Just Krusen
Well-known member
The Ride that almost wasn’t
I left work at 9:00 am Friday thinking I'm doing pretty well time wise. Got home changed into my riding gear and loaded the bike. So I'm all ready to roll at 9:45, right! Push the starter and the bike fires and dies. Hit it again and all it does is spin the motor without a hint of firing. What the hell!!! At least no one is waiting for me. A few more tries with all the usual checks of safety switched and such but no go. Into the house I go to get out of my gear because it does not look like I'm riding today. After looking through the service manual and doing a few more checks I was not getting anywhere so I propped up the fuel tank and checked the fuel. That looked good and I could hear the fuel pump running. My next step was to check for spark at the plugs. But that would mean pulling the tank and a bunch of stuff to get to them. What the heck lets give it another spin and what do you know, the engine coughed a little. Hmm, I might just get lucky. So I hold the throttle wide open and she fires up after a few seconds. Sweet. I was already thinking serious stuff was going to be needed. I had tried starting it earlier with the throttle open so I'm not sure why it fired up this time but I'll take it. Thinking back I fired the bike up last Sunday for just a few seconds to check something. In retrospect I should have let it warm up completely but didn't think it would matter, but it did this time. Must have fouled the plugs, live and learn.
Now it's 12 noon and I'm only 2 hours late but I'm on the road and heading to Georgia. Going to be a beautiful weekend in the mountains. The ride up was nice, quick and uneventful, 9 hrs & 45 mins, 675 miles including dinner. I checked in before 10 and hit the pillow within a half an hour.
Saturday morning I'm up and riding into the mountains before 6:30 am. Beautiful clear 50 degree and light traffic. The temperature dropped to 42 as I climbed into the hills but surprisingly my feet were still warm in my mesh boots. Sure is a lot of hot air coming off the motor but it feels good. A couple of hours later I'm having breakfast in a diner I found while researching my ride. It was good and I found 2 more places to eat on my way out of Blue Ridge. Today's ride included some of our favorites along with a little exploring. The Cherohala was busy surprisingly but the traffic was all going the other direction so I could run any pace I wanted. I skipped the Gap store and headed through Robbinsville over to 28 thru Franklin. 28 was pretty rough for the first part. Winter seems to have been rough on several of the roads. After leaving Highlands I took 28 south past War Women to Stump House Tunnel and paid my entry fee to the park. The tunnel was pretty cool. Read the signs in the pictures for the explanation. This is another project that was never completed. Lots of roads and tunnels here that lead to nowhere. As a bonus I walked over to the waterfalls on the other end of the park. Not the best but I like waterfalls. Let's hit the road again, I still have not worn out the feeler balls on my pegs. More great roads were ridden, a few old and a few new ones. I even did the mandatory dirt for a few miles. I found a pretty decent BBQ place and stopped for dinner. Then I started heading back to the motel. But first I had to go over Blood Mountain. By the time I got to the bottom I realized I still had a couple of hours of daylight left so I made a U-turn and headed back over the mountain. Fun as ever! After cresting the top I kept going to Wolf Pen Gap and took it to Suches and 60 heading back. But then I got to the intersection of 19 and 60 and took 19 back to the top of Blood Mnt. After a short stop I rode back down and finally continued on to the motel. 440 miles of wonderful twisty riding roads, what a great day!!!!
Sunday sees me on the road before 6 am. I kill my first raccoon or Possum by 6:30, dumb little *******. Shortly thereafter my ABS light come on. I'm thinking the road kill screwed up a sensor and continue on. A bit later the bike feels kind of strange. Seems to go well straight and wiggling the bars felt OK. I'd better check things out soon. As I get off the interstate I notice how heavy the steering is. I know my tires are shot but this ain't right. After doing a visual I took a closer look at my rear tire. I'd better put a gauge on it to be sure. It's down to about 10 psi, that's not good and I'm 500 miles from home. Turns out the plug I put in the tire 6000 miles ago has started to leak after all of the twisty stuff yesterday. I was lazy this morning and skipped my usual tire check because it has not lost a pound since the day I plugged it. Of all the days to skip out on this. So I re-plug the tire and air it up then grab some breakfast. Happily this plug made it all the way home without a problem. On the road again I made notice of 2 important things. First the ABS light was off again. The decrease in tire size was enough to set off a warning. The other thing was my speedometer and my GPS are always within 2 mph of each other. Just before getting off the highway I noticed a 3mph difference and I was wondering if it was from tire wear, but NO, it was due to lack of air pressure. Just a couple of things to remember on bikes without TPMS. My TPMS will be installed when the new tires go on, which will be in the near future. I was more concerned with the tires wearing out before getting home but it turns out I still have a little rubber left as I just hit all the wear bars.
Needles to say I had a wonderful trip. Even though I missed my riding buddies I had a blast. It's been a while since I took a trip like this alone and have forgotten how much I enjoy traveling alone. But I am certainly looking forward to the Labor Day trip with the guys. Hopefully my bike will start for that trip.
Enjoy the pictures in the link below.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/justkrusen/sets/72157644378132055/
Edited for punctuation
I left work at 9:00 am Friday thinking I'm doing pretty well time wise. Got home changed into my riding gear and loaded the bike. So I'm all ready to roll at 9:45, right! Push the starter and the bike fires and dies. Hit it again and all it does is spin the motor without a hint of firing. What the hell!!! At least no one is waiting for me. A few more tries with all the usual checks of safety switched and such but no go. Into the house I go to get out of my gear because it does not look like I'm riding today. After looking through the service manual and doing a few more checks I was not getting anywhere so I propped up the fuel tank and checked the fuel. That looked good and I could hear the fuel pump running. My next step was to check for spark at the plugs. But that would mean pulling the tank and a bunch of stuff to get to them. What the heck lets give it another spin and what do you know, the engine coughed a little. Hmm, I might just get lucky. So I hold the throttle wide open and she fires up after a few seconds. Sweet. I was already thinking serious stuff was going to be needed. I had tried starting it earlier with the throttle open so I'm not sure why it fired up this time but I'll take it. Thinking back I fired the bike up last Sunday for just a few seconds to check something. In retrospect I should have let it warm up completely but didn't think it would matter, but it did this time. Must have fouled the plugs, live and learn.
Now it's 12 noon and I'm only 2 hours late but I'm on the road and heading to Georgia. Going to be a beautiful weekend in the mountains. The ride up was nice, quick and uneventful, 9 hrs & 45 mins, 675 miles including dinner. I checked in before 10 and hit the pillow within a half an hour.
Saturday morning I'm up and riding into the mountains before 6:30 am. Beautiful clear 50 degree and light traffic. The temperature dropped to 42 as I climbed into the hills but surprisingly my feet were still warm in my mesh boots. Sure is a lot of hot air coming off the motor but it feels good. A couple of hours later I'm having breakfast in a diner I found while researching my ride. It was good and I found 2 more places to eat on my way out of Blue Ridge. Today's ride included some of our favorites along with a little exploring. The Cherohala was busy surprisingly but the traffic was all going the other direction so I could run any pace I wanted. I skipped the Gap store and headed through Robbinsville over to 28 thru Franklin. 28 was pretty rough for the first part. Winter seems to have been rough on several of the roads. After leaving Highlands I took 28 south past War Women to Stump House Tunnel and paid my entry fee to the park. The tunnel was pretty cool. Read the signs in the pictures for the explanation. This is another project that was never completed. Lots of roads and tunnels here that lead to nowhere. As a bonus I walked over to the waterfalls on the other end of the park. Not the best but I like waterfalls. Let's hit the road again, I still have not worn out the feeler balls on my pegs. More great roads were ridden, a few old and a few new ones. I even did the mandatory dirt for a few miles. I found a pretty decent BBQ place and stopped for dinner. Then I started heading back to the motel. But first I had to go over Blood Mountain. By the time I got to the bottom I realized I still had a couple of hours of daylight left so I made a U-turn and headed back over the mountain. Fun as ever! After cresting the top I kept going to Wolf Pen Gap and took it to Suches and 60 heading back. But then I got to the intersection of 19 and 60 and took 19 back to the top of Blood Mnt. After a short stop I rode back down and finally continued on to the motel. 440 miles of wonderful twisty riding roads, what a great day!!!!
Sunday sees me on the road before 6 am. I kill my first raccoon or Possum by 6:30, dumb little *******. Shortly thereafter my ABS light come on. I'm thinking the road kill screwed up a sensor and continue on. A bit later the bike feels kind of strange. Seems to go well straight and wiggling the bars felt OK. I'd better check things out soon. As I get off the interstate I notice how heavy the steering is. I know my tires are shot but this ain't right. After doing a visual I took a closer look at my rear tire. I'd better put a gauge on it to be sure. It's down to about 10 psi, that's not good and I'm 500 miles from home. Turns out the plug I put in the tire 6000 miles ago has started to leak after all of the twisty stuff yesterday. I was lazy this morning and skipped my usual tire check because it has not lost a pound since the day I plugged it. Of all the days to skip out on this. So I re-plug the tire and air it up then grab some breakfast. Happily this plug made it all the way home without a problem. On the road again I made notice of 2 important things. First the ABS light was off again. The decrease in tire size was enough to set off a warning. The other thing was my speedometer and my GPS are always within 2 mph of each other. Just before getting off the highway I noticed a 3mph difference and I was wondering if it was from tire wear, but NO, it was due to lack of air pressure. Just a couple of things to remember on bikes without TPMS. My TPMS will be installed when the new tires go on, which will be in the near future. I was more concerned with the tires wearing out before getting home but it turns out I still have a little rubber left as I just hit all the wear bars.
Needles to say I had a wonderful trip. Even though I missed my riding buddies I had a blast. It's been a while since I took a trip like this alone and have forgotten how much I enjoy traveling alone. But I am certainly looking forward to the Labor Day trip with the guys. Hopefully my bike will start for that trip.
Enjoy the pictures in the link below.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/justkrusen/sets/72157644378132055/
Edited for punctuation
Last edited by a moderator:
