A Road Story - Part 3

Photo by Michael Pierce.

Since I was left like a drunken bride by Matt on Monday, three more days have passed with a flash. Between staying with friends along my route and camping at random State Park campgrounds it’s been a period alternating between companionship and solitude. Each time I stay with friends I’m emotionally and spiritually rewarded by the kindness of people who care about me. Each time I spend a night alone in the woods, I come away stronger and more at peace with myself. The longer this trip continues, the more the burden of the decisions I’ve made in the past lightens. I’m feeling deeply introspective and I want to wallow in it for a while. I decide to keep riding. It simply seems like the right thing to do.

The weather has been (for the most part) cooperating nicely on this trip. I stay at higher elevations to avoid the heat of summer in the central valley. Most days are cloudless with temperatures in the high seventy degree range and overnight temperatures are dropping to the low sixties. I find these temperatures and weather conditions perfect for extended motorcycle sport-touring adventures.

The last three days were filled with hundreds of miles worth of two-lane blacktop. All of it infested with a severe case of curves. I’ve been wailing, ripping, romping and generally being a back-roads terror. All of that fun comes at a price and I’m about to pay the piper for my entertainment.

It’s Thursday. Since early this morning, I’ve been riding the fantastic roads west of Lassen Park. Now, I’m heading to Chico for gas, dinner and coffee. There’s no intended order to that sequence, but that’s pretty much how it goes down. I fill the tank at the Chevron on the south end of downtown, grab a mega-wrap on Broadway and settle in for a much needed mocha and some people watching on Main across from the downtown park.

It’s a wonderful evening. I’m sitting outside, enjoying my mocha while minding my own business and enjoying the company of strangers caught up in their own worlds of conversation and intimacy, when I notice something looking ‘wrong’ with my rear tire.

There’s a bright spot in the middle of the tire tread and it’s catching the reflected early evening sunlight off the plate glass windows of the coffee shop. A dime sized bright spot where there shouldn’t be one. My heart sinks as I look closer and realize it’s the head of a large bolt. The rest of the bolt is obviously stuck deep into the meat of my tire. Damn, damn and more damn. I have a brand new set of tires waiting for me at home. Home, is something on the far side of eight hundred miles away. The tire is (strangely enough) still holding air; I have no idea how much longer that will continue to be so.

It’s almost 8 pm, the motorcycle shops are all long closed, so I opt for the nearest cheap motel instead of returning back to the mountain campsite that had caught my eye earlier in the day. The advantage of a motel is how a hot shower and a beer help me feel a little better about my circumstance. Sleep comes eventually but it’s a restless night as I worry about this unexpected problem.

In the morning I spend an hour on the phone with various motorcycle shops in and around Chico. Finally I locate a shop up the hill in Paradise that can repair the tire, instead of rape me of every dollar in my pockets, for a replacement. Before I leave the motel parking lot I check the tire pressure and find that it’s not lost any air at all. The ‘miracle of the bolt’! No matter, I’m cautious as I ride the ten or so miles up the Skyway to find Hill On Wheels.

Pulling up to the open garage door I’m greeted with a smile and a handshake. Moments later my bike is up on the lift and my rear tire is being pulled for repair. I try not to make a pest of myself but the owner of the shop keeps asking me questions about my travels and we enjoy a pleasant hour or so of banter before the bike is fixed and back on the ground. A measly fifteen bucks later and I’m on the road.

Or so I think.

Let the gremlins free! I feel the sputter rather than hear it. It goes away in an instant. Wait! What was that? Another sputter, this time it’s not only felt but it’s heard and it doesn’t go away. I’m an hour east of Chico in the Feather River Canyon. That makes me roughly halfway to my friend’s house outside Quincy. The bike is running on three cylinders with stretches where it’s popping and banging along on two. This for a motorcycle traveler is bad news.

I nurse the bike along with a hundred different mechanical scenarios going through my head. It could be a dropped valve (expensive), or it could be water in the gas (cheap). It could be a crack or damage to one or more of the coils (expensive) or it could be a bad plug wire (cheap). For the next hour my brain plays through all the various scenarios and options. Abandon the trip? Fix the bike. Abandon the bike and walk away from it? Buy a new bike and continue on the trip. The human mind can be agile when faced with the unknown. I’m worried and at this moment, even though I’m climbing into the high Sierras, my trip is going rapidly down hill.

It’s dark as I wind, banging and popping, my way up the steep dirt driveway of my friend’s house. She’s home, her husband who has the key to the work shop is not. We visit and I continue to fret. In fact, my anxiety is so palpable that Patty opts to go out and feed her horses rather than listen to me whine and complain. Eventually I give up on getting anything done with the bike and stretch out on the guest bed in the company of their wonderful dog and fall sound asleep.

I find myself wide awake at 4 am. The house is stone silent. I hear nothing but the sound of a soft breeze sighing through the trees outside my window. I get up as quietly as possible and find the shop key on the rack of keys by the back door. I start the coffee maker as I head out to tear into my broken motorcycle.

I look up from my work to the sound of laughter as a huge shadow blocks the early morning sunlight coming through the doorway. John is home for a three day break from his duties as a CHP officer, and he’s in a great mood. I wish I were in the same condition. A mug of fresh coffee is pressed into my hand and a friendly slap on the back is given me in encouragement. With fewer than a dozen words having passed between us, I’m left to my repairing. Sometimes working on a motorcycle is a solitary pursuit. This is one of those times. I’m grateful for the use of the space and the tools, and I’m intent on getting the problem identified and repaired.

I have the valve cover off and it’s become obvious that this isn’t a true mechanical problem. All of the valves are in perfect adjustment, there’s nothing cracked, worn or broken in the ignition system and the carburetors are clean and in adjustment. There isn’t a darn thing wrong with the exception of the carburetor float bowls being filled with reddish watery crap. Bingo! I drain the remainder of the gas purchased in Chico from my tank into a clear container, and confirm my suspicions immediately.

Water in gas is bad. Lots of water is worse. Out of the four gallons of gas I pour from the tank, there’s easily a quart of water in the bottom of the jug. By the time it settles fully I calculate nearly two quarts of water from that one fill up. When I show John what I’ve found he shrugs, grabs a clean gas can and heads toward his truck. We’re on our way to the gas station in Quincy within minutes. My mood is lifting and I enjoy an hour of chatting with the husband of one of my best friends. She’s in good hands.

Lunch interrupts my reassembly of the bike for an hour, yet by 2 pm I have everything back together and the bike is running perfectly once again. When I come into the house I find my friends have conspired to wash all of my dirty laundry and have laid it out on the bed neatly folded, and ready to be repacked into those droopy side cases. I love having good friends.

I’m up before dawn. Once more, the house is silent. The dog doesn’t even stir from his spot. I write a thank-you note and leave it in a prominent place on the counter. Rolling down the dirt driveway with the motor off, my headlight catches a glimmer of reflection from the eyes of a raccoon as he galumphs across the dirt track. I’m far enough from the house now; engine noise won’t be a problem. I ease the clutch out and the bike starts instantly. At the end of the dirt road I turn onto asphalt and my ride is back underway.