Long day, short mileage
Jun. 27th, 2010 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI am in my bed. The one I left on Sunday morning, with the expectation I'd not see it until Sept.
I got up this morning, loaded the bike, tried to stand it up, so I could start it. Nothing doing. The angle of the parking lot was such that the extra leverage needed to counteract it was beyond me. Offloaded the luggage, moved the bike, reloaded the luggage (it not hard, just tedious). Took about five minutes, all told.
Point the bike north, and up the Cuesta Grade. As I was swinging down, headed for Santa Margarita and US 58, I glanced at the guages (I have fuel, trip odometer, speed, tachometer, and coolant temp) and saw 70 mph (indicated... the evidence implies I am usually traveling 5 MPH less than indicated), and 7,000 rpm. At 70, in 5th, I ought to be looking at about 5,500.
So I got onto 58, pulled into the shade and calledthe_ogre and talked about possibilities. I'd done some diagnostics, stopped the bike, restarted it, paid attention while getting from 101 to the shade, etc.
It seemed to be running normally. The sound, and feel, of the motor wasn't changed. At idle it said 2,400, but felt like the normal 1,100ish. Decided that heading to Bakersfield was probably safe.
When I got out of Santa Margarita, and hit the highway I was being told I had 7,000 rpm at 60. That gave me 1,500 rpm to play with. I gave the throttle a twist, and nothing happened. Nothing. Well, not nothing... the tach climbed.
While it didn't feel as if the bike was at 8,500 rpm, that's what it said. It, to be honest, felt more like 4,500-5,000.
So I turned around, headed to Tina's Diner (unless the lunches are better than the breakfasts, by a lot, don't go out of your way to stop there. Staff is friendly, but the food is mediocre diner, not good diner), and started making phone calls.
The problem was this. If I needed a shop, I was sidelined until at least Tuesday. If I needed a shop, I'd like one I could trust. I'm 180 miles away from my shop. My towing plan is really good shop of my choice, inside 100 miles. (BMW Motorcycle Owners of America 66 bucks a year). I called to see what the guesstimate is for an extra 80 miles. 3-5 a mile is the going range.
Oof. Probably cheaper to stay in SLO. Call someone else, do some more diagnostics. Decide the risk of hieing myself to someplace inside the hundred miles is probably safe.
So I get on the bike and head north. It's a very different feeling moving at 55. It's more deliberate; the curves are more... I don't now... glassy, they are in some way smoother. The real problem is that, for all it doesn't feel as if I am doing so much as 5,000 rpm, the bike is telling me I'm hitting 8,500. That's edging into the redline.
I get to Paso Robles, and I'm starting to overheat. I figure I can probably afford to stop the bike, and soak my cooling vest.
I pull into town, head up Spring, and see a gas station, which is when the bike conks out. Stalls, I pop the clutch and she restarts,and stalls. And won't restart. The engine cranks, but there is no spark.
I park it, and decide to center stand it, so I can better check on things (it's easier to most things on a bike when it's balanced, and stable). Remember the problem with getting the bike up, when I was leaving my hotel... yep, the bike went over. So I took all the gear off; which I'd thought about doing in Santa Margarita, and looked at the box on top of the battery. It, you see, has the ABS computer, and the fuel injection computer. Because so many odd things were going on with the throttle/engine speed, I thought that might have something to do with it.
It seems the locking clip had been incompletely attached the last time I did anything with the battery. The connector was not solidly on. I whacked it into place; and made sure the clip was fully engaged.
Bike in neutral, kickstand up, and hit the starter. "Vrooom!", and the tach reads 1,200.
I went and soaked the vest. I went and got some duct tape (it turns out I'd not packed it in the tool compartment). She acted just as she ought to act. I pondered Bakersfield. I decided prudence was the better course of action. Assuming that running for 15 miles on a bad mixture, and at odd rpm did nothing major to the bike is a reasonable assumption, but if it had, better to be heading toward a shop I know, than away from it.
I also, because I dropped the bike on it again, (I'd had a couple of tip overs) and the hard case on the right side came with a crack, wanted to fiberglass the damage. So I aimed north, and home; which is why I am writing this from my bed.
The cooling vest works. The roadside assistance package works. I have a better idea of how 100°F feels when the motor is hot, and the fairing is keeping a lot of the wind off of one. I know the desert is hot; because the crosswind from King City to Salinas would put paid to anyone who doesn't believe air is a liquid. It was slamming me like an army of renegade ten year old armed with pillows and told to beat on me. The world looked like really bad homemade videos, you know, the one where the guy hops up onto the hood of a moving car to film something.
It was a two-day shakedown cruise. Tomorrow I go to Bakersfield. If I'm feeling really brave, I'll head on to Mojave (when I used to pass through Mojave, on the way to Trona, almost 30 years ago, it was a whistle-stop. The pregnant silence of the desert night; with the unending sussurration of 18-wheelers heading to Vegas, and points east, with nothing but a couple of diners; one with a tacky tourist counter, and a liquor store.
But it's only an hour or so past Bakersfield, and that's an hour I don't have to spend the next day on the trip to Flagstaff.
We shall see how hot it is when I get to Bakersfield.
I got up this morning, loaded the bike, tried to stand it up, so I could start it. Nothing doing. The angle of the parking lot was such that the extra leverage needed to counteract it was beyond me. Offloaded the luggage, moved the bike, reloaded the luggage (it not hard, just tedious). Took about five minutes, all told.
Point the bike north, and up the Cuesta Grade. As I was swinging down, headed for Santa Margarita and US 58, I glanced at the guages (I have fuel, trip odometer, speed, tachometer, and coolant temp) and saw 70 mph (indicated... the evidence implies I am usually traveling 5 MPH less than indicated), and 7,000 rpm. At 70, in 5th, I ought to be looking at about 5,500.
So I got onto 58, pulled into the shade and called
the_ogre and talked about possibilities. I'd done some diagnostics, stopped the bike, restarted it, paid attention while getting from 101 to the shade, etc.It seemed to be running normally. The sound, and feel, of the motor wasn't changed. At idle it said 2,400, but felt like the normal 1,100ish. Decided that heading to Bakersfield was probably safe.
When I got out of Santa Margarita, and hit the highway I was being told I had 7,000 rpm at 60. That gave me 1,500 rpm to play with. I gave the throttle a twist, and nothing happened. Nothing. Well, not nothing... the tach climbed.
While it didn't feel as if the bike was at 8,500 rpm, that's what it said. It, to be honest, felt more like 4,500-5,000.
So I turned around, headed to Tina's Diner (unless the lunches are better than the breakfasts, by a lot, don't go out of your way to stop there. Staff is friendly, but the food is mediocre diner, not good diner), and started making phone calls.
The problem was this. If I needed a shop, I was sidelined until at least Tuesday. If I needed a shop, I'd like one I could trust. I'm 180 miles away from my shop. My towing plan is really good shop of my choice, inside 100 miles. (BMW Motorcycle Owners of America 66 bucks a year). I called to see what the guesstimate is for an extra 80 miles. 3-5 a mile is the going range.
Oof. Probably cheaper to stay in SLO. Call someone else, do some more diagnostics. Decide the risk of hieing myself to someplace inside the hundred miles is probably safe.
So I get on the bike and head north. It's a very different feeling moving at 55. It's more deliberate; the curves are more... I don't now... glassy, they are in some way smoother. The real problem is that, for all it doesn't feel as if I am doing so much as 5,000 rpm, the bike is telling me I'm hitting 8,500. That's edging into the redline.
I get to Paso Robles, and I'm starting to overheat. I figure I can probably afford to stop the bike, and soak my cooling vest.
I pull into town, head up Spring, and see a gas station, which is when the bike conks out. Stalls, I pop the clutch and she restarts,and stalls. And won't restart. The engine cranks, but there is no spark.
I park it, and decide to center stand it, so I can better check on things (it's easier to most things on a bike when it's balanced, and stable). Remember the problem with getting the bike up, when I was leaving my hotel... yep, the bike went over. So I took all the gear off; which I'd thought about doing in Santa Margarita, and looked at the box on top of the battery. It, you see, has the ABS computer, and the fuel injection computer. Because so many odd things were going on with the throttle/engine speed, I thought that might have something to do with it.
It seems the locking clip had been incompletely attached the last time I did anything with the battery. The connector was not solidly on. I whacked it into place; and made sure the clip was fully engaged.
Bike in neutral, kickstand up, and hit the starter. "Vrooom!", and the tach reads 1,200.
I went and soaked the vest. I went and got some duct tape (it turns out I'd not packed it in the tool compartment). She acted just as she ought to act. I pondered Bakersfield. I decided prudence was the better course of action. Assuming that running for 15 miles on a bad mixture, and at odd rpm did nothing major to the bike is a reasonable assumption, but if it had, better to be heading toward a shop I know, than away from it.
I also, because I dropped the bike on it again, (I'd had a couple of tip overs) and the hard case on the right side came with a crack, wanted to fiberglass the damage. So I aimed north, and home; which is why I am writing this from my bed.
The cooling vest works. The roadside assistance package works. I have a better idea of how 100°F feels when the motor is hot, and the fairing is keeping a lot of the wind off of one. I know the desert is hot; because the crosswind from King City to Salinas would put paid to anyone who doesn't believe air is a liquid. It was slamming me like an army of renegade ten year old armed with pillows and told to beat on me. The world looked like really bad homemade videos, you know, the one where the guy hops up onto the hood of a moving car to film something.
It was a two-day shakedown cruise. Tomorrow I go to Bakersfield. If I'm feeling really brave, I'll head on to Mojave (when I used to pass through Mojave, on the way to Trona, almost 30 years ago, it was a whistle-stop. The pregnant silence of the desert night; with the unending sussurration of 18-wheelers heading to Vegas, and points east, with nothing but a couple of diners; one with a tacky tourist counter, and a liquor store.
But it's only an hour or so past Bakersfield, and that's an hour I don't have to spend the next day on the trip to Flagstaff.
We shall see how hot it is when I get to Bakersfield.
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-02 01:24 am (UTC)No need to keep them stocked, and less wear and tear to deal with. They may have laid workers off too (no need to have them going to the rest stops to keep them in good order).
no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 07:48 pm (UTC)/cynicism:snark