We hit the road a bit ahead of schedule on Wednesday afternoon and things were looking good. We’d seen all the thunderstorm warnings on the weather stations but were keeping our fingers crossed that we’d be able to duck and weave our way through them with minor issue.
We sailed out of Mass, through RI and into CT without any problems. The weather was hot but the bikes were humming along and all was good in the world…despite those clouds moving in from the north.
As we hit Hartord, those clouds that had been encroaching upon us, began to let loose their contents. We pulled over and geared up, for we’d been prepared for just such an event. What we hadn’t expected was the accompanying tornado that came along for the ride, but more on that later.The temps quickly dropped, the winds were hurling leaves and branches all over the place and the rain was hammering us pretty good. We decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to pull off, gas up and get some food while the mess above us settled down a bit.
We found a subshop that had an overhang in front, so we pulled in and set the kickstands. The lightning was coming down all around us, and as we were gearing down, we noticed one of the transformers across the street was on fire. We made for the cameras but not in time, as it blew up with a huge bang. Instantly, half the town lost their power, but the subshop was on the lucky side of the electric run, and thankfully still had juice. We ordered our grub, enjoyed a casual eating pace and waited for things to quiet down. When things looked reasonably calm, we headed back out to the highway, unaware of what was coming.
Things turned bad quickly, with more lightning all around, sudden air bursts out of nowhere, torrential rain – even a tree had blown down into the highway. (As we were carefully making our way around it, another one blew down next to it. Hey, this isn’t what we signed up for!)
A bit further, I pulled over to make sure Zig was able to see ok. Getting the green light from him, we moved back out into the highway. Suddenly my engine started to bog down and I tried to assess what was happening, but nothing obvioius jumped out at me. The engine was about to die so I clutched in to try and keep it running. Unfortunately, what was happening was that my front brakes were deploying for an as-yet-undetermined reason and that’s why the bike was bogging down. Also unfortunately; with my engine now disengaged, the brakes were free to stop the bike. Immediately. Zig was on my tail and unable to avoid colliding with me and we both went down.
Jumping up, we managed to get the bikes dragged over to the breakdown lane before anyone ran us over. Assessing the damage, Zig’s front fender was punched into his tire, his directionals were a mess, and one of his rotors was broken. For my part of the bargain, I had a messed up rear fender, tail light bar, saddle bags and bag rails. All in all, though, things could have been much worse.
It took a long time get off the highway to a safe resting spot and then find a destination; the nearest HD dealership ( 11 miles away). But before we could head there, we had to get Zig’s bike into rolling condition, and that meant losing the offending fender, as well as removing the caliper from the broken-rotor side, as it was dragging against the twisted rotor. Hmmm...how to get the caliper out of the way...
Good old duct tape to the rescue. Now about that fender...
Zig was pretty ticked off about the turn of events, understandably, but with a few stupid jokes, I managed to get a laugh out of him.
As luck would have it, there was a dumpster behind the building whose driveway we'd pulled into.
Bye bye, fender.
Here's a shot of mine. It doesn't look too bad in this shot, but there's a lot of work to be done in there.
We managed to make it to the dealership (well after closing time) so we found out where the nearest hotel was and made our way there, passing all sorts of damage and destruction left in the wake of the tornado. Arriving at the hotel, we found many locals were also checking in for the evening, as it seemed half the city was without power. We made our way to the room, changed into some dry clothes and made a beeline for the hotel bar. (This decision would have ramifications of its own.)
We bellied up to the bar, made friends with Rachel the bartender, and proceeded to empty their stocks of Bud Light. (Oh yeah; we also did a shot of Maker’s Mark as an homage to our original, but now failed, plan.) Once the Bud Lights were gone, we moved on to sample many other offerings, both beer and liquor themed. And amongst all this activity, we learned from our new friend Rachel, that there was a back door into the bar that was not locked after hours. Well now, that would make for a great pic for the blog, no? Being in the bar after hours? Sure, nothing could go wrong with that plan…
Needless to say, after we closed the bar, we headed back to the room for a brief period to let the hotel ease into the after-hours period. Once we felt comfortable that we’d have minimal observation, we proceeded back down to the lobby, wound our way through a series of unlocked doors, and hey, what do you know; we’re in the bar! Sweet! I handed the camera to Zig, grabbed a glass off the shelf, and proceeded to pour myself a beer from the tap. Smile for the camera! *Click!* Sweet, a pic for posterity! This will look great when I post it on the…hey, who’s that coming through the front door? Oh crap, it’s the night manager!
Apparently we surprised the night manager as much as the night manager surprised us, for she cried out “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?!?!?! “ I tried telling her that we were just goofing around, staging for a picture, but before I could even finish that sentence, she ran out the door yelling “I’M CALLING THE COPS!!!!”. Great. Ok, well let’s see where this night will wind up taking us.
I grabbed Zig and we walked up to the front desk (where the manager was just hanging up the phone from having placed said call to the local police force), and in my most diplomatic tone, I explained that we weren’t dangerous, that we were just staging a picture, but that in hindsight it was a very dumb thing to do. I said we certainly weren’t upset with her for calling the cops, that we understood she was just doing her job, and that we weren’t going to run, but instead that we’d just stay right there and wait for the cops to come and then we’d talk to them and then let things fall as they would. She calmed down a bit but still scolded us for ‘breaking in’ to the bar. When I explained that we hadn’t broken in, we’d just walked in through unlocked doors, she seemed surprised that it was that easy.
Soon after, the cops (three of them, in two cruisers) showed up and they weren’t very happy with us, what with being in the middle of dealing with all the headaches that come from having a tornado slice through your town. I believe the sergeant’s words were something along the lines of “Do you have any idea the kind of day I’ve had today, and now I’ve gotta put up with your bullshit?”. Again with the diplomatic tone, I walked them through what had happened, explaining that nothing was broken, we were just being very dumb and that we hoped they understood. Hell, we could even show them the picture that we’d taken if it would help them believe our story. (They had no interest in seeing the picture, instead; they asked if we happened to have the money on us to bail ourselves out if they took us down town (we didn’t). Long story short; they ran our info to see if we had any outstandings (we didn’t), told us to stop being dumb asses, and sent us on our way. Whew!
The next day dawned bright and early and we hit the dealership early so as to get a jump on their service dept. Well, their service dept said they had to get all the bikes from inside, brought outside, before they could help us. Ok, fair enough, I had no problem with that. What I did have a problem with was how they lined up bikes so closely to each other..right up until they reached our bikes. They left wide berths on either side. Hey guys, our bikes just have some body damage, it's not like they have leprosy. Jeez.
Oh well. Our main goal this morning was for them to replace the broken rotor on Zig’s bike, then we would make a determination about each bike’s rideability. Unfortunately, not only did they not have a rotor, but none of the dealerships in a 100 mile radius had one. We could have kept checking dealerships along our route towards Kentucky, but it didn’t make sense to try and travel any great distance, only to arrive some place that might or might not have the time/resources to get the rotor replaced with any kind of urgency. Hell, we might show up and then be told we had to wait another day before the rotor could be installed. So we discussed things and came to the conclusion that we should scrap the plan and head for home. Damn. Well, at least we were able to gimp our bikes back home without issue.
I swung mine by the local dealership today at lunch (yes, I went in to work today) to get a rough idea of time & cost to repair. Zoinks: 8-10 weeks for paint. Holy crap! Well, I talked a bit with the service guy and we came to the conclusion that since the bike was rideable, I might as well wait for the off season before bringing it in so that I didn’t miss any serious downtime.
I guess that’s my best option at this point, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed and see how the bike travels for now. Besides, I’ve got a trip coming up in August (annual Labor Day event) and if I put the bike in now, I won’t have it back in time for that. So for now; I wait.
Oh yeah; wanna see the pic from the bar? I figure after all the trouble we went through, I might as well show you that, right?
Was it worth it for all the trouble? Well, seeing as how we didn't wind up being arrested, then I would say the answer was yes.
And that wraps up the 2010 (Non)Kentucky trip. We only made it 130 miles from home before we crashed and burned. Certainly not what we were planning for, but what're ya gonna do. As the saying goes; at least we weren't hurt, and the bikes can be repaired. That's true and all, but it would have been really great to be in KY right now. Oh well. Nothing left to do now, but;
Ride Hard, Take Chances
