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You guys are gonna love this one... 
A couple of weeks ago, I got my "new" GS550E back from the shop - carbs clean, old gas drained (they said it was orange 8O ), new gas added, all tuned up and ready to go. Yeah! I decided to head out on one of my longer test loops with it for the first time. Heading down a back road in town, only to run into construction I didn't know was there. I carefully putted across the dirt, past the cops directing traffic, and went merrily on my way.
Half a mile later, the bike started losing power. It started feeling like my 650 did, but got worse rapidly, to the point where I couldn't keep it running anymore, and it wouldn't start. First thing I tried was switching the fuel valve to reserve, but strangely that didn't help. Must be something else up with the bike. Bummer.
My trip odometer said I was 4.4 miles from home. I'd come down a bunch of hills, and there was no way I was going to push the bike back up them. But I wasn't far from the construction area, so I slowly made my way back there. I'd hoped one of the detail cops could have the station call my wife to come rescue me. Wasn't sure what to do about the dead bike, but one disaster at a time... Got back to the work zone, and they were packing up. A couple of guys asked if I was out of gas, but I told them I'd switched to reserve and got nothing, so something else must be wrong. The cop hopped in his car and took off. Right past me, pushing a disabled bike down the road, and didn't even notice.
A few minutes later, a car stopped and asked if I was out of gas. I told the guy the same thing - tried reserve, got nothing, dunno what's wrong. Turns out he lived around the corner from there, and had a motorcycle trailer, but no vehicle with a trailer hitch. Well, my Miata has a trailer hitch (to bring tools and race wheels to autocrosses). He offered me, a complete stranger, the use of his trailer to rescue my bike. So I hopped in with his wife, kid, and dog, and they drove me home to get the Miata. I followed them home, hooked up the trailer, he popped his license plate on it (hadn't used the trailer in a while). Returned to the bike, loaded it up and tied it down. All set. He told me he didn't need the trailer for the next few days, so I could keep it through the weekend if I wanted. Would you loan a trailer to a total stranger for a weekend? I don't think I would, but this guy did!
The place that did the work on my bike said to bring it on back if there were any problems. So I did. Dropped it off, and they said they'd try to have a look at it on Friday.
Since I had the trailer anyway, I went to the place that had started to repair my 650, then diagnosed it as terminally ill, to load it up and bring it home to part out (details here). One of the guys who worked there had actually seen me on the side of the road, broken down, but the first guy had already stopped to help me. So even if the first guy hadn't stopped, I would've had some help! The guys from the shop helped me load it up, but it was quite an adventure for just my wife and I to unload it, since they'd removed the rear swingarm and not reassembled it, so there was no back wheel. I found a small cart in the garage, and we managed to lift and jack up the bike enough to stick that under the back of the frame, then roll the whole thing off the trailer. Finally, now that all my bike transportation was done, I returned the trailer to the guy - but not before airing up his tires and fabricating a new license plate bracket to replace the one that kind of fell apart while I was using it. Thanks, Darin.
Friday afternoon, the shop hadn't had time to check out the bike, and they were going to be closed for vacation the whole following week. They were OK with me fiddling with it myself, and they sent one of their guys out to help. We knew it had fuel, since they just tuned it up. They thought it didn't have spark, but the big jolt the poor guy got when he told me to crank it over told him otherwise. We removed the gas tank to check out the coils. He said it felt pretty light to him, and seemed like there was no gas in there. Strange, since I'd never gotten to use the reserve setting, but just to eliminate the possibility I went home, got a gas can, brought it back, and put some gas in. He helped me prime it, and what do you know, it fired right up!!!
I know why this happened. I just got the bike, which, unlike my 650, doesn't have a gas gauge. I'd barely ridden it at all, so I had no idea what kind of gas mileage or range I could expect. I'd only gone 40something miles. Apparently when they put fresh gas into it, they didn't actually fill the tank! I'm still not sure why reserve didn't work, though - that baffles me. If it had, I would've just returned to the center of town, filled up, and gone on my merry way.
Crazy situation, but I still can't get over the guy's kindness and generousity of just giving me his trailer for a few days. It's renewed my faith in the general goodness of people.
And, for the record, I've calculated that I get 55-60mpg, with a 3 gallon tank, and I start looking for a gas station when I get to the 120 mile mark on the trip odometer, which I reset when I fill up.
Ironically, I was out for a ride a couple of nights ago, and pulled over to let faster traffic by. The last car in line was a cop, who stopped in front of me and put the lights on. Turns out he was just stopping to make sure I was all right, wasn't broken down or anything. I thanked him, and told him I wished he'd been there a week ago!
A couple of weeks ago, I got my "new" GS550E back from the shop - carbs clean, old gas drained (they said it was orange 8O ), new gas added, all tuned up and ready to go. Yeah! I decided to head out on one of my longer test loops with it for the first time. Heading down a back road in town, only to run into construction I didn't know was there. I carefully putted across the dirt, past the cops directing traffic, and went merrily on my way.
Half a mile later, the bike started losing power. It started feeling like my 650 did, but got worse rapidly, to the point where I couldn't keep it running anymore, and it wouldn't start. First thing I tried was switching the fuel valve to reserve, but strangely that didn't help. Must be something else up with the bike. Bummer.
My trip odometer said I was 4.4 miles from home. I'd come down a bunch of hills, and there was no way I was going to push the bike back up them. But I wasn't far from the construction area, so I slowly made my way back there. I'd hoped one of the detail cops could have the station call my wife to come rescue me. Wasn't sure what to do about the dead bike, but one disaster at a time... Got back to the work zone, and they were packing up. A couple of guys asked if I was out of gas, but I told them I'd switched to reserve and got nothing, so something else must be wrong. The cop hopped in his car and took off. Right past me, pushing a disabled bike down the road, and didn't even notice.
A few minutes later, a car stopped and asked if I was out of gas. I told the guy the same thing - tried reserve, got nothing, dunno what's wrong. Turns out he lived around the corner from there, and had a motorcycle trailer, but no vehicle with a trailer hitch. Well, my Miata has a trailer hitch (to bring tools and race wheels to autocrosses). He offered me, a complete stranger, the use of his trailer to rescue my bike. So I hopped in with his wife, kid, and dog, and they drove me home to get the Miata. I followed them home, hooked up the trailer, he popped his license plate on it (hadn't used the trailer in a while). Returned to the bike, loaded it up and tied it down. All set. He told me he didn't need the trailer for the next few days, so I could keep it through the weekend if I wanted. Would you loan a trailer to a total stranger for a weekend? I don't think I would, but this guy did!
The place that did the work on my bike said to bring it on back if there were any problems. So I did.
Dropped it off, and they said they'd try to have a look at it on Friday.Since I had the trailer anyway, I went to the place that had started to repair my 650, then diagnosed it as terminally ill, to load it up and bring it home to part out (details here). One of the guys who worked there had actually seen me on the side of the road, broken down, but the first guy had already stopped to help me. So even if the first guy hadn't stopped, I would've had some help! The guys from the shop helped me load it up, but it was quite an adventure for just my wife and I to unload it, since they'd removed the rear swingarm and not reassembled it, so there was no back wheel. I found a small cart in the garage, and we managed to lift and jack up the bike enough to stick that under the back of the frame, then roll the whole thing off the trailer. Finally, now that all my bike transportation was done, I returned the trailer to the guy - but not before airing up his tires and fabricating a new license plate bracket to replace the one that kind of fell apart while I was using it. Thanks, Darin.
Friday afternoon, the shop hadn't had time to check out the bike, and they were going to be closed for vacation the whole following week. They were OK with me fiddling with it myself, and they sent one of their guys out to help. We knew it had fuel, since they just tuned it up. They thought it didn't have spark, but the big jolt the poor guy got when he told me to crank it over told him otherwise. We removed the gas tank to check out the coils. He said it felt pretty light to him, and seemed like there was no gas in there. Strange, since I'd never gotten to use the reserve setting, but just to eliminate the possibility I went home, got a gas can, brought it back, and put some gas in. He helped me prime it, and what do you know, it fired right up!!!
I know why this happened. I just got the bike, which, unlike my 650, doesn't have a gas gauge. I'd barely ridden it at all, so I had no idea what kind of gas mileage or range I could expect. I'd only gone 40something miles. Apparently when they put fresh gas into it, they didn't actually fill the tank! I'm still not sure why reserve didn't work, though - that baffles me. If it had, I would've just returned to the center of town, filled up, and gone on my merry way.
Crazy situation, but I still can't get over the guy's kindness and generousity of just giving me his trailer for a few days. It's renewed my faith in the general goodness of people.
And, for the record, I've calculated that I get 55-60mpg, with a 3 gallon tank, and I start looking for a gas station when I get to the 120 mile mark on the trip odometer, which I reset when I fill up.
Ironically, I was out for a ride a couple of nights ago, and pulled over to let faster traffic by. The last car in line was a cop, who stopped in front of me and put the lights on. Turns out he was just stopping to make sure I was all right, wasn't broken down or anything. I thanked him, and told him I wished he'd been there a week ago!
But when we removed the gas tank, we heard nothing sloshing around in there, either. So I'm not sure. I should do some experimentation with reserve *before* running low on gas again, ya think? 
Thanks for the tip. I'll fiddle a bit.
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