Flat, and a trip
Fun fun fun. Picked up a flat on the way home the Thursday before a biz trip. Shiite.
Riding home on 1604 (pretty heavily traveled six-lane highway here), cruising along in the left lane at about 75, when I hear this really wierd clattering noise… like a 2x4 banging against the side of a pickup or something. Said a quick prayer that it was the truck in the number two lane and started paying REAL close attention to how the Battlewagon was handling.
Passed the truck… shiite, still the same noise at the same volume. Bike still handling normally.
Gun it up to about 80 to get ahead of a soccer mom in an SUV and get over into the right lane… STILL the same noise. Crap, better get off the road. Start to slow down, signal, soccer mom behaves herself and drops back a bit. I rode a Sporty for 13 years, and had a flat on it in traffic, so with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I recognize the same handling with the Battlewagon now (2003 FLHT). Ass end starts wallowing a little, drifting from side to side… kinda like riding thru a mud flat.
Training kicks in… NEVER EVER touch the brakes on a flat tire. The brake pads will grab the rotor just fine… slow the wheel down just fine… unfortunately, the wheel and the tire are no longer such close friends, and the tire will do it’s best to part company with the wheel and with you. This does unfortunate things to your state of verticality, and you will cartwheel down the freeway real pretty.
Soccer mom behaves herself and slows with me as I drift off the side of the road, coasting to a stop. Thanks number one to the man upstairs. I shut the battlewagon down, and climb off, slowly and patiently taking off my helmet and goggles. Amazing what 10 operations on your right leg will teach you about patience… but that’s another story, covered on another blog. Ask me about it sometime.
Hang the helmet on the bars and take stock. Yup, rear rim is damn near on the ground. Shiite. I’m about a quarter mile short of one of the busier exits on my side of town… just past the end of a guardrail, and about 20 feet downstream of a large concrete pylon, providing shelter from any idiot who might nail the bike, and providing shade from the Texas sun. Thanks number two to the main upstairs.
Call the wife on the cell. Daughter has a choir recital tonight… let her know I might or might not make it home. Assure her I’m unbroken and the battlewagon is mostly ok.
Call Alamo Harley. Chick who answers sends me back to service; I talk to some guy back there and tell him I’m stuck on the side of the road near 1604 and Bandera. He says ok; we say goodbye.
Sit there for damn near an hour. Call back… they say we were cut off (bullshit) and they don’t have anyone who can help out. Thanks a lot. They shuck me off to the other local dealer, Javelina, where I bought the bike. They can’t help either, but at least they offer to send a tow truck and to stay open until I get there. Cool on their part, but just about then, Dad upstairs smiles on me yet once again.
Guy stops on the shoulder in his white Duallie. Asks if I need help… I’m hesitant at first (what a hassle) but after I tell the guy about both Harley shops blowing me off, he won’t take no for an answer. Turns out he rides a Heritage Softail (go figure). He has both straps and a trailer, and tells me to hang out (like I’m going anywhere?) while he collects them.
His straps are at home outside Helotes (about a 20 minute drive minimum), and the trailer is at work, near the Airport. Damn… that’s about 40 minutes *at least* in the other direction, and it’s rush hour now. He won’t give up, though, so off he goes.
‘Bout an hour or so later, here he comes. Bigass white pickup, towing a trailer, with his four-way flashers on, and assholes are *still* honking at him as he pulls over for me. He’s got a huge 4′ wide ramp, so riding the Battlewagon onto the trailer is no problem at all, even with the flat. He straps her down tight, and off we go when a hole in traffic opens up.
On the way home, he tells me his story. He was riding up near Buffalo NY once and just plain ran out of gas. Sitting on the side of the road, and up comes a semi… a loaded semi. Trucker stops, finds out what’s up, and says to stay put (like he was going anywhere?) hehe.
Trucker drives about 10 miles to the next truck stop, buys a gas can and fills it with about a gallon of gas, drives 20 miles to the next exit, turns around, drives about 20 *more* miles back to get turned around again, then pulls over and gasses up this guy. He says, “you take off first; I’ll follow you to the truck stop to make sure you make it ok”.
Dude figures he’ll buy the trucker lunch as thanks… not gonna happen. As they approach the truck stop exit, trucker blasts his air horn a coupla times and drives off into the distance.
As my buddy drops me off at my driveway, I try to get his full name, cell phone number, address… anything. He says nope, have a nice day… and drives off into the distance. I get the bike up on the lift ($99 Sears Craftsman lift, best purchase I ever made for either bike that didn’t bolt onto ‘em) to keep the tire from getting deformed, strap it down to make sure it’s stable, and let it sit. I would drop a link to the lift here, but sears.com isn’t real link-friendly. Go there and do a search on “lift”, you’ll find it. Runs around 90-100 bucks.
Brotherhood is cool. And yes, I made my daughter’s hoohah.
So the next Sunday, off I go to Denver. Install trip; comms and equipment are in place. Got the site up and running with a minimum of hassle and help from home base; thanks go to my coworkers and the man upstairs yet once again.
Get back Friday night. Take it easy Saturday… unpacking and so on. Today (Sunday) I get a spray bottle and find the hole; luckily it’s in the tread, and even though it looked like it was a half-inch across, a little probing with the hole cleaner from the tubeless flat kit showed it was just a single hole. Reamed the sucker out, punched in the gooey rope crap, and bingo.. it holds air. Pumped it up to 40 pounds… we’ll see what it reads tomorrow, and if it’s still good, then we’ll drop it off the lift and see what it reads the next day. Paranoid? Hell yes, the shop is about 40 miles away, and take my word for it, flats at 75mph are No Fun. And I *really* don’t feel like ripping the rear wheel off the battlewagon, lift or no lift. Did that once on the Sporty in Korea, where there were no bike shops that had ever seen anything larger than a 125, and it was an all-day exercise that softened the asphalt for about 20 feet around me with all the choice words flowing.
Did I mention that the flat kit, and a small air compressor kit, are going to live in one of my saddlebags from now on?
On the bright side, the Battlewagon is just short of her 5000 mile checkup, so if the gooey rope crap holds (and everything I can Google up tells me if it held right away, it’ll probably hold for a few thousand miles), I’ll just ride her up to Javelina and have them do the service and replace the rear tire at the same time. Patches are all well and good, but I’m not so broke that I can’t afford a new tire, and besides, crashing hurts. I know, and so do my right leg (10 operations), my left wrist (inch long screw), and my right shoulder (I have *almost* all my range of motion back…). Ask me about em sometime… again, that’s another story on another blog.
