It was a mild Tuesday afternoon in northern CT. We had just been pounded with the freak October 30th snowstorm, and we were still without power 5 days later. But the weather was plenty warm enough, and the streets were dry, save a little snowmelt runoff. My buddy Josh had just bought a '73 CB750, and we had never been riding together. So he met me at my house and we hit the road. About two miles away from my place, I came to a stop sign, and then proceeded to accelerate through the intersection until my eye caught a massive orange/yellow flame coming from under the gas tank. I was only at around 5-10mph at that point so I hit the brakes, flicked the kill switch, and hopped off the bike. Out of instinct, I momentarily attempted to put the bike on its stand, but that thought only lasted a nanosecond. The flames were nearly engulfing the front half of the bike at that point. Fortunately, the human instinct: "keep large flames away from body" trumped the instinct to not drop my motorcycle. So although it felt unnatural and somewhat painful to do, I threw the bike down away from my body and took some quick steps backward. As that left handgrip departed from my hand for the last time, the moments it took gravity to pull the bike to its fiery resting place on the pavement seemed freakishly long as the hours upon hours of hard work I spent flashed before my eyes. My buddy Josh, who was riding behind me, had pulled his bike over some 60 feet away when he saw the first flames. I cautiously walked backwards in his direction, not really able to look away as the flames grew at an exponential rate. A line of cars had come to a stop, and one person shouted out his window that he had already called 911. The only thing we could do at that point was stand and watch. I think I muttered a few "are you kidding me?"'s, which seemed to echo back and forth between Josh and I every 20 seconds or so. After about two minutes, I managed to gather myself and think to snap a few photos on my iPhone of this inflaming intersection exhibition. After about 6 or 7 minutes, the fire trucks showed up and within seconds had the 15'-20' high ball of fire reduced back down to a chunk of brownish/gray steaming metal. As I answered a few questions to paramedics and police officers and signed a few papers, Josh took his bike home to grab his car and come back. Within a matter of 25 minutes, I had been carelessly cruising down a country road with my good buddy, and now I sat on a guardrail next to the steaming remnants of my very first bike as I awaited his return in a sedan.
I still can only speculate as to what happened. I had ridden this bike all summer and it was running fairly great. My friend said he saw a flame shoot out the left side of the bike while I was still at the stop sign before I had even noticed it myself. The petcock is on that side of the tank, so maybe the fuel line came loose? But even if there was a steady stream of fuel flowing out from the petcock, what would have sparked it?
All I know, is that I'm grateful to God that I'm alive and not even slightly burned. The bike could have caught fire at 55mph, at which point (because of the wind) I may not have noticed until the contents of the tank (which was completely full by the way) combusted with me still on the motorcycle.
Thanks to everyone who helped me over the last year get this bike going. It was a good run while it lasted.
What it looked like when I first bought it. No side covers, wrong tank color, really messed up electrical issues, for starters...
After a year of learning and work
late summer 2011 (the lame faux-hip look on my face was intended)
Are you kidding me?
Carbs straight up melted.
Farewell.
