Termite
12-05-2005, 03:44 PM
Hoovey spent his Saturday showing me how to adjust my valves. I really appreciated it and wanted to say thanks.
I also thought some of you would get a laugh out of what happened after I headed home. But first, for those of you south of Indy you may not know we had snow Saturday morning. I had loaded the bike up on Friday night and came out to find an inch of snow on it as I headed down to Scotland, IN to meet Hoovey. Everything got sloppy from there and got a lot of road salt on the bike. The following is pasted from the note I sent to Hoovey:
....The trip home was uneventful and I stopped in Crawfordsville to give the X a quick rinse off at a carwash. That was when the fun began!
When I got home I had trouble getting the bike off the trailer by myself (800#'s is hard to wrestle alone). So I finally turned the trailer around to get a little down hill angle and started to back off the trailer…that was when I found that the trailer bed was covered with a thin layer of ice…I did mention washing it didn’t I? Once I started going backwards I couldn’t stop and was going down the ramp when I pulled the front brake lever…back wheel got traction on the ramp (linked brakes) which started it moving backwards too. That's when the ramp fell away from the trailer and the three of us…me, the ramp and the X went straight down. :shock: It all happened in slow motion!! I couldn't believe it when it was all over that I was still standing straight up and never fell over. It was like dropping straight down 3 feet and landing like I intended to do it that way.
At that point I tried to start the bike to get it up my driveway… but all the buttons were frozen (car wash!!). I finally got them unstuck and…the battery was dead. I knew my step-son would be home soon so I decided to wait for his help. That was when the freezing rain started. I hooked up the Battery Tender, put the cover on the bike and headed inside to wait for help. When Charles got home we tried to push it up the drive but a quarter inch of ice made it impossible. I finally had to get the lawn tractor out, it has chains and a snowblower on for the winter, and we towed it up the drive into the garage. Success at last!!
Went out Sunday morning and the X started right up so all seems to be OK now. I'll get a new battery in the Spring since it appears to be on its last legs. The bike was built in '02 so the battery has a year of no use on it before I got it. Four years isn't bad in my experience for a battery....
Alls well that ends well I guess. I'm looking forward to seeing all that can make it to Bedford this Sunday.
Is it Spring yet??
Termite
I also thought some of you would get a laugh out of what happened after I headed home. But first, for those of you south of Indy you may not know we had snow Saturday morning. I had loaded the bike up on Friday night and came out to find an inch of snow on it as I headed down to Scotland, IN to meet Hoovey. Everything got sloppy from there and got a lot of road salt on the bike. The following is pasted from the note I sent to Hoovey:
....The trip home was uneventful and I stopped in Crawfordsville to give the X a quick rinse off at a carwash. That was when the fun began!
When I got home I had trouble getting the bike off the trailer by myself (800#'s is hard to wrestle alone). So I finally turned the trailer around to get a little down hill angle and started to back off the trailer…that was when I found that the trailer bed was covered with a thin layer of ice…I did mention washing it didn’t I? Once I started going backwards I couldn’t stop and was going down the ramp when I pulled the front brake lever…back wheel got traction on the ramp (linked brakes) which started it moving backwards too. That's when the ramp fell away from the trailer and the three of us…me, the ramp and the X went straight down. :shock: It all happened in slow motion!! I couldn't believe it when it was all over that I was still standing straight up and never fell over. It was like dropping straight down 3 feet and landing like I intended to do it that way.
At that point I tried to start the bike to get it up my driveway… but all the buttons were frozen (car wash!!). I finally got them unstuck and…the battery was dead. I knew my step-son would be home soon so I decided to wait for his help. That was when the freezing rain started. I hooked up the Battery Tender, put the cover on the bike and headed inside to wait for help. When Charles got home we tried to push it up the drive but a quarter inch of ice made it impossible. I finally had to get the lawn tractor out, it has chains and a snowblower on for the winter, and we towed it up the drive into the garage. Success at last!!
Went out Sunday morning and the X started right up so all seems to be OK now. I'll get a new battery in the Spring since it appears to be on its last legs. The bike was built in '02 so the battery has a year of no use on it before I got it. Four years isn't bad in my experience for a battery....
Alls well that ends well I guess. I'm looking forward to seeing all that can make it to Bedford this Sunday.
Is it Spring yet??
Termite