Topic: bad karma

[mrbreeze]

I see the need for a new topic.......items lost on the road....failed parts....total foocn disaster!!!!!! ......etc.!!!
I'll go first......520 miles..... Everything good all the way over the pass to Nevada............now my throttle grip decides to ungrip from the throttle sleeve. Its very cold so I have my fat winter gloves on. Not only are these gloves not keeping my hands warm but I am having to squeeze the livin' sh!t outa the throttle to make it function!!! I lost my Kerker badge offa my exhaust can......my Yamaha hand control decided to not let me turn my headlight off like it used to...........gotta say though..............it ran great all the way through.
Anymore tales of misery on the road???

[seanbarney41]

hey Mr. Breeze, I heard from a guy that if you call Kerker up, and tell 'em about it...they are real nice about sending out a brand new Kerker badge ...I think Kerker is owned by another exhaust company though...

[mrbreeze]

I'll be giving that a try!!!! Thanks for the info Sean.

[Alan F.]

one easy trick for the unstuck grip is to twist a screwdriver between the grip and the sleeve, it tightens the grip up enough so that you don't have to squeeze too hard.

Supertrapp owns them and they still sell the Kerker pipes in chrome only for sohc 750's, http://www.supertrapp.com/product_sections/cat.asp?CatID=17

$819 though...

[mrbreeze]

one easy trick for the unstuck grip is to twist a screwdriver between the grip and the sleeve, it tightens the grip up enough so that you don't have to squeeze too hard.

Supertrapp owns them and they still sell the Kerker pipes in chrome only for sohc 750's, http://www.supertrapp.com/product_sections/cat.asp?CatID=17

$819 though...

Thats a great idea with the screwdriver Alan!!! So where were you when I was going through that misery??? I'll remember that for in the future!!! Yeah....the Kerkers are nice but not $800 nice!!! I bought one for my old Kawi 900Z1 back in the late 80's and it was $325!!!!........how things have changed!!!

[RatRacer]

I dumped my bike near the tip of Michigan's lower peninsula.  The only things I broke that weren't going to get re-worked this winter were a foot peg and a big dent in my tank.  I've got a fair bit of road-rash and a sprained ankle, but I was still able to carry Godzilla across the Mackinaw Bridge and into the UP which was what I set out to do in the first place.

Am I the first casualty of The Relay or are there other riders that need to fess up??

[Kinch]

Glad you're ok RatRacer.

Both of these happened in total of just about 30 miles:

Started out for a friend's house and as soon as I hit the freeway my right rear-view mirror flies off, turning to dust on the road behind me  .

Stop at my friend's, watch the boxing, head out for another friend's and half-way there my headlight beam starts flailing all over the place....one of the *&@# headlight mounting bolts flew loose    . Stupid.

So I limped home with no right mirror and a headlight held on with duct-tape.

[mrbreeze]

Aaaaahaa!!......Now we got the ball rollin'! Sorry to hear of your get off there Rat Racer but glad you are OK and were able to participate in the fun. I have to believe that there were other breakdowns,parts lost, etc. but I sure hope that we don't have anymore get offs. Those aren't cool! So anyone breakdown,drop a part or 3 on the road...............trash a chain? (sorry Matt!!....I just had to!!!! )........even if you had a bulb burn out its something to talk about!!!

[OldSchool_IsCool]

Non-SOHC4 bike, but had the mounts for my sidecar come loose causing me to end the second phase of the planned relay earlier than planned.... Sigh

[Jerry Rxman Griffin aka MuthaF'er]

I dumped my bike near the tip of Michigan's lower peninsula.  The only things I broke that weren't going to get re-worked this winter were a foot peg and a big dent in my tank.  I've got a fair bit of road-rash and a sprained ankle, but I was still able to carry Godzilla across the Mackinaw Bridge and into the UP which was what I set out to do in the first place.

Am I the first casualty of The Relay or are there other riders that need to fess up??

BUSTED!!  Uh, that might have been me. Just west of our Oakley, KS overnight I hit some pea gravel left over from winter (they remove it in Colorado) as we were very slowly and carefully (for that very reason!) turning into a rest area and the front wheel went the opposite direction it was supposed to. Scratched up windshield, bent shifter and a gouge out of my elbow and my new SOHC4 shirt. Elbows heal, shirts don't   

[mrbreeze]

I heard that about the T shirts Jerry. I've had things happen back in the younger days (scuffles ,brew-haws, etc.) where there might have been some blood drawn or scars made and people would be all "are you OK?". I would have blood runnin' down my arm or something and say 'Damn, I just bought this shirt and it's wasted!!!!"........Wounds heal and T shirts don't.............well said!!!!

[Kinch]

I also once had a side-cover fly off on the freeway. I was doing about 75 in the fast lane so I figured it was toast.

I searched the internet all night for a replacement that wouldn't cost a fortune but to be sure there wasn't a chance of saving it I rode by the spot where I had lost the cover the next day. It was sitting up against the freeway divider and looked intact. I took a couple swings by the spot to make sure I wouldn't be endangering my life and on the 3rd pass, pulled off on the freeway shoulder, dropped the sidecover into my jacket and quickly got back into the fast lane when no cars were coming.

Got it home and checked it out, not so much as a crack. Just a couple scuffs on the bottom.

Put it back on the bike (tightly!) and it hasn't moved since.

[Alan F.]

Somewhere in Vermont back in June Cupcake's center-stand was coming loose, not quite sure why but we all pulled over and he wrestled it loose of its spring and was able to tywrap it to the back of another rider's milk-crake equipped cargo rack for the duration of the ride.
That was the only mishap I saw in my relay miles. Although somewhere on the Kancamagus Highway the rider in front of me lost a water bottle on an 80mph sweeper, it was like trying to avoid an indecisive squirrel for what felt like ten seconds, but I caught some luck....it would have taken me out for sure. Oh just remembered that riding back south from the handoff to 73Nancy, Tree, Cupcake and I had a black bear come bounding out of the woods a car or two ahead of us. It spotted the highway in its path and screaming ,"OH CRAP!" turned tail and bounded back into the woods.

[Alan F.]

That same evening a few miles short of our destination Anders had some bad luck with the ignition switch contacts (I think thats what it was) on his K7, with some quick thinking and a few paperclips Cupcake and Anders were able to bypass the switch and get him to the evening's destination where a higher quality temporary repair was made in short order. Cary spares Gents, someone may need something eventually.

[Bankerdanny]

75 miles from Chicago Sean Barney's bike started to misfire badly, the run on 2 cylinders. We are trying to fix it now.

[Bankerdanny]

The problem started a few miles out of Milwaukee. Sean's bike began misfiring and had no power. He thought that it was a loose points wire, which had happened a couple days earlier, but he tightened it and it didn't help. Ultimately we limped the 75 miles to my home, tried a bunch of stuff and finally fixed it by swapping the 1-2 wires, plugs, points and condenser. It was the points that seemed to finally do the trick.

Sean and MJ are riding back to Kalamazoo tonight. I haven't received a call, so I am assuming all is well.

[skamagedon]

the night before my picking up GZ my headlight burns out. after some sherlocking i found my LH  high low beam switch had un soldered itself. so, new bulb, new homeade spare projector headlight and soldering the switch and i was good..... till i was 5 miles from the handoff point and my Sigma speedo reset itself somehow. it did it again leaving brookfield with ZV. not a huge deal as me and the bike are one, and it takes 5 seconds to make it read speed again.also, sitting at a stoplight the bike just died. might have been the power inverter i had connected.she started right up again.....just odd. otherwise it ran premo and great mileage...50+. ZanVooden was continuosly playing with his petcock, but it didnt seem to hurt anything, and my bike is loud enough he could hear me saying " stop playing with you pet...cock....more than 3 times and your playing with it!".