Over cast most of the day. The Super 8 motel was as super as Super 8 motels get. Bad JuJu day for Dave as he blew his low beam bulb, had starter issues and his rain gear zipper quit zipping. But once again we out-McGuiver'd McGuiver (ask your parents), and managed to prevail. I actually just replaced my headlight a couple weeks ago and just like cars, they do blow out. Motorcycles, like most cars these days run with the headlight on day and night. So every 12K miles or so you replace them. I noticed it gone this morning so we stopped in Clarksburg (we think) and got a coffee at he local McD's (actually great coffee and free wifi). Ex Boy Scout Dave carries a spare (Be Prepared!). We were the center of attention with the local guys who had bikes (and apparently no jobs) and once again the Vermont tags got their attention. One of them (I'll call him Buddy since we never got his name) was our instant best friend and regaled us with stories about his Honda motorcycle, home brew repairs, etc. He and the other 3 or 4 guys all knew each other and peppered us with questions. We finished our coffee and Buddy followed us out to check out the bikes and help replace the headlight. Well somehow a 3 minute job turned into and hour+ job. Buddy was getting tools from his truck and was actually very helpful. Long and short, the BMW headlight mount had a broken retaining thingie which meant we could not get it back together. Working down inside the handlebars is like doing a tonsillectomy with mittens on (I would imagine). This is when you ask the neighbors 7 year old to reach in and hold something because he has skinny little arms. So we gave up and Dave rode with the high beam on the rest of the day. We decided to cross West (god damn) Virginia on Rt 50 which goes directly east. Last spring we crossed it 50 miles south on Rt 33. Rt 50 was busy for an hour or so, but then was fairly empty the rest of the way. If you look at a topo map, this area looks like a dragon scraped trenches north to south so we spent the day climbing into and out of those trenches. We hit 3100 ft at one point and then plunged down into the next trench with truck brake check stations, 15 mph hairpin turns and then up the other side to the top of the next ridge. Lots of windmills (yea!), but like most everyplace we go in WV, a lot of tough luck looking hollows and towns. Quite a bit of logging here, but not much else. We did see gas drilling, but our new friends told us they do not hire West Virginians, but are all out of state. So the scare we had was that Dave's bike was not starting sometimes. We think it may be the kick stand switch but it could be he starter switch. A friend of ours had to replace the starter switch so stay tuned. We may start parking on hills just in case. We do not have a Starksboro straight hitch (piece of rope) so will have to watch it.
We looked up the headlight issue and it is a known problem with these. But we worked on it tonight and it is all good and Dave should have a nice new headlight tomorrow.
Nice fast smooth day with just an hour or so of very light rain. North tomorrow..
No comments:
Post a Comment