Murphy is dieing a slow death
After spending the day wiring and re-wiring all 3 bikes and trailers and deciding to leave the flatbed, Bert tried to start his bike to make sure he had not run the battery down. It started up just fine, but the idle kept getting higher and higher. Bert was pissed! He had spent around $2000 on this bike to fix this problem and get it looked over so it would be ready for this trip.
We were all hot and frustrated. Bert said to hell with it, he was going to fly to CT to see Johnny graduate and then just go back to Israel. Dad told him to take his bike and I offered him my bike. This trip started out as his graduation present to his son. I was heartbroken to not be going on the trip, but it was the right thing to do. Dad and Bert started getting the trailers matched to Dad’s bike and my bike. I walked off and wallowed in my self-pity for a bit. I didn’t want to cry in front of Bert. I didn’t want him to feel bad about taking my bike.
When I get myself under control I went back to see if there was anything I could do. Dad and Bert suggested that we all go. Four people on two bikes… it would be crowded, but we could do it. At first, I was resistant! If I couldn’t take my own bike, why go?! But as I thought about it I realized that I was being hard headed and I really didn’t want to miss this trip. When we went to bed that night, the 3 of us were going to finish wiring things up and get head north the next morning on the 2 bikes.
When we got up the next morning, we got my bike wired for the trailer. Bert started his bike and it still was idling high. He thought about it and decided that he would ride it any way. The thought was that if it would make it to CT, he could get it fixed there. We loaded the bikes, hooked to the trailers and headed north.
We rode out from the cabin with a great hope in our hearts that all the bad luck was behind us now and set our sights on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The ride was beautiful and exciting. In some places the sharp 25mph curves would make me nervous, but with each one I felt better and better. Not only was I getting over the fear caused from my accident, but it just seemed that everything was finally going to start going right. I think we all felt that way.
Because Bert’s bike was idling so high, he had to maintain a certain speed. Because I had laid my bike down just a month ago in a gravel filled curve, I was not comfortable with running his speed. So from time to time he would get far ahead of us and stop to wait for us to catch up. But finally we made it to the highest point on the Blue Ridge parkway and got a picture.
We hit some construction on our little detour down to South Carolina. Bert shut off his bike every time it looked like we were going to be stopped for any length of time. We made it to the NC/SC line, took our pictures, and rode back up to US64.
As the day went on, we started to realize that Bert’s bike might not make it to Putnam, CT. We had to jump it off twice. Once in the middle of a town at a stop light. (That was lots of fun!) While stopped, Dad put on his 4-ways and heard something pop. Now he had no turn signals on his bike or the trailer. We got Bert’s bike running and changed plans. Surly there was a Honda shop in Ashville, NC. We would ride US64 over to Ashville, grab a room for the night, find a Honda shop the next morning, get Dad’s bike fixed and carry on.
We jumped on US64 and hammered down, me in the lead, Dad’s second and Bert bringing up the rear. Bert was the only one that didn’t have a trailer and wasn’t having lighting problems. We were scooting along when all of the sudden I saw Bert make a right turn behind us. I knew what had happened… his bike had died again. Dad and I went down the road a bit. We found a place to turn around and Dad went back while I waited. When they didn’t show up in a few minuets, I rode back as well. They had tried to jump the bike off again and it just wouldn’t start. Bert was pissed and was cleaning the bike out. There was nothing we could do right then, so we might as well go on to Ashville, get a room and start again the next day. I found a place to turn around again, Bert hopped on the back of Dad’s bike and we set off to find a hotel room.
Tags: Blue Ridge Parkway, Harley, Honda, Motorcycles
