glaring down on my helmet.

Yep, this was a perfect day.

For me at least.  Two friends of ours did not check the radar so they went north.  And got rain.  And hail.  And cold.  One of their bikes did break down and while she managed to limp it into to parking lot, she couldn't get it started again.  Two wonderful guys from the CMA (Christian Motorcycle Association) came over and performed parking lot surgery.  Apparently the main jet on her carb fell out.  I have never seen a parking lot of grown men turn so pale so fast and then look at the bike and yell "are you kidding me?"  Nope, jet fell out.  I was never screwed in apparently.  After that was fixed, the bike started just fine.  Go fig

Mr Man got plenty of video today so I'm sure than when he has it processed, I'll be posting the You Tube link.  Now for some rest so I can do it again tomorrow.

Day Three: Hello Schröddy

Yet again, it's been a day of ups and downs.

We rode about 150 miles today up into Oklahoma.  Apparently I finally got to see the pretty part of Oklahoma because it was stunning.  I also got to see how my rig handles on decent curves.  I was pretty impressed.  Because of it's height and the wide stance of the rig I was expecting the handling in curves to be...well...alarming. I was surprised by how well it did.  Having an excessive amount of power at my disposal worked in my favor.  I was able to keep up with Mr Man and while he wasn't riding like a rockstar, he also wasn't going slow. We were taking the curves between five and ten miles over their posted speed.  Although I was taking the 45 mile an hour curves at 45 miles an hour.  Again, the power of the bike enabled me to quickly catch back up with Mr. Man.  I also learned that on 55 mile an hour left hand curves I have to actively slow the bike down.  The centrifugal force of the sidecar pulls the bike around the corner.  If it's a long curve the whole rig just keeps building speed as the car tries to whip around the bike. It's like the sidecar becomes a rock in a slingshot that never leaves the sling.

I booked us into the Days Inn in the thriving metropolis of Potoeau, OK.  Since it is Labor Day Evening all the tourists have left town and we are actually the only people in this hotel.  Neat but creepy.  Buy hey, we have our bikes parked on the front porch of the hotel and there is no one to care.

On the sad hand, Austin seems to be on fire.  Our house is fine as far as we know but it's unnerving being so far away from Very Bad Things that our happening almost in your backyard.  It reminds me of when two F4 Tornadoes chose to tear into my hometown while I was in college.  All I could do was stay up and watch the weather and call my loved ones.  Speaking of houses, our house alarm keeps going off.  Twice.  Both times were false alarms but it's making me wonder if the alarm itself has a malfunction.  Unfortunately, until we get home, nothing can be done.  So we'll just keep riding.

Tomorrow we are heading into the Ouachita National Forest for a day of fun curvy riding.  After that, plans are vague.  We really don't have any.  We only have possibilities.  We are Schrodinger's Motorcyclists.  Our house exists in of state of Fire/No Fire while simultaneously maintaining a state of burgled/safe while we ourselves exist in endless possibilities of North,South, East, and West.

And that is a sure sign that my brain is down.  Tomorrow the report from the Forest....perhaps even pictures.