I wake up early as hell to head to the auto parts place. I notice a sweet KTM supermoto chillin' in the parking lot and take this as a good sign. The guy behind the counter, who owns the SM, says they don't have any o-rings like what I need and he knows that Oreilly's next door doesn't either. He says he'll drive me down to Napa to see if they have it. Steve is one cool mofo! I hope he joins too!
Thank god, Napa has 'em! I only need two but buy four cause I'm not real confident that I won't fuck it up again. We get back, I install the new o-rings, put it some gas, and success! It was a huge morale booster that I no longer had shit leaking out of my bike... even though it still ran like ass.
We gather up our shit, eat Sonic breakfast (noticing a bunch of seedy looking motherfuckers that could have probably gotten us drugs had they been there the night before... damnit.), and we hit the road.
Limping, surging, sputtering, shitting... We make it to Hays KS and to the Harley Buell dealer... And of course, it's Monday so they're closed. I notice a couple of cars in the parking lot, but cannot see anybody inside. We get gas across the street, taking time out to get blessed by a Christian biker guy, and I head back over to the dealer while Drewpy checks out this Mongolian BBQ place...
As I pull into the parking lot the beat up truck out front is pulling out. I wave the guy down and ask him if he works at the dealer. Turns out he is a customer and just picked up a new bike that morning and was returning for his truck. He told me the owner's name and said I should look him up.
411 is my friend...
I call the number 411 provided and the owner's wife picks up the phone. She empathizes with my situation, but unfortunately her husband... and 'all of the other guys' went out for a long ride for the day... And of course, they (and everything else out there) is in BFE with no cell service. Damnit.
She says she'll call me back and sure enough, by the time I make it to the Mongloidian BBQ place, I have a voicemail. 'Can't get a hold of them, but I remembered my nephew didn't go with them... he's not answering, but I'll drive by his house.' Awesome.
Four heaping plates later (Drewpy's fat ass had like 6 plates), another call. Success! We are to meet them at the dealer in a half hour.
We chug on over to the dealer and camp out on the front step in the shade. We are there BS'ing for minute when a guy pounds on the window from the inside and motions around back. We pull around back and into their service entrance.
After unloading my shit, my man Kyle puts my bike on his lift. Through various BS'ing and whatnot (Kyle owns a Ducati and is a sportbiker all the way), he runs diagnostics on the bike and it's throwing like four error codes... engine temp sensor, exhaust valve sensor, O2 sensor and some other shit...
First thing's first, we put spec plugs into the bike (just to make sure) and put a new engine temp sensor... Well, that did nothing. We start noting the TPS seemed ok and after scratching our heads (and asses) for a minute, I get on the horn with Al from American Sportbike. He helps narrow it down for us considerably, "If it's throwing multiple codes either your ECM is shot, or more likely you've got an issue in the wire loom."
While Kyle's busy at work, Drewpy and I check out the 1125R they have as a demo bike in the back... pretty nifty. We also noted a turbocharged V-Rod and some rat bike chopper that was half built and rocked a 200 tire on the front. They also had this gnarley dirt tracker that looked mean as hell too. Neat shit.
We run through some numbers that my bike is throwing per his instructions and figure out that my AFV (average fuel value) is 149. "Holy crap, that's a record!" Not exactly the response I was hoping for from Al.
We try a new ECM, which helped, but without reseting the old ECM there was no way to know for sure. So we put the old ECM back in, reset the AFV and the TPS, and I test rode it. I noticed the bike was lacking in power, as it didn't want to lift the front tire through hard accelleration. Oh well, at least it's running better now... for now.
Approximately 6 hours from the time we pulled the bike into the shop, we hit the road again. Just like before, almost immediately on the highway, the bike starts running like ass. Motherfucker, I should have just bought that ECM... Screw it... onto Colorado Springs.
Hammering as best I could through Kansas my gas mileage continues to suffer. We were barely making it to the exits that had gas and I'm pretty sure we just got lucky a couple times. Unfortunately our luck was short lived as I noted we passed a cop going the opposite way... The good news is, we had slowed down. The bad news is, we were still doing 87 when the cop clocked us.
Now, I saw the cop when we passed him, but my mirror (note that it's singular) sucked balls and I couldn't see shit out of... therefore I didn't exactly see Drewpy get pulled over. I just noticed he wasn't around any more... Turning around I see DP pulled over about a half mile back... so of course, I pull over too (do the crime, do the time... my days of running from police are over). They putt up to meet me... then it hits me...
My bike has no title. I have no insurance (none needed in FL btw). My bike is technically not registered since I crashed it.
I immediately dismount and stand in front of my plate so the cop cannot run it. He exits the car and asks for my license and insurance. Florida license, Ohio insurance... doesn't even look twice. He goes back to the car. This is like the 3rd time I am thinking my trip is over... the first time I am expecting my shit to get impounded though.
Dude gets out of the car, has Drewpy sign his ticket, and approaches me... "so you were thinkin' about running were you?" 'No sir, my mirror just sucks.' "Let me take a look at your license plate real quick." *SHIT*
He jots down my plate number on the ticket and has me sign it. Drewpy's pleas for mercy go on deaf ears... and we head to the gas station. Really dodged a bullet with that one... First time I think I've ever been happy to get a ticket.
As we progress down the road my bike's health continues to decay beneath me. We finally arrive in Liman, CO and I make the decision that we cannot risk going any further... Hell, it's midnight and the rest of the way to Colorado Springs is via backroads.
We sit outside the gas station and opine about what our options are. This was the first time that I noticed Drewpy being noticeably frustrated with the situation. I tried to keep it light, but I could tell that he was not a happy camper.
All seemed to subside once we got a little gas station nurishment into our gullets. We talked to a couple who were heading to Colorado Springs and DP had the idea to have them follow us, but at that point I didn't want to fuck up anyone else's journey... so we played with their weiner dog and let them leave.
We did a fair amount of dicking off and BS'ing at that gas station... with some people watching too. Some chick went inside wearing some little shorts and a t-shirt... came out in jeans and a different t-shirt... it was Clark Kent into Superman fast... which was sorta funny.
The biggest source of humor were these two guys in a pickup truck... They had all these tarps and shit in the back, and were fucking around with stuff underneath them... being very secretive, sneaky like. At that very moment, a car pulls in with it's belts hissing and squeeling... DP perks right up and says, "what the hell is that, a mobile snake pit?" We both kinda look at eachother realizing how retarded that was and completely lost it. Hey, when you're that tired, that burnt out, and half stupid to begin with... shit like that is HILARIOUS. It really helped ease the tension that was brewing.
The decision was made and luckily we were right across the street from another shitball hotel (not nearly as shitty as the last one though). We ask for a room on the first floor close to the door... the little asian lady says, "no, no, you here" pointing to the map of the hotel. Of course that means "stuipd fat lazy Americans, you sleep upstairs far away from the door." Literally, the furthest room away from the front door. Bitch.