Where was I...ahh yes; Friday night

The week had been long and I'd built up a bit of a thirst. There wasn't anything planned for the evening so I figured I'd see what Nelly was up to, since his commute home takes him almost directly past my house. A simple text to his phone (asking "Thirsty"?) elicited a quick response; my phone was ringing and he was curious where I wanted to meet up. We kicked around some options, finally settling on my suggestion of Beckett's, a townie bar located just outside of Walpole center. We agreed on a time, and with that; the plan was in place.

I wrapped up my things at work and was soon blasting home to drop my crap off and then head off to meet up. As I pulled in, I was greeted with an empty parking lot out front, and a full dumpster out back. The door was closed and there was no activity inside that I could discern. Well these aren't good signs... Dismounting, I tried the door and sure enough; locked up tight. Huh. Seems they've gone under.

I ambled back over to the bike and kicked around for a bit until Nelly (and his son) showed up. They got a chuckle out of my lack of awareness of what's going on in town, and then we decided to head off to the Eagle Broook Saloon, down the road a bit in Wrentham. And that's when our first indication of what was to come later, appeared. Nelly's bike wouldn't start. It sounded like the battery was dead, but Nelly assured me that his bike (the same bike he's been having all kinds of issues with this summer) had done this on a regular basis, and that it just wasn't quite warmed up yet (after having been ridding from Dedham, a half hour away??)

Anyway, the parking lot offered us two benefits; it was devoid of obstacles (cars), and was pitched at a decent enough angle to allow us to give him a good running push, allowing him to pop the clutch and start her up. He assured me this wasn't anything to be worried about, so we headed off to our destination.

Walking in to the crowded establishment, we luckily found a bar table and settled in with some coldies, and filled our belies with wings and nachos. Definitely not sticking to the diet tonight! After a bit, Nelly's son headed off, leaving just the two of us to our laughter and chatter.

When the night was beginning to wane, we settled up our tab and headed out to the bikes. And here is when it hit me; I should have had Nelly try starting his bike as soon as we'd parked, just to see if we'd have the same issue. Because if we had, it would have been much better to address the problem then, while we were fresh, rather than at the end of the night. When we weren't fresh.

So there we were, in a crowded parking lot, filled with cars and customers, trying to get enough speed up to jump it one more time. Well, there was no appreciable pitch to the parking lot, so our efforts yielded nothing but amused looks from the folks around us - including the officer who came around, doing a general patrol of the parking lot (she did ask us what was up, and when I told her what was indeed 'up', she chuckled and said to call them if we needed help).

Fortunately, Nelly noticed that at the rear of the parking lot, there was a raised, dirt area which had apparently been cleared for additional parking. The area itself was dirt, the road leading up to it was dirt, but it emptied out into the paved parking lot...kinda. There was a lot of dirt runoff, as well as gravel, but our options were quite limited. Ok, let's give it a shot. We grunted and groaned the bike up to the dirt area, turned it around, and took a breather. When we were ready to give it a try, I took the seat for this one, and off we went, with Nelly pushing. I got to the bottom of the dirt ramp and popped the clutch. The transmission grabbed, the rear tire locked...and the dirt gave way, leaving no traction at all. (I wasn't going very fast to begin with so there was no danger.) When I slowly skidded to a stop, I'd managed to leave quite a gouge in the dirt but beyond that; nothing of value. We looked at each other, each took a side of the bike, and began the slow push up the hill again.

After our second breather (and while discussing the options of going left or right at the bottom of the hill, to try and achieve better traction), we commnenced with our second attempt. I was at the helm again, and waited longer to pop the clutch, hoping to clear all the dirt this time. I succeeded in that, but there was still so much loose gravel, that the outcome was the same. The rear tire locked, the gravel prevented any real traction, and I slowly skidded to a stop atop a still-dead bike.

After once again bringing the bike to the top of the dirt ramp, we took a fair amount of time in analyzing our options. To the left offered the appearance of cleaner pavement, but the right side was, by far, the less congested area. Screw it, we need pavement. It would be the left side.

Alas, our third attempt yielded the exact same results. No traction, no fire, no dice. Damn. Looks like the only option is to go get the Jeep and jump it. Which is what I did. And with the reliable souce of electrical power that comes with a running automobile's engine, Nelly's bike was soon purring again. We had a good laugh, and with instructions for him to let me know when he'd arrived home safely, we each headed off in our respective directions.

On my way back home, I was thinking back over the years, about how we've all had to bail each other out (and each other's bikes out) from time to time. And this led me to thinking of Russell. How many times up in Maine would Russell fire up the old bus to go retrieve one person or another who had stayed too long at one of the Labor Day paties, then ignored the good advice of staying over, and then gotten in over their heads on their way home. Be it a bike run off the road, a car flipped on it's side, or even a retard who fell into the firepit out back in the clearing. He was never unwilling to do what he could to help someone out that needed it.

When I got home, I cracked a beer, sat in a chair in my yard, and admired the night sky. Before too long, Nelly's "Home safe" text came in, so I was able to fully kick back and admire the show going on far above me. The moon shone exceptionally brightly as the clouds, with their tattered edges and varying thicknesses, floated from one side of my vision to another. It was a great ending to what had been an amusing evening.

I'm sure Russell got a kick out of watching it, too.

Ride Hard, Take Chances