If there is one thing I have been certain of, and it
has been my experience to be true, that you are going to have some sort of
breakdown along the road. Some you can
deal with and limp home without too much difficulty. Some will leave you stranded by the road and
unable to go any farther. Others will
make you scratch your head, and think before coming to the realization that “I
can fix this!” With the tools you carry
in your bags, and a little ingenuity you can ride home without too big of a
hassle.
This past weekend, a group of us went camping way up
in the mountains, about thirty miles from the nearest map dot of a little
town. Three of us suffered one of the
three types of breakdowns I mentioned earlier.
I broke a shock absorber mounting bolt on a hard pothole in the shade,
but was able to deal with it and ride the rest of the way home. Just being very careful and ginger with the
bike. My friend Chris experienced the second type of breakdown. His final drive belt snapped, and he had to
be hauled back out of the mountains.
Then there was my old friend and riding brother T. He experienced that third type of
breakdown. The type where a little
ingenuity and some basic items in the tool bag will keep you on the road.
We were up at a viewpoint southeast of Mt St Helens,
enjoying the beautiful sun shine and spectacular scenery alongside a truly
wonderful twisty mountains road. The
road was such a departure from the old, decrepit narrow roads we had been
riding on, that we were deciding to follow it to the other end in the Columbia
River Gorge town of Carson. Once there,
we’d refuel, both the bikes and ourselves, and ride back down this same road
before heading back to camp. Instead, as
we were about to get rolling, T’s clutch cable snapped at the lever and his
bike stalled.
Within a couple of minutes, a plan had been
conceived to at least limp it back to camp.
Using zip-ties and a small pair of vice grips to operate the clutch so T
could at least shift easier on the nearly 30 minute run back to camp where a
ore permanent solution could be thought of.
The zip-ties held the cable in place, and the vice grips held on to the
end of the cable tightly. When he needed
to shift, T just had to pull back on the vice grips to actuate the clutch. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked, so off we
rode. Luckily we were able to pull a
California stop at the intersection so T didn’t have to come to a dead stop and
start again. With no traffic coming I
just signaled everyone to just roll through and away we went.
Once back at camp, we gathered around T’s old Wide
Glide, and assessed the situation. The
set-up that he had kluged together worked.
It just looked like total shit.
So now it was a question of making it not look like an example of
hillbilly engineering. The plan was to
try and run the cable back up to where it attached to the clutch lever, but
with the vice grips in place of the lever.
T had to remove the circlip that held the lever in
place, and remove the lever. Then he had
to get all the available slack in the cable, and then replace the cable housing
back on the cable so it would fit into the lever bracket. That left only about a quarter inch of cable
coming out of the end of the housing.
But that was enough for the vice grips to clamp down on. Then it left the need to pull on the cable
enough to fit the vice grips into the lever mount snugly. Once it was in place, all T needed to do was
to reach out with his fingers and pull the vice grips back towards the handlebar
grip.
It worked, but the difficult part was starting or
coming to a complete stop without stalling the bike. To make it just a bit easier, T would get the
bike rolling before using the clutch to shift into 1st at take
off. When it came time to stop, he’d let
off on his throttle and reduce rpm until he could slide the tranny into
neutral.
When we broke camp and headed out, he was looking at
about a 100 mile trip over rough twisting, steep mountain roads before he got
home. Taking it easy, and not shifting
unless he had to, T made it home in a bit over two and a half hours.
It just goes to show what you can do if you don’t
panic. If you think about the situation
you find yourself in, and what your options are for getting out of it. That is also why I carry a saddlebag full of
tools and zip-ties. You never know what
a person may need out there in the middle of nowhere alongside the road. I hope this gives you something to think
about in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation.
Catch ya on the road sometime…
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