| Author | Message | ||
     Reepicheep |
So here I sit, half a mile from my new uly, which is propped up in a ditch. At 5:30, I was staring stupidly at a flat rear tire, in the middle of nowhere, with no cell coverage at all. By 6:15, three buellers (four if you count my wife) were working out the rescue plan, while I sit here with no voice coverage, but a Internet connection). Current "bueller rescue team on site" ETA is 7 pm, and the tire rescue plan for tomorrow is already formulated. Buellers are amazing. More updates, but not for a while, as this message is using my last 20 or so electrons... | ||
| F_skinner |
Reepicheep, I am glad you had someone that was able to help. Buellers are the best from my experience as well. Provide an update when you get the chance.. Frank | ||
| Prior |
Reep is at the Prior Ranch safe and sound, beer is cold, burgers are about to go on the grill and then we'll tackle the bike. Welcome to NC! | ||
| Court |
Amazing ..... As usual. Always amazing. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Tires are good. Tires, beer, cigars, and life changing friends are VERY good | ||
| Prior |
Bike is fixed, beer have been drank, ceegars are gone... Off to bed, will be meeting Sir Ferris in Meadows of Dan in the morning for breakfast. Great visit, Reep. Thanks!!! | ||
| Jerry_haughton |
Reep, Denise and I were glad to be a part of the rescue network with Prior and Kristi. It was cool to hear the stress dissolve from Shelly's voice when I told her we had help on the way. We'll see you guys up in Meadows of Dan - welcome back to the Blue Ridge Parkway. :-):-) FB&D | ||
| Reepicheep |
Like most great adventures... it started as an ill conceived idea. I'd spent a few months lurking on eBay and Craigslist watching prices for Ulys and XB12X's, and was watching some heart breakingly good deals fly by. Then Ben, my oldest, says he would much rather have us take him to school then ride the bus. The timing works great, I would just have to leave a little early for work, school is right on my way... But wait. I ride to work any time the temps are above about 35 degrees and the chance of rain is less then 30 percent. And sometimes more. That won't do... I don't want to take Ben to school in the Saab, drive back, get the bike, then drive to work. And the XB9SX is insanely fun when you are headed to a knife fight in a phone booth, but it aint the bike for Dad with a laptop in a backpack, and a big (and getting bigger) every day junior high kid with his own backpack. The solution, as they say, was obvious.   So I get a little more serious. I see a black 2009 for sale in Florida on eBay and start the "ill conceived" part of the math. Buy it, fly down, check it over, and ride it back to Ohio. It was an 09 with the updated oiling system, and was in pristine shape, but had 20k miles. No biggie on a Uly, but enough to scare off the faint of heart. No luggage though... So I start bidding, taking it up to "serious offers only please" territory (in this case about $4600). The auction is within a day of closing, and I do one more pass on Badweb for deals I might have missed in daily browsing. Uh oh. I did miss one. Toby has a bike in North Carolina. It's a nice bike. It has luggage. Its an 08, so its the older oiling system, but that's still a better oiling system then was in my 05 9sx, which is working perfectly at 30k miles. And *that* was a better oiling system then my M2 had, which was working perfectly at 30k miles when I sold it. Newer is better, but the 08 system with the new pinion gear is "more then good enough"... certainly not worth passing up a good deal over. So I call Toby, who turns out to be a nice guy, and make him an offer that I am pretty sure would be the winning bid for the Florida Uly. That bike is a year newer, but Toby has the side bags and 10k less miles. We reach terms, and the ill conceived idea suddenly turns into a full fledged adventure. Originally I was planning on waiting a week to arrange the trip, but I start looking at my work schedule, and the next weekend was going to be a bad time to take a 3 day weekend because of some important work meetings. And Ben is headed for space camp, and is excited but stressed about taking a week away from home, and we want to be there for each other. So I look at *this* weekends schedule. Keep in mind, this was Wed afternoon. Huh. Friday only has two meetings, both organized by a friend who is a fellow motorcyclist (VStrom owner who wishes he had bought a Uly instead). He'll understand. Crap. Now what. I have 48 hours to plan a flight, figure out a way home, and organize logistics. So I do what anyone would do, and call Ulywife. I knew Oldog lived in NC, but didn't recall where. NC is a big state. Kristi pointed out that Jim was in Wilmington. Which is where the bike was. About 15 minutes from his house in fact. I love it when a plan comes together! One call to Jim asking about emergency logistical support if I found anything with the bike that needed tools to address before riding it home, naturally, turned into "Hell no your not staying in a Hotel... if you are in Wilmington you are staying with me!". So I do the important things first... and go buy cigars. Oh, then I better book a flight. For tomorrow. That could get ugly... and this was the "no turning back" point where I get a non refundable ticket. One last set of calls to make sure the "have to happen" bits will happen, and I go online and.... SCORE! $260 (which really means $300 after fees) for a one way flight from Dayton to Wilmington. Not cheap, but the Saab with a trailer would be using $150 to $200 in gas anyway. And Jim is saving me a $50 hotel room. And Ferris and Denise just invited me to stay half way back in Fancy gap... book that flight! So now I was committed . I flew down the next day... but because it was a flight, no tools came along. Good thing Jim had a full garage on the other end... that saves some headaches. Jim picks me up at the airport, and we meet Toby at the bank. He, and the teller, have the patience of saints... We talked about payment, and I was going to get a certified check, but Toby had just done this for a car and mentioned we can just go up to his bank with a personal check and they would verify the transfer right then. Great! I am running out of time to prepare for the trip, so not having to run up to my bank and get a certified check really helps. Well, the "real time" thing works... but you have to be at the payers bank, not the payee's bank. And my bank is now 720 miles away. Uh Oh We could have worked it out... I had personal checks with me, so I could have given him the check, he could have signed the title in front of me and got it notarized, given me a signed and notarized bill of sale, and held onto the title until the check cleared, but I ride the bike home immediately. I think that would have worked... I would have a bill of sale to prove he owes me a bike with that specific VIN, and I would have physical possession of the bike. But he would still have the title, so if the check doesn't clear, he can just shred the one he has signed over to me, claim lost title, and claim (rightfully) I stole the bike. Better then no plan, but for sure not the one everyone prefers. But the teller has an idea... my debit card is wired to the checking account, and that is an instant transfer. So we start that, but it has a hitch... turns out my bank (PNC) had two addresses for me... the main one that I live at now... but when they want to verify the transaction, it turns out the address they were looking for was the one I had when I opened the account... uh... 15 years ago. But of course they weren't telling us the address they wanted us to tell them... Uh oh. After the third guess, somebody (still not clear if it was VISA, who processes the transactions) or PNC, put a fraud alert on the account and locked everything down. Uh oh. Suffice it to say that another two hours of polite persistance with an overheated IPhone and PNC customer support, and we finally diagnosed all the things wrong with the PNC IT infrastructure, and found that there was a stealth $5000 debit transfer ceiling, and got the fraud alert stopped and the debit transfer bumped up slightly to accommodate the transaction. Before I made every call to PNC, I stopped, took a deep breath, and thought "what would Court do". Sure enough, 3 hours after we started... but 1 hour before the bank closed, we had finally done the deal. Next time I'll just bring a certified check or cash, live and learn. The bike, it turns out, is in fantastic shape, and Toby and it's original owner really took care of it. We get back to Jims, we unpack, and take a 40 mile loop for a shakedown ride. I notice a few minor things to address immediately, and a few things to verify, and a few things to fix when I get back home, and we go back to Jims and I start messing with the bike while Jim makes dinner...  The bike needed new pads (they could wait, I'll just pretend I have ABS until then  ) and that rear Scorpion Sync was bald down the middle... I looked at it and thought "that should get me home, but if it rains I'll be riding slow and as soon as I get home I'll be ordering a new one before the bike goes anywhere". If I was home, I would never have set off on a trip with a tire in that condition, but here I am, and it should make it home. Jim's garage is nicely stocked... with 3 generations of Buells, and a very nice No Mar tire changer.  Tools, tire changer, worn rear... you see where this is going, right? Well, trying to source a tire on Saturday morning will be a lot of hunting and searching, and I'll pay through the nose to get a Sync retail if I can even find one... so I take one more look at it, decide it'll make it, and we eat, drink, and tell stories...   We stay up too late, I drink Jim's beer, and we are up early the next morning and I pack while Jim makes breakfast. Ride to eat, eat to ride.  Pack up, say my thanks, and off on the adventure...   So if I started then, rode straight with no stops, I would be home at 11:30. Being used to adventure riding on an XB9SX, that makes me laugh out loud. But as the miles for the day keep stacking up on that Uly, it becomes more and more clear that not going that far in a day may be unwise, but its totally doable, and wouldn't even be that uncomfortable. Wow. But no time for that, I have an agenda involving steak, beer and good friends in Fancy Gap. I'm texting Alex who is pretty much on the way, and we are trying to figure out when we can hook up, sounds like he will be meeting us for breakfast. The bike (aside from rotors BADLY in need of Lyndall golds and a scorpion sync that isn't as round as it once was) is working perfectly. The miles just keep stacking up, the bike and gear are doing everything beautifully, the scenery and route is fantastic, the temperatures are perfect... all is good. Pop. What the heck was that? That was pretty loud. One thousand one.. one thousand two... one thousand five... hey... that back end feels a little squirrely. I didn't see any oil spots or gravel. Odd that. One thousand 8... one thousand 9... next turn... Crap. It all comes together in absolute clarity and in it's entirety in a millisecond. The bike has a hole in the rear tire. Been there, done that, just don't do anything stupid and get the bike safely stopped and off the road where you can deal with it first. You have about 45 seconds from start to finish to work it out and get the bike stopped... not long, but an plenty of time if you are aware and thinking. Before the bike is even stopped I'm laughing. I generally pack full tools and patch kit on the bike, but I flew here, and didn't need to give the TSA x-ray folks a heart attack. It's all home on the 9sx sitting in my garage. I am, according to the GPS, in the middle of freaking nowhere. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&q=36.550227,-80.229902\+(568-906\+Salem\+Hwy,\+Stuart,\+VA\+24171,\+USA)&ie=UTF8&ll=36.550227,-80.229902&spn=0.003835,0.009645&t=h&z=17 Precisely the Center of Nowhere No cell coverage, not even SMS. I am 30 minutes from Ferris, and 40 minutes past Alex, and no idea how I can get hold of either of them. I can deal with this. I'll have to get somewhere that I can get a patch kit, get air in the tire, crawl to FB&D's, and start tire hunting in the morning. Then I look at the tire... It's not a hole, it's a pair of holes. And now that the tire is flat, I discover that when the tread is gone from a Scorpion Sync, well, the tire is gone. Until you have seen it, you wouldn't believe how thin the carcass is... paper thin is no exaggeration. That ain't gonna patch. So I walk up to the nearest house, ask if I can throw my gear on their back porch while I walk up to the gas station, and they kindly drive me up there. The gas station owner was a young guy working the counter trying to survive the recsssion... nice guy. I still have no cell phone or SMS coverage... but he has a Visa machine, and Visa made him get a DSL connection last year. And there is a wireless internet connection for it... he gives me the code, and I can now use the IPhone to send email, but not make calls. But wait! I have google voice... which is.. well... complicated... but bottom line is that I can send SMS (phone text) messages from an internet browser (which the IPhone has). So the emails start, the SMS messages start, and both my wife and Kristi get ahold of Alex, Ferris, and Denise and relay him my location and situation. They formulate a plan (Alex is further, but has the garage with more tools and parts), so he is the designated rescue party. So fortunately for me, he gets the call. Unfortunately for him, it was right before dinner.  So here we are at the post that started the thread... Alex rolls up to the shop, I say my thank you's to the guy that gave me a data connection, and we go load up the bike.   We get back to Alex's, he fires up the grill, and we start planning. He got a set of spare rims for his M2 from Fireman Jim and put them on (nicer color), and his orignal rims and tires were in the closet (with the tire left over from his ride for Matt... with Newfoundland dirt still on it!) Score! It's a D205 instead of a Scorpion Sync, and its a 170 instead of a 180, and it has the typical dunlop flat center that you get when you take long trips on 'em. But they have plenty of tread, they are not in use on anyones bike at the moment, and they can be mounted this evening so I am ready to go again in the morning. Perfecto! That sorted, we break for dinner (now at like 9 pm... Alex and Heather were saints for letting me trash their evening plans and giving me a place to crash). Dinner was great, and they had all the necessities covered...  Dinner was great!   (As a side note, for as ugly as us Buellers seem to be, we sure attract amazing significant others', something I'll never understand...) People talk about the no mar bead breaker versus the Harbor Freight unit. The Harbor Freight unit works well enough for me, but I think I now prefer the "Alex" bead breaker. I can sit there and drink beer while it is breaking the bead, which is a pretty nice feature. Not sure where you can get them outside of NC though...  Alex showed me a neat trick to put a floor jack on the back of the exhaust can, jack it up while still on the side stand, and the rear wheel comes off just fine. You have to keep your head about it, but it never got wobbly and worked great. Good to keep in mind... if on the road all you need is a scissors jack, a couple of allen head sockets, and a big adjustable wrench with the factory axle bolt tool... and you can get that rear wheel off easy.  So now Alex and I could get on to more important things.  Both Uly's happy and ready to go...  Watch out for that fertilizer spreader, it would be easy for a guy to kick it over when he is all geared up the next morning. We stay up way too late catching up, as God intended, over the tailgate of a pickup truck. Somehow, most of Alex's beer disappeared. I could try and blame Heather, but I doubt anyone would buy it. Funny how it's always easy to get up in the morning for an adventure.  Mental note... Uly's handle like crap with the wrong tire with the wrong size with the wrong profile. You get this little death wobble when you lean into a turn... that always goes away... but you never really believe that it will until you really commit to the turn. Takes a lot of the fun out of riding in the mountains. We rode about an hour to meet FB&D for breakfast, and said our goodbyes there.  Ferris graciously escorted me the "pretty way" all the way to WV, and pointed the bike home.  Thanks to all for a fantastic adventure! With good friends and good attitudes, the blown tire actually ended up to be one of the most fun parts of the trip. Life can be like that any time we decide we want it to be... (Message edited by reepicheep on April 03, 2010) (Message edited by reepicheep on April 03, 2010) | ||
| Jb2 |
Cool story Reep. Even cooler friends! | ||
| Reepicheep |
No kidding! What'd you get me into here Jim? | ||
| F_skinner |
Reepicheep, thank you as well as Alex, FB and Jim. You guys have no idea how much I needed that read. I have been doing some thinking and there is really only one type of Bueller and the rest just ride Buells. I think you were with some of the best Buellers out there. I really need to get back to NC. Frank | ||
| Jerry_haughton |
Reep, what JB2 said. Congrats on the new wheels. Glad we got to visit a bit on your way thru. FB&D  Reep, Prior & Denise  Ride, Reep, ride! (Message edited by jerry_haughton on April 04, 2010) | ||
| Ulywife |
Buellers are the best! So glad things worked out and you got home safe and sound. Hope you and the family are enjoying your new Uly. Maybe we'll see you this summer when we're in Cincinnati. | ||
| Court |
That is SOOOOOOO cool! Talk about an All-Star cast! | ||
| Reepicheep |
Frank... what are you doing memorial day weekend? | ||
| F_skinner |
Reep, we have no plans as of yet. My email is f_skinner at yahoo dot com and is the best way to get a hold of me. If you need a place to stay or anything else you got it. You coming out to Colorado???? | ||
| Reepicheep |
No, I'm luring you to north carolina | ||
| F_skinner |
Ha, I do need to get back if just to visit family and look up some of the best Buellers in the world... The C3 group has been very good to me and I have had the honor of having dinner with them and having two of them at the house after a ride up to Pikes Peak. | ||
| Denisea |
Reep - Now THAT'S an adventure and happy to be a part, albeit teeny, of it. Maybe you make it to the Ridge Dome in May. Beer, steaks, ceegars, beer will be awaiting... Hear that Frank? | ||
| Reepicheep |
Hmmm... the 9sx is going to get refreshed and sold. But the "sold date" is a fuzzy deadline. And I think I have Shelly talked into coming along for Memorial day in Franklin, so it is in my interest to trailer up. So I *could* show up there with an extra bike again this year... and instead of a charming but beat up KLR-250, it would be an 05 XB9SX... | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Great story... unexpected adventures are seldom fun when you are having them but they make the best stories.... but I think your unexpected adventure turned out to be fun... Glad it all turned out. | ||
| Ceejay |
and here I was reading elsewhere wondering, "when did Reep get a Uly?" and what do you know, found my answer. The little bolt of mine came from NC too via a marine, I went the certified route though so I didn't have as much fun as you guys did. Sounds like a trying time turned into a damn good show. Cool. | ||
| M2nc |
Man, now I wished I would have gone to Jim's house Friday night. I would not have made it until 7pm but had a brand new Uly tire in the truck. Well at least you were able to spend some time with Prior. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Would have been good to say hello if nothing else... At that point, I thought the tire had a little more life then it really did anyway, I don't know if I would have changed it anyway. | ||
| Jerry_haughton |
Reep, for the record: I am 30 minutes from Ferris... You were stuck a good hour, maybe hour and a half, from me 'n D. Meadows of Dan, where we all met for breakfast the following morning, is 25 miles up the Parkway from us. At 45 mph, that puts MOD more than 30 minutes away. From there it's prolly another 30 minutes down the mountain to Stuart, and then who knows how long to wherever you were broke down. I reasoned that by the time I found you you'd prolly be halfway back to Alex's, and once I leave the house I lose cell service, so I'd have been out of phone contact while I searched. Just wanted to set the record straight on the "30 minutes" deal. Me 'n D certainly wanted to be physically involved in the rescue (and we were all set to put you up for the night - BBQ'd steaks, cigars and all the rest), but in the end it made more sense for us to sit tight and relay info back and forth between your wife, Kristi and Heather. Glad it all worked out. FB | ||
| Reepicheep |
I felt like many Buellers had my back, and appreciated the defense in depth! Thanks also for the nice ride back to the WV border the next day... Your just mad because I said you smell bad when you get laminated! http://www.badweatherbikers.com/cgibin/discus/show .cgi?tpc=290431&post=1848623#POST1848623 | ||
| Jerry_haughton |
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