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Disclaimer: The following account is filled with a combination of horrendously bad luck, macguyver-ing roadside fixes, and a pinch of lunacy. Please don't think any less of us 
. Also excuse me for being wordy, the pictures are on Aaron's camera, I will do my best to be entertaining.
So yesterday morning at around 10 am I suited up with many many layers to take the bike out for the day. The plan was to ride over to fellow GS'r Aaron (the schwartz) and go from there. Aaron lives about 20 minutes away, and by the time I got there I was just about frozen solid. It was a nippy 30 degrees or so.
Now I should mention that when I went to start my bike, the battery was dead. It seems it won't hold a charge for anything over a week with this cold weather. No problem though, I was prepared for this! I had charged up a spare battery previously. So I did the swap, went to start the bike, still nothing. Crap. Despite the charger telling me that the spare battery was fine, it wasn't. I managed to jump the bike and away I went. This would be a bit of a recurring theme of the day as it turns out.
Aaron and I had originally planned on doing a ride out to Bear Mountain, which is a gorgeous ride, filled with nice roads, and about a 3 hour round trip. However the weather showed it was even colder up there, in the twenties so we decided to change the route up a bit. We would head into Manhattan, over the Brooklyn bridge, and down to coney island. Where we would take all sorts of cool pictures of our bikes. Well that was the plan. As the title says this was a mis-adventure. We never did make it to coney island....
We started up the bikes to head out. Mine was still warm, and jumped to life with no problem. Aarons battery was low, but since his bike is blessed with a kickstarter he was able to kick it over in no time. Our first stop was a gas station. Got some air into Aarons tires. And I noticed I was dangerously low on oil. So I figured oil is oil, and would be changed soon anyway, so I got two quarts of gas station oil and put it in. Now at this point, Aaron also checked his oil, first by the sight glass, then by opening the cap and looking in. Since he is new to GS's and just getting accommodated I explained how the sight glass works and the bike must be upright for a true reading. He was fine on oil, and put his cap back on and we were off. (PS this is important to the story so excuse the seeming mundane details)
I immediately regretted the gas station oil. It is no Rotella Heavy Duty. I noticed down shifting immediately became a chore, and the bike was having trouble going into Neutral at all. Lesson learned folks, I know I didn't do my bike any favors with the junk oil. However since we spend the next 30 minutes idling in the Lincoln tunnel, I'm glad I did have some oil in there.
Finally we got through the tunnel and were into the city! Now if you have never ridden a motorcycle in New York City, there are few words that can describe it. There are pot holes the size of voltswagons, army's of pedestrians trying to cross the street, and of course hordes of merciless yellow cabs that want nothing less than your death. It is an insane rush to be sure. Anything seems legal and justified in this situation. Lane splitting, no problem, riding on the sidewalk, why not. Illegal turns, you bet. Anything to stay ahead of the mob.
The ride continued at this wild lunatic tempo. Complete with an excellent blast through the tunnel right before the Brooklyn bridge. Doing 70 in second gear though a tunnel is an incredible noise, I highly recommend it
. Emerging from the tunnel we were on East River waterfront. Like I said I had no pictures, but Google Maps does. This is an idea of what the scene looked like yesterday on the waterfront. Barges and old ships converted into floating restaurants and clubs. It's a pretty cool place.
And just beyond the boats was the Brooklyn Bridge.
While we were crossing the bridge, I noticed something wrong with Aaron's bike. There was a mess of blue smoke, but it looked to be coming from before the exhaust tips. We get over the bridge and realize that his oil filler cap, was GONE! There was oil bouncing out of the crank case, and his leg was covered in the stuff. It seemed he had not tightened it down fully, and it had vibrated and bounced out over the bridge.
Needless to say this was not good. We pulled up on the sidewalk and figured out what to do. Aaron took the cap off my bike, and put it on his. Luckily, I had a rag with me, and so we were able to wipe the oil off his bike and rear tire. The plan was for him to do a lap of the bridge, and try and spot it, while I would try and track down a hardware store to attempt to make a plug. At this point we are on the foot of the Brooklyn bridge (with a awesome view of the freedom tower being constructed) I am waiting, trying to keep warm, while Aaron searched for his plug. Suffice to say that after two laps of the bridge we decided it was lost forever and on to plan B. We managed to track down a hardware store, and Aaron went with a shopping list of anything that may seem useful to plug the hole.
He came back a few minutes later with duct tape, two different sized bath tub plugs, a bag of rags, a plastic bag, and a light bulb socket. I had a bit of weatherstripping in my bag as we were gonna properly seal his airbox later that day. Sound like a famous television show to anyone yet?! We managed to wrap the lightbulb socket in a layer of weather stripping, and duct tape, and it proved to be just the right diameter, with just enough squish, to thread into the hole. We then taped the heck out of the top to prevent it from bouncing out again. Job mended!! Alright lets ride on! EXCEPT...
My battery had died again.
At least we were on the top of a small hill, so we figured we'd try and bump start it. This didn't work either. However there was a cafe at the bottom of the hill. So we took a much needed coffee and snack break. Aaron generously paid for my lunch as he felt bad leaving me sitting in the cold for an hour and change while he tried to find his cap (still didn't need to do this Aaron!). We had a tasty lunch of garlic bread and eggplant parm, which were both awesome.
Bellies filled and warmed up, we headed outside to try and flag down someone with jumper cables. A very nice man driving a big HD version F150 stopped and had the cables. He mentioned he rides a BMW GS, and couldn't believe that both out bikes were in such good (relative) shape for their age. We got my bike jumped again, and after a laugh with the guy when he saw out bodge job on Aarons bike we were off again.
I immediately noticed a problem though. My throttle was sticking, and wouldn't return by itself. Crap. Aaron was quick to notice the problem though, I had bumped my throttle lock half on by mistake. Flipped that off and away we went. Both bikes running well we decided that Coney Island could wait, it was getting dark now and we should be headed home. A mercilessly uneventful trip out of the city, although we did do another round of tunnel blasting
, and we got back to Aarons place. I helped him order some things needed to do valve adjustments, and sealed his airbox. Our makeshift plug worked well and held all the way home.
End Part One... To be continued.
. Also excuse me for being wordy, the pictures are on Aaron's camera, I will do my best to be entertaining.So yesterday morning at around 10 am I suited up with many many layers to take the bike out for the day. The plan was to ride over to fellow GS'r Aaron (the schwartz) and go from there. Aaron lives about 20 minutes away, and by the time I got there I was just about frozen solid. It was a nippy 30 degrees or so.
Now I should mention that when I went to start my bike, the battery was dead. It seems it won't hold a charge for anything over a week with this cold weather. No problem though, I was prepared for this! I had charged up a spare battery previously. So I did the swap, went to start the bike, still nothing. Crap. Despite the charger telling me that the spare battery was fine, it wasn't. I managed to jump the bike and away I went. This would be a bit of a recurring theme of the day as it turns out.
Aaron and I had originally planned on doing a ride out to Bear Mountain, which is a gorgeous ride, filled with nice roads, and about a 3 hour round trip. However the weather showed it was even colder up there, in the twenties so we decided to change the route up a bit. We would head into Manhattan, over the Brooklyn bridge, and down to coney island. Where we would take all sorts of cool pictures of our bikes. Well that was the plan. As the title says this was a mis-adventure. We never did make it to coney island....
We started up the bikes to head out. Mine was still warm, and jumped to life with no problem. Aarons battery was low, but since his bike is blessed with a kickstarter he was able to kick it over in no time. Our first stop was a gas station. Got some air into Aarons tires. And I noticed I was dangerously low on oil. So I figured oil is oil, and would be changed soon anyway, so I got two quarts of gas station oil and put it in. Now at this point, Aaron also checked his oil, first by the sight glass, then by opening the cap and looking in. Since he is new to GS's and just getting accommodated I explained how the sight glass works and the bike must be upright for a true reading. He was fine on oil, and put his cap back on and we were off. (PS this is important to the story so excuse the seeming mundane details
)I immediately regretted the gas station oil. It is no Rotella Heavy Duty. I noticed down shifting immediately became a chore, and the bike was having trouble going into Neutral at all. Lesson learned folks, I know I didn't do my bike any favors with the junk oil. However since we spend the next 30 minutes idling in the Lincoln tunnel, I'm glad I did have some oil in there.
Finally we got through the tunnel and were into the city! Now if you have never ridden a motorcycle in New York City, there are few words that can describe it. There are pot holes the size of voltswagons, army's of pedestrians trying to cross the street, and of course hordes of merciless yellow cabs that want nothing less than your death. It is an insane rush to be sure. Anything seems legal and justified in this situation. Lane splitting, no problem, riding on the sidewalk, why not. Illegal turns, you bet. Anything to stay ahead of the mob.
The ride continued at this wild lunatic tempo. Complete with an excellent blast through the tunnel right before the Brooklyn bridge. Doing 70 in second gear though a tunnel is an incredible noise, I highly recommend it
. Emerging from the tunnel we were on East River waterfront. Like I said I had no pictures, but Google Maps does. This is an idea of what the scene looked like yesterday on the waterfront. Barges and old ships converted into floating restaurants and clubs. It's a pretty cool place.And just beyond the boats was the Brooklyn Bridge.
While we were crossing the bridge, I noticed something wrong with Aaron's bike. There was a mess of blue smoke, but it looked to be coming from before the exhaust tips. We get over the bridge and realize that his oil filler cap, was GONE! There was oil bouncing out of the crank case, and his leg was covered in the stuff. It seemed he had not tightened it down fully, and it had vibrated and bounced out over the bridge.
Needless to say this was not good. We pulled up on the sidewalk and figured out what to do. Aaron took the cap off my bike, and put it on his. Luckily, I had a rag with me, and so we were able to wipe the oil off his bike and rear tire
. The plan was for him to do a lap of the bridge, and try and spot it, while I would try and track down a hardware store to attempt to make a plug. At this point we are on the foot of the Brooklyn bridge (with a awesome view of the freedom tower being constructed) I am waiting, trying to keep warm, while Aaron searched for his plug. Suffice to say that after two laps of the bridge we decided it was lost forever and on to plan B. We managed to track down a hardware store, and Aaron went with a shopping list of anything that may seem useful to plug the hole. He came back a few minutes later with duct tape, two different sized bath tub plugs, a bag of rags, a plastic bag, and a light bulb socket. I had a bit of weatherstripping in my bag as we were gonna properly seal his airbox later that day. Sound like a famous television show to anyone yet?! We managed to wrap the lightbulb socket in a layer of weather stripping, and duct tape, and it proved to be just the right diameter, with just enough squish, to thread into the hole. We then taped the heck out of the top to prevent it from bouncing out again. Job mended!! Alright lets ride on! EXCEPT...
My battery had died again.
At least we were on the top of a small hill, so we figured we'd try and bump start it. This didn't work either. However there was a cafe at the bottom of the hill. So we took a much needed coffee and snack break. Aaron generously paid for my lunch as he felt bad leaving me sitting in the cold for an hour and change while he tried to find his cap (still didn't need to do this Aaron!). We had a tasty lunch of garlic bread and eggplant parm, which were both awesome. Bellies filled and warmed up, we headed outside to try and flag down someone with jumper cables. A very nice man driving a big HD version F150 stopped and had the cables. He mentioned he rides a BMW GS, and couldn't believe that both out bikes were in such good (relative) shape for their age. We got my bike jumped again, and after a laugh with the guy when he saw out bodge job on Aarons bike we were off again.
I immediately noticed a problem though. My throttle was sticking, and wouldn't return by itself. Crap. Aaron was quick to notice the problem though, I had bumped my throttle lock half on by mistake. Flipped that off and away we went. Both bikes running well we decided that Coney Island could wait, it was getting dark now and we should be headed home. A mercilessly uneventful trip out of the city, although we did do another round of tunnel blasting
, and we got back to Aarons place. I helped him order some things needed to do valve adjustments, and sealed his airbox. Our makeshift plug worked well and held all the way home.End Part One... To be continued.
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