Saturday, June 30, 2012

Personal Baggage

I was following a Harley rider down the switchbacks on the west side of the ridge on the Chief Joseph Highway earlier today. While the popping and banging from his too loud exhaust was annoying (I guess the dealer didn't explain he'd need to enrichen the mixture to compensate for the exhaust change), I felt sorry for him: the poor guy was having a hard time wrestling that bike around the 20 mph corners.

The seat/bar arrangement on that heavy black bike forced him to ride with his arms straight out, elbows locked, limiting his ability to steer. But compounding his cornering problems was the stack of big black duffels he had bungeed to what I assumed was a luggage rack behind the (empty) passenger seat. I was close enough to see that each time he flopped the hog into a corner, the duffels would shift, causing a bobble that forced him to correct, which caused them to shift again. There are probably 30 switchbacks on that road; thankfully, he waved me past after a half dozen or so. It was painful to watch and I was glad to be in front of him.

A surprisingly large percentage of riders that I see pack this way. They pack big, loose bags, tents, sleeping bags, coolers and gas containers in a precarious pile, way out behind the axle and up high, then hold it all together with a hopeful but doomed combination of bungee cords and cargo nets. These loads compromise the bikes' stability and safety and violate the three rules of packing: light, tight and low. And they make riding stressful, when it should be relaxing.

I ran into the Harley rider later on in Cooke City, Montana. He was repacking his bike, treacherously stretching those deadly bungees to their limits and cursing. Ironically, I had ended up in Cooke City instead of Red Lodge because of my personal baggage.

The Chief Joseph Highway (Wyoming 269) runs about 50 miles from a few miles north of Cody, WY up to US212 just west of Beartooth Pass. It climbs from about 4000' near Cody to nearly 8000' at the 212 junction and leads you through a breathtaking mix of high plains and mountain terrain, all on curvaceous, well engineered but slightly winter-beaten roads. Traffic was light today, compromised only by a truck convoy of firefighters rushing to assist with a blaze near the Yellowstone gates.

Looking SE toward Cody from the east ridge on the Chief Joe.
(click on the image for a bigger version)
I had originally planned to ride the Chief Joe (as it's known locally) up to 212 and then cross Beartooth Pass to Red Lodge, where I'd pick up Montana 75 for a backroads amble up to the inevitable purgatory of I90. When I got to the Chief Joe / 212 junction I stopped for some water and a few Sour Patch candies. I had been standing there a few minutes, stretching, drinking water and scenery when a big gust of tired swept over me. I realized in an instant that I was exhausted, it was time to turn for home.

My kidney disease had caught up with me. With declining kidney function, I tire easily because my kidneys can't filter metabolic byproducts out of my blood. The byproducts build up in my tissues and, over time, I build up a good stock of "tired". The problem is worse in the heat, when hydration is critical but hard to manage because my body's fluid management system is compromised. I'd worn myself out on this ride.

And so I road to Cooke City, voted "the coolest small town in America" for 2012. Cooke City is always busy with bikers stopping to relive the excitement of Beartooth Pass over a cold one or grabbing grub before the ride through Yellowstone. Today was no exception and I had a large audience for my parking demonstration.

In my defence, Cooke City streets are a tough place to park a motorcycle. There's a kind of a ditch about eight feet wide between the sidewalk and the streets' edge, probably designed for drainage but whose practical use is as an entertainment venue.

This bike is hard to park in tight spaces: I can't turn the bars very far without hitting the tank bag with either the horn button (wheezy beep) or the starter button (horrid grinding crunch). So it took lots of duck waddling in constipated little arcs to get the bike lined up for the narrow slot between $60,000 worth of glistening baggers. To complicate this, at 7650' elevation, the R75 won't idle. In spite of trying to hold the stiff throttle steady while I wrangled the bars, I stalled twice. Traffic on the town's only street was starting to back up.

The final indignity was my closing act. To park in the "ditch", you let your bike roll gently backwards down into the low spot, stop gracefully and dismount. What I did was demonstrate to all the bikers that a 40 year old twin leading shoe drum front brake has almost no stopping power going backwards. I rolled right through the low spot, up the back slope and stopped by bashing the elegant Calafia tail trunk inelegantly into the restaurant's deck railing.

As I dismounted I shot the crowd my "I meant to do that" look, something I learned from a cat I used to have who regularly misjudged his attempts to jump onto my desk and ended up sliding across the desk, off the other edge, and back onto the floor.

The Beartooth Cafe lived up to its reputation for great food and, feeling a little less wrecked, I rode west toward Yellowstone.

I try to avoid Yellowstone in the busy part of the summer because it can often be one long traffic jam. The Wyoming trooper who'd pulled me over earlier had said that traffic was down this year and he was right. Once through the gates, there were only a few other cars (and surprisingly few bikes) on the narrow road. For long stretches, I felt like I had the park to myself.

Roadside Attraction, Yellowstone style.
Yellowstone's grandeur is legendary. There is so much nature, so close, on such a large scale that it is simultaneously humbling and exhilarating and peaceful. It was a beautiful ride across the north road out to Gardiner, generous compensation for the sadness of turning reluctantly for home. 

The north park gate at Gardiner.
Yellowstone was established in 1872.
It is the oldest national park in the world.




Milestones

Passing through Basin about an hour ago the old silver Beemer and I celebrated our milliversary: one thousand miles together. Basin was deserted so no one caught the celebratory, slightly wheezy horn honks that marked the occasion. ("install horn relay" added to list)

I thought of sharing the tidings with the state trooper who pulled me over a few miles later but we got so busy talking hockey (he's not impressed with the Canucks either) that I forgot to tell him and he forgot to write me up for riding with my headlight off. It was a fair trade. 

In Cody now for gas, coffee and free WiFi before tackling the Chief Joseph Highway and towering Beartooth Pass. 



Friday, June 29, 2012

Loyal Subjects

Half way between Buffalo and the crest of the Powder River Pass the tachometer decided to start its second career as a metronome. I made a mental note to add "overhaul speedometer" to the growing list of things that need fixing, replacing, adjusting, tuning. cleaning and polishing on this bike. It's a long list.

But the list length has nothing to do with this particular bike's age (old) or its mileage (low). In fact, every bike I've ever owned has had a similarly long list, from the day I buy it to the day I sell it. On the few occasions when I've bought a brand new bike, the list starts forming spontaneously in my head as soon as I sit on it to ride it home.

Truly passionate riders are indentured slaves to our bikes, pledging fealty, tithing way more than the requisite 10%, ritually sacrificing precious spare hours on the altar of our passion for motorcycling. We all have different reasons; I do it for trips like this, for the chance to rescue a fine motorcycle and bring it back to Sunday-go-to-meeting spiff.

I visited Devil's Tower today, something I've always wanted to do. I left Sturgis at 2:30, a very late start (again) and backtracked to Newell, then west to Belle Fourche. As soon as SD34 became WY24, the bikers' deity said "Let there be Curves". And it was good.

Good in a challenging way: the /5 really showed its age on those first few bumpy sweepers. The forks have less oil than a baked potato and the springs, after shouldering that Vetter since October 15 1975 (I have the receipt), were just too tired to care. The age-hardened Metzelers were bamboozled by the melted, slippery tar snakes and the back shocks just closed their eyes and held on. 

A healthy crank or six on the steering damper corralled the rubber cow and a bit of trailing brake tamed the obscene front end dive on turn in. We figured it out, that old bike and me, and actually had some drunken, stumbling, toe-stubbing fun on the first curves we'd seen in 700 miles.

I could see Devil's Tower from miles away and it looked just like it does in all the pictures. I stopped and took a picture:

To tell the truth, I was underwhelmed. And I'm still wondering why. It's a spectacle, to be sure. But it's just one in a never-ending diorama of wonders that we experience on rides like this one. There is so much profound beauty that I think I prefer the unsung vistas, the places that aren't National Monuments or Parks.

US16 westbound from Buffalo is an unsung treasure, a near-perfect mix of riders' roads and scenery that runs the spectrum from sweeping high plains panoramas to narrow, ochre-tinged box canyons glowing like campfire embers with the last rays of the setting sun.

What a ride today, what untold riches, my reward for being a lifelong faithful servant to this fickle and demanding two-wheeled monarchy.

Sturgis to Worland, 340 miles.

Quiet as a Churchmouse

Serendipitously all the Harley guys left at the same time as I wandered back from breakfast, which was also when a useable patch of shade had melted into a BMW-sized puddle under the Super8's entryway.

The first job was to drop the float bowls and see what surprises might be in there. Both bowls were clean and had a measured fuel depth of 24 mm. Darn near perfect! For now, I'll assume the left carb is dripping because it needs a new float needle. I may replace them in Cody. I'm averaging 52 mpg so I don't think the carbs need much tending.

With two float bowls worth of gas in my Super8 coffee cup parts washer, I started on the clutch throw out bearing.

To my relief, everything looked as it should: good coating of oil on the bearing and bearing face of the thrust piston, healthy seal on the piston, no signs of overheating or unusual wear.

Super Lube Silcone Grease:
Don't leave home without it!
I cleaned and lubricated everything, reassembled it and adjusted the clutch (again!). I've no idea why I was getting a squeak every third or fourth clutch engagement but at least now I'm not going to worry about the throw out bearing.

I'm next door to the Sturgis BMW dealer where I'll mooch a squirt of grease for the clutch arm zerk and buy a new cotter pin.

After a quick lunch I'll head to Cody via Devil's Tower.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

The Spam Museum

The scale of the Great Plains is overwhelming. Particularly west of the Missouri River, where towns - real towns, not just small knots of abandoned buildings with a name and a dot on the map - are 60 or more miles apart it's easy to get disoriented in all that space.

Aircraft cabins have silly little dividers and curtains not for privacy but for the psychological comfort they provide: past the curtain, beyond the great divider there is somewhere to go; you are not trapped in a little aluminum tube 6 miles in the air.

There are no curtains marking county lines in the Dakotas: from some of the scenic overlooks you can see the horizon 30 miles away in all directions. Ironically, in all that space, it's easy to feel trapped, to feel there is no place to go that isn't the same as where you are right now.

It's also easy to obsess, to wonder what in the hell a sane person would be doing out here, really, really, REALLY in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE on a 40 year old motorcycle that hasn't seen a shop for 20 years, with the nearest motorcycle shop of any kind either 200 miles behind or 200 miles ahead. No towns for scores of miles, no state troopers to help in an emergency and no cell service. Just $200 worth of spare parts in the right saddle bag, a factory shop manual and about half the tools I'd need to fix anything serious. I have a lot of faith in these bikes, in this bike.

I've been riding US 212 west, a first for me. I've crossed the plains many times over the years, in both directions on Interstates and secondaries. I plan my trips for the US numbered highways and so 212 was the perfect choice westbound out of Lake Woebegone, MN.

I love the intimacy of the US roads as they tiptoe through the heart of each small town they serve. The shoulders are close by, the scenery close by, the smells and sounds close by. A perfect size of road for me and this R75/5. You'll never make great time but you'll have one.

But taking this road means that, once again, I've missed a visit to the Spam Museum. The Hormel company, makers of the original mystery meat in a can, has a museum in Austin, MN, right there off I90. I've always wanted to stop there, to see the kitsch for myself but each time I've been on I90 at the Austin exit, the museum has been closed. And this time, it was just too far south. Adieu, until we meat again.

As compensation, I did experience Madison, MN which proudly bills itself "The Lutefisk Capital of America". They didn't have T-shirts. Or lutefisk which, from what I understand, is just as well. And I picked up the only map I've used so far on this trip in Madision, at the gas station. Navigating in the plains is easy: ride in whatever direction you're headed without turning until you run out of gas, then fill up and do it again until you get somewhere. No turns, no curves to confuse, really easy on the sidewalls of your tires, too. But there's nothing like the comfort of a good map:

A US212 detour.
Map (c) 2012, Gloria at the Sinclair C Store.
Three hundred sixty five starkly beautiful miles today, Watertown to Sturgis, where my BMW is conspicuously parked in the middle of a row of - c'mon do I have to tell you what brand? - other bikes at the Super8.

After breakfast tomorrow I have to take the clutch throw-out bearing out as it started squeaking timidly today. Always the optimist, I'm hoping to find a mouse in there.

Universal Metric Fence Post

I didn't leave Watertown until 2:30 but the steering head is now adjusted properly, along with the clutch, front brake, handlebar angle, lever positions and mirrors. This bike now fits me.

The steering head work was a co-op effort, involving me, the woman who looks after the Budget One and a foot long piece of broken fence rail scrounged from under what's left of the motel's fence. She held the front wheel while I smacked the short 36 mm wrench with the fence post.

The tool BMW forgot, in action.

Are you sure that's good?" she asked when I stopped. "Loose steering is no good!". I assured her it was just right and we retired to the shade of the laundry room where she returned to folding sheets and I scrubbed up.

I thanked her for her help and she gave me a couple of tattered facecloths from the rag bin. "To keep that beautiful motorcycle clean", she said.

I'm in Faulkton now, for gas and Gatorade, on the way to Sturgis for the night. Not as hot as yesterday but plenty warm. Sturgis might be possible tonight but I'll make that decision later.

Lined up at the pumps in Faulkton.

This Ain't Las Vegas, Darlin'!


Thus spake Laurie at the front desk when I asked her to call me a cab. "If you need a cab this morning, you should have ordered one last night", she explained, employing some advanced temporal logic pioneered by Stephen Hawking.

She did provide me with the numbers of three cab companies. Two were local, one of those was out of business and the other said he could have a car there in "an hour or two" but declined my business completely when he learned I only had to go a mile and half. "Not worth my time, sorry!".

So I walked. It was a liveable 80 degrees and the humidity at 10:00 in the morning wasn't bad. Across the parking lot, up the grassy slope to Woodbury Road, across four mostly deserted lanes, down the other slope, and into the Burger King for an OJ and a breakfast thing. Back up the slope and across the overpass, then a mile along rural Hudson Road I ambled, eating my breakfast, accompanied by a cloud of various butterflies, dragonflies and serenaded by prairie songbirds.It was quite beautiful.

The bike was in the center of the showroom floor and looked as good as a 39 year old motorcycle can look. The staff had the paperwork ready and all they had to do was have me sign for the keys. This is where things started to unravel a bit - no one could find the keys to the bike. Much increasingly frantic searching ensued, and no keys. Finally, I offered to draw a picture of a BMW /5 key. All three staffers looked at me like I was insulting their intelligence, offering to draw a picture of a key fer chrissakes, but I explained and drew and suddenly "Oh, that's what those are!" and I had my keys.

The BMW "plunger" key. In use since the 50's.
An aerodynamic wonder in ultra-modern Bakelite. 
I'd made a checklist to work from for inspecting the bike, an antidote to my usual blind euphoria at the excitement of a new motorcycle (this is exactly like dating!) and went over the bike thoroughly. It all checked out. Even the inside of the tank was rust-free and clean, although there was not much fuel left. Enough, surely, to ride the 1.5 miles back to the gas station by my motel. I was out by .5 of a mile.

So I walked. By now it was much hotter, I was wearing black riding pants, a black T shirt, carrying a helmet and 2 gallons of gas in a $20 gas can.I slung the helmet over my right elbow and drank a large Gatorade as I walked. Every time I took a drink, the helmet whacked me in the ribs. Plus I was surrounded by insects and irritatingly noisy birds.

Eventually I checked out and started the 40 mile trek across Minneapolis to Charlie Johnson's BMW shop in Wyzata. Charlie triaged the bike and gave it a clean bill of health, too. It was reassuring to have an experienced BMW mechanic confirm my lust-clouded judgements. Although I had arranged to use a fellow BMW rider's garage to work on the bike, there really was nothing left to do so I headed west in the 95 degree heat, planning on Watertown, SD, about 200 miles away.

It took an hour or so to settle in with the bike, like learning to dance with someone new. We found our rhythm and I stopped stepping on her toes and we wandered across miles of Minnesota prairie in the oppressive heat. Vetter fairings are still the gold standard in weather protection but that was not an advantage in the stifling heat. The air behind that over-engineered mass of black plastic was dead still. I had to lean out past the side of the windshield or stand up on the pegs to get some air through my mesh jacked.

And the seat took some getting used to. It is a well-made custom seat built on the original seat pan. I've got a small butt and good thing, too, with this diminutive seat. Unfortunately I found after about an hour that I had a Windjammer in front of me and a nutjammer under me. A roadside stop to make some - ahem - adjustments and my disposition improved dramatically.

At 65 mph, this old BMW was silky smooth, the mirrors were still, crisp and clear and it was so quiet I could ride without ear plugs, enjoying the whirring of the valves, the characteristic mating song of the BMW air cooled twin. I was riding what was, 40 years ago, the finest touring motorcycle that money could buy: smooth, reliable, 300 mile range, fabulous weather protection and hard luggage. Things we take for granted today but back then, this bike set the standard. And, frankly, a lot of touring bikes sold today could take a few lessons from this ancient beemer. Maybe Laurie was right: if I'd wanted the perfect touring bike today, I should have ordered one in 1973.



Monday, June 25, 2012

Wow, I Thought He Was Dead!

While organizing and agonizing for another "buy-fly-ride home" motorcycle adventure that starts tomorrow at 04:00, I thought I'd dust off this blog as a way to keep my kin and kindred BMW riders apprised of my progress.

I was, as our Brit friends say, gobsmacked (what a great expression!) to see that it's been over two years since I last posted. Where the heck has the time gone?

I love riding and I enjoy writing yet I've not written a word about motorcycling in a long time. I've never stopped riding and, although I'm riding less than I used to, I still enjoy it as much as I always have. But I've not written a word about it.

I suppose the scramble to make ends meet in this ongoing recession/economic crisis/slowdown/whatever has left little energy for enthusing over a keyboard. My kidney disease is progressing as it inevitably does, leaving me tired sooner, with little energy at the end of the day. But still, it's been over two years! Wow.

So here's the short version: Felina, my lovely R1150RT that was my original muse in the blogosphere is now living in northern BC. Sadly, her 610 lb mass just got to be too much for me to wrestle with at the end of a riding day. Her replacement is "Dixie", an incredibly beautiful 2003 BMW R1150RS that I bought in Asheville NC last June and rode 5000 miles home. Dixie is lighter and quicker than Felina, covers ground almost as well and keeps me as warm and dry as I need to be in the cold rain. We've covered 13,000 miles in our first year together and this season hasn't even started yet.

Dixie, my 2003 R1150RS. I love this bike.

Over this past year I've restored a 1991 BMW K1, "Darth Vader". Our relationship was rocky from the start: a misrepresented eBay ad, a horrid wet, cold and stormy ride home, months of undoing wiring and mechanical messes inflicted by well-intentioned but unskilled previous owners and hundreds of hours of mechanical and cosmetic restoration. In the end, I had a stunning piece of motorcycling history that was pure magic to ride. But I'd so tired of his company that his recent departure into the hands of a local collector was a relief. Very odd to feel this way, a first in over 40 years.

Darth Vader. May the Force be with you.

And tomorrow at 04:00 I'm off to Minneapolis to meet my new friend, a 1973 BMW R75/5 that I won in a charity auction last week. There was no planning, no months-long search for the perfect classic bike, this just kind of happened. An email from a fellow rider, a wander over to the crankyape.com auction site, a few bids and I'm on a plane tomorrow morning. This looks like a good reason to me:


My new best friend.
I know almost nothing about this bike, other than that it supposedly "starts right up and runs good". I've spoken to the man who has owned it for the past 37 years, storing it in his garage under a bed sheet when he wasn't riding it. I know it's been unridden for at least five years and last saw the inside of a shop in 1990(!). It's got just 22,000 miles on it and was the 17th-to-last of its kind ever produced, leaving the BMW factory on July 28, 1973, the day production of the /5 series ended.

This isn't a Grand Adventure but it'll certainly be an adventure! As the airhead flies, it's 1800 miles from Minneapolis to Vancouver. Knowing the odd way these old bikes handle, I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't end up riding half that again. (For those unfamiliar with BMW flat twins, the torque reaction of those engines tends to turn the bikes onto every passing back road. It's part of their charm.)

Hopefully, this won't turn out like The Chicken Yard Toaster purchase a few years ago. But, heck, even if it does, it'll be fun! Bookmark this blog and be my riding partner over the next week or so!