{"id":849,"date":"2010-03-24T19:20:49","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T23:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/?p=849"},"modified":"2010-05-03T09:23:17","modified_gmt":"2010-05-03T13:23:17","slug":"having-an-off-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/having-an-off-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Having an “off” day"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t like having an off day under most circumstances, but I really don’t like having one when I’m going to be riding my motorcycle. Whether I liked it or not, today was one of those days — when it just doesn\u2019t seem quite right from the time you get on the motorcycle.<\/p>\n

To start we were undecided as to whether we should leave today or wait until tomorrow to get to Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas. A front with a very strong line of thunderstorms was due to pass over the route we were going to travel and they were forecasting hail, possible tornadic activity, and a lot of lightening. If we waited until the next day they were forecasting high winds which aren’t a lot of fun on a motorcycle. Hence the indecision. We decided to go and hoped to be stopped before the front went through.<\/p>\n

I headed out to meet Dave and\u00a0 couldn\u2019t even get out of my little town. They were trimming trees and had the road closed for the work. I got past that only that only to get on the frontage road and find the entrance to the highway closed for\u00a0 construction. Okay.<\/p>\n

I ended up running short of time and showed up with no gas \u2013 which I found a little embarrassing since I try to show up for rides ready to roll. Made a quick fuel stop and we got on our way.\u00a0 We barely got on the highway and Dave comes to a screaming stop on the left shoulder \u2013 he got on the brakes so hard I thought I was going to hit him attempting to stop behind him and ended up having to stop next to him with traffic hurtling by too close for comfort. He\u2019d forgotten to fasten his helmet strap. Like I said \u2013 nothing felt quite right and not what I would call an auspicious beginning.<\/p>\n

On the way through the mid cities and Fort Worth there was more debris on the road than I have ever seen before, but traffic was good and we got on 377 to head toward Brady.<\/p>\n

We made a quick lunch stop in Granbury where I attempted to do a reset and get my day going in a better way. This was greatly assisted by the sun coming out.<\/p>\n

I thought I had successfully made an attitude adjustment right up to the moment in Brownwood when my motorcycle did a slight hesitation and then completely died and would not restart. Fortunately I was able to pull off into small parking area so I didn’t have to push the motorcycle off the road.<\/p>\n

Part of my off day had been forgetting to reset my trip odometer when I got gas. I knew the fuel light had come on a few miles before it died and on the chance the fuel sensor was bad Dave walked down and bought some gas. While he did that I called the BMW dealer where I had purchased my motorcycle to see if there were any problems with restarting a fuel injected motorcycle after running out of gas. They said no and to call back if it didn’t restart.<\/p>\n

It didn’t restart.<\/p>\n

I called back and asked for what to check to diagnose the problem. This request was met with prompt and complete rejection. They insisted I call to have the motorcycle towed. So when faced with the choice of helping a customer solve the problem and be able to continue on with their trip, their choice was to protect the BMW income stream and get the motorcycle towed.<\/p>\n

I had three responses to that. I didn’t want to ruin my riding buddy’s day. I didn’t want to ruin my riding buddy’s trip. And I definitely didn’t want admit to defeat and give up. I kept my responses to myself and hung up on the guy.<\/p>\n

I immediately jumped on the self doubt band wagon since I had done some pretty serious maintenance to the motorcycle myself a week and a half earlier. On top of that a parting comment when I left the tech day was that I may have been sold the wrong spark plugs (which I had installed) and that I may need to add some caps to make the posts that seat into the coils a little larger.<\/p>\n

So my first impulse is the spark plugs were failing because I had not checked the spark plugs — the bike had been running great and all the plastic, the snorkel, airbox, and maybe even the battery have to come out just to get to the tops of the spark plugs. So instead of doing this in the comfort of my garage I end up tearing the bike apart to check them in a parking lot along 377.<\/p>\n

While I’m working on this several guys stop to see if we need help. I had gotten down the spark plugs by that point and they pitched in by checking to see if they sparked. Nothing. So why no spark. We started checking fuses and the 15 amp fuse was blown. One of the gentlemen had fuses in his stuck (so I didn’t have to dig those out) and gave me a replacement and 2 spares.<\/p>\n

The bike fired right up.<\/p>\n

So I’m excited — then I look ahead and see serious storm clouds moving in and I realize the temperature is dropping. I reassemble the motorcycle in record time with assistance from the guys who stopped, give them quick hugs of gratitude, and suit up just as the rain starts.<\/p>\n

We bailed on making it to Brady and rode a short distance to motel in Brownwood. We got under the drive through cover for the office just as it started raining in earnest.<\/p>\n

So what did I learn from this experience?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. If someone tells me something may be screwed up check it out in my garage before leaving a on trip since this is a heck of a lot better than doing it on the side of the road.<\/li>\n
  2. Don’t call the dealer. They just want you to give up and go home. Call knowledgeable friends who can give you suggestions, but don’t even bother to call the dealer until you truly have given up.<\/li>\n
  3. I have now had my motorcycle quit running two times while on the road and both times I have been blown away but the warmth, kindness, and helpfulness of people who stop. We get too many lessons that people aren’t great. How wonderful it is to get one about how truly great people can be.<\/li>\n
  4. When I get home I’m going to post on the F650 forum asking what to check when you have a stopped motorcycle. I know when it won’t start it’s either spark, air, or fuel — how do you check for failures with all three? I’m going to type that list up and store it somewhere on the motorcycle.<\/li>\n
  5. Having an “off” day is okay as long as everything turns out fine — which it most definitely did.<\/li>\n
  6. Last, but not least — ALWAYS start with the simplest solution first. I can’t believe I tore my motorcycle apart when all it needed was a new fuse.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I don’t like having an off day under most circumstances, but I really don’t like having one when I’m going to be riding my motorcycle. Whether I liked it or not, today was one of those days — when it just doesn\u2019t seem quite right from the time you get on the motorcycle. To start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,5],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motorcycle-maintenance","category-trip_reporting","tag-big-bend"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}