Long Road Ride....Yeah.....about that...

Some good, some bad. Okay, here's how it all went down. I hit the road at 0900 Friday the 11th of June. Cruised Provo Canyon, made fuel stops in Provo, Nephi, Fillmore, and was just outside of Beaver, UT when 'lil Sandy started missing. She sputtered and died. I pushed her under an overpass to shelter from oncoming rain, and found the battery dead as a stump. She ran on battery power alone for over 270 miles before she gave out. The charging system was shot. I'm a long way from home, and a fer stretch from a bike shop. I called up a tow service, and was flat-bedded clear over to St. George, UT. The HD dealer there wouldn't even look at the bike. While it is an "Evo" style engine, there is NOTHING HD on this bike. I can understand HD's reluctance to perform repairs. Still that's one "F HD" tick mark in my book. The shop foreman directed me to a custom shop about 5 miles down the road, and the tow-driver was happy to get me there.

So far, my expenses are $305 for the tow.

The folks at St. George V-Twin started to work checking my charging system with a multi-meter. Trouble was isolated to my stator, and voltage regulator. Dave and his son went to work taking apart my primary drive to get at the stator, and ran into problems. The plate connecting the engine drive shave to the transmission would not budge. It was getting late in the day, so I called Charles and told him I'll be staying in St. George for the night. He was in Mesquite and managed to get himself upgraded to a suite. Dick. The boys at V-Twin worked late into the night to get me running again. The next morning, 'lil Sandy was off the lift and ready to roll. $530.

I met Chuck at a nearby Chevron late that morning. We exchanged greetings, gassed up, and headed North back to Evanston, retracing my route down. It was awesome having a riding partner. I put my breakdown behind me and a smile on my face as we BRAAAAAAAAP-ed down the interstate. Dark clouds loomed ahead of us, and according to forecasts, we were in for some weather. Between Cedar City and Beaver, it hit us. Hard. We slowed to about 55-60 as we ran through 2" of water on the road, trying to stay in the wake troughs of the cars ahead of us. Visibility went to about 20' as we were pelted by heavy rain. Then came the hail. It was pea-sized stuff, and came down in sheets. That shit hurts at 60 Mph, but we rode on through it. Once through the storm, we pulled over at a rest stop to assess any damage. We stopped our bikes and looked at each other, wide-eyed and laughing our asses off.

Once we settled down, we mounted up and got back on the road. We stopped in Beaver for fuel and food. Charles got his obligatory picture in front of the giant rocking chair outside the Chevron. After a hot meal, and hot coffee, we braved the elements and hit the interstate again. While we did get a little wet further down the road, it was nowhere near the deluge we experienced earlier. Just South of Nephi, I hit the worst stretch of road I've ever experienced. BA-DUMP, BA-DUMP, BA-DUMP, BA-DUMP, for nearly 20 miles. It was like riding over speed bumps at 70 Mph. I was getting the shit knocked out of me on my hard-tailed bobber. To make matters worse, this pounding broke my sissy bar. Snapped it clean between the fender mount and tail-light tab. I hit bad roads again in Provo and going through the canyon. I found myself holding the throttle with one hand, and reaching behind me, clutching the sissy bar with the other to try and minimize the abuse the fender was getting.

When we hit I-80, we slipped back into our cruising groove. Charles and I rode side by side for a while, meshing the thrumming of our engines, grinning like fat cats. It was getting late, and getting COLD. We didn't realize it at the time, but temps got down to about 38* ambient. Add 70Mph of speed and we froze our asses off. By the time we pulled into my garage at about 2130, we were hypothermic. We shivered and recounted our trip for about 40 minutes until our core temps got closer to normal. We later sat down to pickled eggs and PBRs. YUM. At 2242 my cell phone rang....

My platoon SGT was calling to inform me that our unit has been activated for flood control in Riverton, WY. WTF. "I'm on vacation", "you fucked yourself by answering your phone" said the voice on the other end. I must have ranted and cursed the next two days straight. After Charles and I rode over 800 miles, I've got to send him home because my dumb ass didn't turn off my phone during my vacation. SHIT. I didn't have to report to the local armory until Monday, so we made the best of our time. I gave Charles the nickel tour of Evanston, and I cooked up a prime rib I'd been aging for the last 8 days. We got our drink on, I farted like a wild man, and we watched "The Harbortown Bobber", and a couple Choppahead biker videos. Good F'n times.

Yeah, it sucked having to suit up Monday morning, and instruct Charles on how to enter/lock-up the house on his own, but the events of the past 3 days was awesome. Would I do it again, HELL YEAH. Glad you made it out Chuckles, thanks for a memorable ride.

Next time, I'm turning off my daggone phone.