A Sad Goodbye to Bee

The problems with Bumblebee continued to get worse. When we arrived in Houston, we went straight to British USA so they could replace the fork seal that mysteriously started leaking again a month after I replaced it the first time. That plus a new front tire cost me $500.

Less than a month later, she began to have a starting problem, and in under 24 hours had stranded me in Pasadena. I had a passerby give me a push through a long parking lot to try to bump the engine, but after he nearly crashed me by pushing on one side of the bike, the engine wouldn't go. I had her towed ($180) up to Stubbs, who told me they didn't have the necessary diagnostic tools to troubleshoot her. Rogue picked me up and then brought me back with the jump-starting kit, and we limped her to British.

She was there for two weeks waiting for parts, and another $600 later we rode out with a new rectifier and stator. The auxiliary lights put on an obnoxious strobe show with the new hardware installed, and I returned to British and asked them to fix it. They poked around and announced that it was a loose connection. I said I could replace that myself, so I went home and replaced all the connections. The strobe show continued.

As long as I had her apart, I decided it was a good time to fix the gas leak, as well. I removed the tank and used JBWeld to epoxy every possible crevice, let it cure for the recommended 24 hours, and put her back together. Then I rode out to Bandera to go to a friend's wedding, and when I put the first full tank of gas in her, she started leaking again.

The oil leak was continuing in steady fashion, too. Every time the light came on I added a quart, and occasionally I wiped off the engine. Full Throttle had told me it was the valve cover gasket. And of course there was that mysterious case of metal shavings in the oil that I'd been ignoring since January...

I took her for an overdue oil change at Stubbs, and while I was there I inquired about a trade-in value. It wasn't quite time yet, but it would be good information to have.

The mechanic took his sweet time going over her, and when I got the report, it sounded like this: "Are you actually riding this? 'Cause we're concerned for your safety." Apparently all the seals in the engine were dried and cracking, and it was only a matter of time before she ejected all her oil.

I poked through the used bike lot and test drove a KLR650. It felt lazy, and the knobby dirt tires wouldn't lend themselves well to the kind of riding I do. "I don't love it," I told Justin, the salesman. "I want to love it."

I drove a Versys, Rogue's dream bike - it also felt sluggish, both in the throttle response and in the cornering. One round of the parking lot and I shook my head and put it back. On the showroom floor, I found a brand new 2015 black Honda NC700X. I'd done some reading on the CB500 and NC700 (sister styles of bike) and decided to take it for a spin.

It was on. I forced myself to park after several circles of the track-like area in the back of the parking lot. It was light, it was responsive, it was quiet, it was beautiful. They offered me $2500 on trade-in for Bee, Honda made a $700 down payment on my behalf from their "seasonal kick-starter" fund, and I signed my life over to Honda financing for the rest. This is how one goes in for an oil change comes out with a new motorcycle.

Bee on the left, unnamed NC700X in the front

I gave Bee a hug (and uninstalled a few accessories) before riding away. She was really fun while she lasted, and I'll miss the face-melting acceleration and high suspension. But I won't miss the constant problems.

Southward Bound, Redux

After Philadelphia, we made another quick visit to Rocky Raccoon in New Jersey. From there, the plan was to split up for a couple of days so Rogue could visit a friend in Pittsburgh while I headed south again. Her friend had invited me, but there are more cats in his house than my allergies could handle, so I opted for the woods.

I was removing the GPS mount to move it over to Zee when one of the shims fell into the bike and disappeared. It's a stupid little piece of plastic, but it makes the mount fit our 7/8" handlebars, so it's essential. I ended up disassembling Bee's right side in the hunt. Rogue eventually found it nestled among some cables, but not before I spotted something that made my heart sink: a leaking fork seal.

Those seals, as you may remember, took us most of a day to replace at the beginning of January, the day before we left. They're supposed to last for years. They worked for just about five weeks.

"What's the plan now?" Rogue asked as we put Bee back together and mounted the GPS to Zee.

"Same as it was," I said with a sigh, trying to convince myself not to say, Go the fuck home and call it all off.

One of two things happened with the fork seal: either there's a scratch in the fork leg, which would have to be new because they were pristine when we reassembled them, or I dropped a metal shaving into the fork. While screwing them back together, I caught the wrench on the top of the cylinder and sharpened it unintentionally (the cylinder, not the wrench). I thought I got the metal bits out, but it's entirely possible I missed one.

So Rogue headed off to Pittsburgh and I turned southward into Virginia. There's a campground in Strasburg called Elizabeth Furnace that I stayed in back in August, and I pointed us there. The bathhouse was closed for the season but dry camping was still allowed. The weather was beautiful - 70 and dry during the day - and there was more dead wood in the forest than I could possibly burn.

The sun was headed into the mountaintop on my second night there when a couple of bikers rolled in and parked in a site on the other side of the grassy center. I wandered over and introduced myself, and ended up spending the rest of the night swapping road stories with Gary and Mike. They reminded me of myself and Rogue; they had clearly spent that much time together and more, and had a large stock of ridiculous stories to tell on each other. It was unfortunate that Rogue wasn't there to meet them, but I'm sure we'll find them again somewhere along the dusty trail. I do love the Virginia wilderness, and they're local to it.

The Leak in the Bumblebee

Saturday was a 400-miler, covering the distance from Orlando to Flovilla, Georgia, where Rogue's friend Lucas lives. He had offered us camping space in his huge back yard, among the trees and the owls. The GPS dropped us at a random field on a country back road, and Lucas had to come find us. Fortunately we weren't far from the correct destination.

His two dogs immediately became our new best friends while we chatted about bikes with Lucas' dad, who had done quite a bit of riding himself before his bike was tragically stolen off his back porch. He assured us that we could put our bikes in the basement.

Two average-sized bikes could probably have fit just fine, but the touring panniers give Bee and Zee very wide badonkadonks, so Zee's rear hung out the door. Any thief would have had to run over our tent to get them out of the garage, though, so I wasn't concerned.

The run westward to Flovilla was a last-minute addition to our plans, and an idea had hatched during our day's ride. While Rogue and Lucas talked games, I poured over the atlas, finding familiar points and estimating distances. Satisfied that my idea was workable, I closed the giant book and grinned at Rogue until she asked what was going on.

"We're gonna have some fun tomorrow," I announced.

"She's plotting," said Lucas.

"Yes, yes she is," agreed Rogue.

I went to bed without enlightening her, but filled her in on the details the next morning. The Tail of the Dragon would have been a rude surprise.

Atlanta was a scant hour away, and the infamous section of 129 didn't look too far beyond that, but just before we reached the foothills we hit a snag.

Remember the first time I tried to park on Jessie and Tyson's sidewalk and dumped Bee in the lawn? That incident precipitated a strange issue where she smelled like gas for the first 50 miles of every tank. I looked for leaks and didn't find any, and texted a couple of friends for advice. One of them suggested there was grit in the throttle bodies, and the other mentioned the vent hoses. Not desiring to disassemble the Bumblebee, I let it lie.

Parked at a gas station with a full tank in the northern realms of Georgia, I glanced down and was dismayed to see gas dripping onto the engine bars. We had been gearing up to leave, but at that I hucked all my loose gear onto the sidewalk.

"We're gonna be here a little longer than I thought," I announced, removing the dry bag from the back and then the seat from the bike. Rogue supplied us with coffee while I got out the wrenches and set about removing Bee's various panels.

While I worked, Rogue took the opportunity to remove Zee's front fender, which was mysteriously contacting the tire. After some inspection, it turned out that the new tire that was installed right before we left was too large, and was actually wearing its way steadily through the fiberglass. Unfortunately there was nothing to be done about it.

Bee continued to dribble, making a stinky puddle around my feet while I worked. At last I pulled off the fuel sensors and vent hoses and removed the gas tank. The air box underneath was dry, so I picked up the tank itself and inspected it.

"Well. Fuck."

The spot between the tank and the front strut was seeping, a slow but steady stream of gas emerging from the weld line. There was nothing to be done about that either, so we put her back together.

Strangely, the only person who stopped to ask me if I needed any help just happened to be a welder. I already had the tank remounted, but I explained to him what the problem was. He made a chagrined face and said he wished he could help, then wished us luck on our journey.

"What now?" Rogue asked.

"I run half tanks until I can get this fixed," I answered. I already knew the leak was in the top 50 miles of the tank, which still left me 100+ miles per fill-up.

"You sure you want to ride the Dragon with a leaky bike?" she asked.

"Where should I ride with a leaky bike?" I responded, and off we went into the mountains.

Rains and Chains

Honey Hill was a cute little camping loop adjacent to route 45 in Francis Marion National Forest. There was one bathroom with no running water, and an ancient sign with a map that smelled like mildew.

"No water," I announced, reluctantly preparing to gear up again. The map said there was a hardware store at the corner of 45 and 17. The clunking noise from Bee had gotten louder, and I would've preferred to stay put, but we couldn't exactly camp without water. I was reaching for my helmet when I saw a spigot in the center of the loop.

"Water!" I said excitedly. I dug out the purification kit and headed for the spout. But it wasn't what I wanted to find. The handle had been removed, leaving it dry. I went for a walk, hoping to find another spout, but there was nothing. Then I inspected the woods, but the only water was swampy and stagnant.

"Want to bring my water bottle?" Rogue asked as I prepared once again to ride out.

"I have a - wait. Water bottle. With water in it." It wasn't as much as I would've liked, but it was better than nothing. We settled in for the night with a pot of soup and a campfire.

Our plan for the next day was to ride into Charleston and find a bike shop. We stopped for gas 20 miles from Honey Hill, and a friendly guy in a truck told us to be careful, because there were storms coming in. I knew it was going to rain, but I hadn't realized it was going to be a big deal.

"This one has had some tornadoes," he warned us. I stopped, removed my earplugs, and gave him my full attention.

"Any idea how big the storm cell is?" I asked. "We're headed south. Maybe we could outrun it."

"It's coming up from Florida," he answered. "It's big."

There went that idea. I looked at Rogue. "We could hotel it tonight," I said. "I don't really want to play with tornadoes."

"I'm cool with that," she said. "My friend in Mississippi actually just had a tornado."

I borrowed her phone. When I stuck mine in my jacket pocket the previous day to keep it out of the rain, the storm had somehow found its way into my pocket, and my own phone had drowned.

I made a hotel reservation in Charleston while Rogue chatted with the gas station's cashier, who was from Connecticut. His retirement dream was to do what we're doing now - just get on a motorcycle and go.

"You two are living the American dream," he said with a smile.

From there we returned to the campsite and packed up. It was sprinkling as we pulled out, and by the time we were back in the vicinity of the gas station, we were soaked. I drove straight to the hotel. It was too early to check in, but the lady at the desk let me drop my dry bag and tent, and I went to the bike shop relatively unencumbered.

"My bike is clunking," I told the guys in the service department. They came out to have a look.

"Can you tell where?" they asked.

"Just get on and ride about ten feet," I answered. "You'll hear it."

The taller one saddled up and rolled down the road.

"That's the chain," said the brunette man without any hesitation.

"Really?" I asked. Bee had passed inspection four days earlier.

The other man pulled a nice U-turn in the middle of the road and came back.

"That's the chain," he announced as he dismounted. I couldn't argue with that level of mutual certainty.

It was Friday, and a new chain and sprockets could be in on Tuesday. The man in Parts gave me the number of another shop to call, but they didn't have the parts in stock, either. I shrugged.

"Not like we're on a deadline," I said. "Might as well hang out here."

"I really wouldn't drive to Florida on that," the guy from Service added as he walked by.

"I'm okay with that," Rogue said. "I actually really like it here."

About that time, I heard a roaring noise and looked out the window to see that the mist had suddenly become an epic downpour. The palm fronds bowed and twitched in the onslaught and a thousand drummers pounded on the roof. I admired it for an awed moment, and then remembered something.

"My GPS!" I said, and ran outside to retrieve it. Fortunately it's well-designed in that there aren't any openings that face upward. It was very wet but still working. I stuffed it in my helmet and left my helmet in the parts shop while we wandered the showroom and drooled all over the shiny 2016 V-Strom.

After remarkably few minutes the squall passed, and we headed back out. Rogue recommended the Mellow Mushroom for lunch, and we split one of the best pizzas I've ever had before walking back to the hotel. At long last we stripped out of our soaked clothing, took showers, and threw our drippy things into the coin laundry.

A short walk to Walmart got Rogue a box of the biggest zip-lock bags I've ever seen, big enough to hold her computer and then some. I bought a pepper and some apples, and when we returned to the room, Rogue did laundry and I made lentil stew. We spent the evening smugly dry indoors, eating real food and watching WestWorld.

Raleigh, NC

Thursday's ride was short, coming in under 200 miles, and blessedly dry. Bee was making a strange clunking noise that at first I attributed to an imbalance in the front wheel, but repeated checks of said wheel revealed no problems. I did notice while flying down the interstate that her right bar weight was missing, and the handguard was flapping in the breeze. The cruise control device had disappeared along with the weight and the bolt. That, at least, I won't miss. It never worked in a way that pleased me.

I honestly couldn't remember whether it had been there when I mounted up in Washington. Possibly it had disappeared overnight, or possibly it had flown off while riding. Either way, it was long gone. We had a brief discussion about whether a bar weight and cruise control would be worth stealing. It seems unlikely that it would come all the way off on its own, as the bolt is a couple of inches long, but it would be an oddly specific part to gank.

We dropped kickstands in Raleigh with sunlight to spare. It was sixty beautiful degrees as we unpacked and let ourselves into a second-floor apartment.

The place belonged to Seth, whom I'd contacted through CouchSurfing.com. I joined the website a couple of years ago in preparation for my 2015 solo trip, but never actually used it until now. In his profile, Seth mentioned a love of travel and wine, so I sent him a message. When he told me one of his goals was to travel around Europe on a motorcycle, I had a feeling we'd hit it off.

Wandering around a stranger's home was a disconcerting experience. We were chatting via text message, so I knew which room to drop our things in and how to work the voice-activated lighting system, but making ourselves at home without first meeting the occupant felt a little intrusive.

The evening turned out to be awesome. Seth took us downtown and showed us around. He recommended we eat at the Raleigh Times, but it was too busy, so we walked a mile or so to the "other downtown" and went to the Raleigh Beer Garden, which has 376 beers on tap and is enormous. We talked motorcycles and traveling adventures and beer while eating deep-fried giant pretzels with beer cheese dip (I cannot recommend this highly enough) and maple-fried bacon.

From the brewery we moved on to the Hibernian Irish pub, where Rogue and I shared a lamburger. Seth asked if I'd ever eaten mussels, and I admitted I hadn't, so he ordered the plate and gave me one. It was neither wonderful nor disgusting; I enjoyed the process of eating it more than I enjoyed the actual taste. He ordered me a glass of a local brew from Natty Greene called Wildflower Witbier. I don't have a deep enough understand of beer to give it a connoisseur's review, but it was light and pleasant and exactly what I'd look for if I were looking for a beer. (Mead is really my specialty when it comes to brewing.)

Back at the apartment, Seth showed us a scene from one of his video travelogues, where he'd been riding around Korea with some friends and found a group of horses in the road. They herded them back home using the motorcycles. As a nightcap, we watched an episode of Long Way Round, a travelogue about a motorcycle trip around the world by Ewan McGregor and his friend Charley Boorman.

I'd have to call our first CouchSurf a rousing success. We inspired each other through our travel stories; Seth has a new interest in motorcycling the US, and I have a new drive for making a bike trip overseas.

Wrenching Day

When the shop called with an update on Bee, the news wasn't good. She'd gone in for a back tire and preventive wheel bearings, and I'd asked them to throw on the other luggage rack while they were at it. I was also anticipating an inspection sticker, having replaced the front brake pads since she failed for them.

It wasn't that easy. Matt had a laundry list of things they'd found wrong, and I picked through it, deciding which jobs to do myself. When all was said and done, they did the rear wheel bearings, tire, and brake pads and replaced a radiator hose that was about to blow out.

Time to wrench

She still didn't earn the inspection sticker, because one of the fork seals had begun to leak copiously. I ordered a seal kit and my mom asked her neighbor, who owns an auto shop, if I could work in his garage.

On Sunday morning we rolled over to the shop, which was like a gift from heaven - spacious, heated, and full of tools, with a very friendly and helpful owner working on another project beside us. I'd baked him an apple pie to say thank you, and he said I didn't have to do that. But he didn't have to let me in his shop, either.

We spent all of the daylight hours wrenching. Rogue replaced her brakes and turn signals and installed her 12V/USB charging station. I replaced Bee's fork seals and installed the new luggage racks, which didn't want to play nice with the existing rack for the top box or with the exhaust can. Getting the rear body panel properly seated and the two racks bolted together into the frame took two of us and a lot of threading the same bolt over and over and over. The heated grips didn't get done because we ran out of time, but at least the bike runs and carries all my gear. (In theory. As of this writing, I still haven't put the boxes onto the racks.)

Organizing the Bikes

On Tuesday morning, we called roadside assistance and got Bee towed to Full Throttle in Swanzey, New Hampshire. I had to pay the difference, because roadside only tows as far as the nearest shop, but I don't trust anyone else to put their grubby paws on my baby. Ernie's Towing in Amherst has a guy who specializes in "bikes, antiques, and expensives," and we watched with interest while Kent rigged her up and pulled her onto the truck. With the front and rear suspension compressed, she squatted down and pretended to be a sport bike.

My mom picked us up from the shop, brought us to her house, and made us dinner. Fortunately it wasn't a work day for her, so it was just a pain in the ass and not an impossibility for her to help us out.

I don't like asking for favors, but it's been a week full of them. On Wednesday, Cider met us in Leominster, hooked up a U-Haul trailer to his truck, and drove us all over Massachusetts to get Hades out to Cape Cod, where Rogue's dad has agreed to store her in his garage.

Watching Hades, Rogue, and Zee

"I'm glad we get to hang out, at least," said Rogue.

"I told you we'd figure it out," said Cider.

"Creatively," I added. We shared bike stories, road experiences, and a lot of caffeine as we collectively covered several hundred miles in a giant circle.

I'm nearly back to a normal awake-during-daylight schedule, but on our way back from the coast I passed out in the truck. We went over a speedbump pulling into the parking lot where Rogue's bike was waiting, and that's what brought me to consciousness.

"Hey pretty," Rogue said.

"Huh?" I responded, trying to figure out where I was and why she was greeting me that way. I pulled my head from where it had become wedged between the seat and Cider's shoulder.

"My bike," she said, and laughed. "I mean, you're pretty too. But I was talking to Zee."

I blinked and shook off the sleep while the two of them laughed at me.

Function over form

By the end of the day, Hades was snug in storage, the humans were back in their respective homes, and Zee was in my mom's garage, so at least Rogue and I had one bike between the two of us. My phone, unfortunately, went home with Cider. Apparently it preferred his truck to my pocket.

Non-Starter

We set off this morning with the intention of accomplishing some errands (Rogue), retrieving Bee from our former apartment (me), and landing at my mom's place by the end of the day. Bee, however, had other plans. I replaced the battery, after discovering that one of the terminals had been not-quite-irretrievably crushed in the mail, and tried to start her.

She's a grumpy cold-weather starter anyway, requiring a jump pack in any weather under 30 degrees, but today was a new low. Even with a fully-charged brand-new battery, which cranked enthusiastically for over a minute, she wasn't having any of it. I'm guessing at a frozen fuel line.

I'm going back with the jump pack in the morning to try again. It should be a bit warmer tomorrow, but I have a feeling it's going to end with a tow to my mechanic in New Hampshire. She had an appointment anyway; her arrival may just be earlier, more expensive, and higher off the surface of the road than originally intended.

This is not the first time Bee has screwed with the start of a trip. When Rogue and I went to Texas, we had the same kind of auspicious start. I wouldn't be worried at all except that she's currently stuck in a garage in a place where we no longer live and have no right to store things, and at least one of the people living there seems understandably annoyed by that.

System Failure, Back Brakes

It took me a few minutes to realize that the restless swishing noise outside wasn't rain, but wind. I was okay with that; I'd rather have a windy ride than a wet one. I made our last road breakfast while Rogue packed up the tent for the last time. Then she helped me upright Bee, who was leaning so far over on the gravel slope that I was almost afraid to throw a leg over.

The drive out was more difficult than the drive in, as gravity was fighting me while I dealt with the washouts. Bee did her thing, though, and we reached the exit unscathed. I was concerned about Rogue and Hades, but they made it out too.

I headed for Clark's Summit so we could gas up. The extra miles driven while getting lost in Dalton had reached the bottom of Hades' tank. I told Rogue if she ran out we'd just use the white gas I'd been carrying since day 1, and I'd been glad to be rid of it.

"You won't be rid of it, though," she pointed out.

"Why not?" I asked.

"What are you going to do with the container? Leave it on the side of the road?"

I made a face and told her to leave me to my happy fantasy.

In Clark's summit, I started to doubt my own ability to dowse for gas stations and stopped to ask the GPS. There was one located 1.2 miles away, and I pulled out of the parking lot where I'd turned around and rolled down the road to a stop light. By the time Rogue caught up, I'd been sitting at the light for a while. Lights with magnetic sensors often don't recognize the presence of motorcycles, so I took a careful look around for traffic and then ran it.

A quarter mile later, I noticed a cop car following Rogue. The road curved and I couldn't see her anymore. I slowed, then stopped on the shoulder to wait. When several moments passed and she still didn't appear, I realized she had either run out of gas or been pulled over. I turned around and went back.

Sure enough, she was sitting on the side of the road, the cruiser behind her with its lights flashing. I pulled Bee in ahead of her and dismounted.

The officer was very kind. I explained why I'd run the light, and he said he was a biker too and understood, and just wanted to make sure we were being safe. Then Rogue told me she had no brakes.

"Again?" I asked.

"Back brakes," she said. "I tried to wave at you at the light but you didn't see me."

It was true; I'd checked for her presence but not bothered to look for any hand signals. That much time spent looking backward raises my chances of running into something in the forward direction.

"Something cracked," she said. "I felt it go when I stepped on the pedal."

You don't need back brakes, I wanted to say, but Rogue looked shaken and the cop probably wouldn't agree with me. I took a look at the rear caliper and realized there was brake fluid everywhere. The officer asked what we were going to do, and I said we were going to ride to the nearest gas station and fix the problem.

"You have to understand," he said, "If something happens to you, if you go to the bottom of the hill and can't stop and get hit by an 18-wheeler, it'll be my fault for letting you go."

I promised him we'd be as safe as possible. Then we proceeded down the hill, Rogue inching at about 15 miles an hour and the cop inching behind her. At the first gas station, we parked and stripped the T-bag, the seats, and the saddlebags off Hades.

The wrenches in the toolkit bit into the castle nuts and chunked the aluminum when we tried to use them, so I rode up the street to the auto parts store and bought a socket set. I already owned one, but I hadn't brought it along. Now I own two.

The caliper came off without a fight, and we were both shocked at what we saw. It had frozen shut and the rotor wore through not only the brake pad and the mounting clip but the entire head of the piston. One side, piston and brake pad, were fine; the other side was a hollow cylinder, edged in shredded metal and dripping fluid from its gaping wound.

"That's not getting fixed today," Rogue said, and I shook my head.

We went over our options: find a bike shop or drive home without rear brakes. It was Sunday, and the following day was Columbus Day; we couldn't stay in town long enough for the bike shop option to be viable.

"I'd rather you drive without rear brakes than front ones," I told Rogue. Oddly, she looked much more intimidated than she had the day before when the front brakes went out. "Remember, the front end is 70% of your braking power. And that bike won't pull a stoppie no matter what you do."

I wanted to offer to ride Hades for her, because I was confident in my ability to drive without the broken part, but she had never ridden Bee, and when the bike was loaded with luggage wasn't the time to learn. She'd be better off staying on old, familiar, slightly broken Hades.

System Failure, Front Brakes

When we went to sleep, the outdoors was dry. By dawn, the rain had caught us again. Since we were supposed to still be camping, I decided to make our usual camp breakfast on the front walk of the motel. I poured the last of the steel-cut oats into the pan with water, then caught the handle on my sleeve and poured it all on the ground.

Fortunately I had backup in the form of instant apple-cinnamon oat packets. I messed with them too much and they came out slimy, but it was better than nothing, which in turn would have been better than wasting time and money going out to breakfast. At least the coffee came out fine and didn't get poured in the carpet.

The doppler app Rogue had in her phone told us that the storm cells were headed west. It appeared that running east on 66 toward Washington and Baltimore would get us out of the nasty weather, and we set out with high hopes and a dry tent. It wasn't to be, though. Not only did the rain continue but the traffic was horrendous. I'd hoped that using the 495 and 695 ring roads around the large cities would keep us away from the worst of it. No dice.

"Don't ever let me make navigational decisions again," Rogue said.

I shrugged. We had agreed on the new plan and I considered us each to be 50% at fault for the poor decision-making. Stuck with the consequences of our brilliant idea, we re-entered the highway.

Just as it seemed things were moving again, someone five cars up in our lane slammed on the brakes. The next four stopped just as abruptly, I veered into the breakdown lane and stopped even with the bumper of the car ahead, and Rogue swerved around me and came to a stop another ten feet beyond me. There was nothing I could do about Hades' oily tire situation, so I took a moment to be grateful that she'd handled it well and kept pushing ahead.

At the next stop, we went indoors for coffee.

"How you doing?" I asked.

"Okay," Rogue answered. "I don't really have any front brakes, though."

"Can you be a little more specific about no front brakes?" I asked, alarmed. "As in, does the handle come all the way back to the grip?"

"Yeah, basically."

"Uh. Dude. That's important." I was shocked by the nonchalance with which she had stated the problem. No front brakes is an issue worthy of an immediate stop.

"It's gonna be a fun ride home," Rogue said with a grin.

"No," I said. "You're not riding home without front brakes."

I bought a cup of donut holes for moral support and brought my snack out to the parking lot. Sure enough, the front brake lever was almost completely depressurized. I removed the luggage from Bee, pulled out the toolkit, and started removing parts from Hades.

Fortunately I'd noticed a small leak in the front master cylinder before I turned over Hades to Rogue the first time, and I'd asked Abel for the cylinder from the parts bike. We took it along with us just in case, and it was a good damn thing we did.

I removed the mirror, opened the headlight, detached the brake sensor wires, unscrewed the hydraulic line, and dismounted the cylinder and reservoir. The new-old set took its place without too much trouble. It was still raining, of course, so I draped a bandanna over the reservoir to try to keep the fluid dry while I peered under the lid and pumped the lever. It took a few minutes to bleed the air out, but eventually things were back to normal. Rogue took a test ride and reported all systems go.

I81 Is Even Better in the Rain

Rogue took a ride around the campground to test Hades' rear tire, and said she seemed okay. Once she was parked again, however, the root of the problem became clear as a slick of oil emerged from underneath the bike and decorated the pavement with rainbows.

"You're oiling your own tire," I said. "That explains a lot."

Rogue checked the drain plug and found it to be satisfactorily tight. The level of hazard the bike now presented was something we didn't want to play with on the twisty, hilly parkway. We decided to jump the mountains again, get back on I81, and run for it.

I backed Bee carefully around the puddles of engine barf, Rogue guiding me, and we took off. Routes 221 and 194 allowed us to admire some quaint mountain towns such as Minneapolis, and by the time 19E landed us back on 81, the air was dry again. I folded up my rain suit and we headed for a Bo Jangles.

I'm not usually a fan of fast food. The big M and other such places don't have anything I consider "food," although I've been known to wolf down an occasional carton of fries. Bo Jangles, however, won my tastebuds over with their crispy, juicy fried chicken. The closest Bo to home is nearly 450 miles, so I wanted a fix while it was practical.

By the time we were finished eating, the rain had found us again. Riding 81 north toward Strasburg, Virginia, we encountered a traffic jam and hopped in the breakdown lane. Eleven miles later it cleared up at the spot where a car carrier had gone off the road. Rain or no rain, I was glad to be on a bike; the cars parked on the highway would probably be there for hours yet.

At a small gas station I pulled out a package of crackers to snack on and promptly spilled them all over the ground. Hungry and unwilling to waste food, I picked them up off the pavement and stuffed them in my face.

"You must be cold," I said to Rogue, who wasn't wearing rain gear. I'd given her my old suit but it didn't fit her well, and she had opted to ride without it.

"A bit," she acknowledged.

"You sure you still want to camp tonight?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Getting a hotel feels like cheating."

"It's not cheating," I said, "It's smart. You weren't prepared for this weather and I don't want you to freeze." My own rain suit, purchased recently after the spectacular failure of my last one in Nebraska, was keeping me snug and cozy, but I was all too familiar with the bone-chilling cold that comes from a long ride in the rain. Had it been me without the suit, I would've said screw camping.

"Okay," Rogue relented, and I started Googling lodging.

We rode well past dark and ended up at a Scottish Inns in Front Royal. Fifty dollars got us a hell of a lot more in Louisiana than it did in Virginia. Our door unlocked with a physical key, and it opened onto a poorly-lit room straight out of 1970. The walls had been patched with metal plating, where they had been patched at all, and the bathroom countertop listed to one side like a frat boy on Friday night.

There was no laundry, so we hung our clothes on the air conditioner, the TV, and the doorknob. Rogue unpacked the soaking-wet tent and hung it in the shower, where it dropped a forest's worth of leaves and dirt.

While she warmed up in bed, I walked across the street to Osteria 510, a beautifully appointed Italian restaurant and bar. I was the only customer, so I ordered a glass of wine and chatted with the owner while I waited for my takeout. Once upon a time he had owned a restaurant in Washington, but the late nights got to be too much, so he moved his business to Front Royal. He explained that most residents of Front Royal are Washington commuters, so they eat dinner early and then go home, allowing him to close at 10.

Owner of Osteria; photo credit unknown.

I'd told Rogue I was going to the gas station to find food, which was my plan until I saw the restaurant. When I returned to the room with a plastic bag smelling of fresh tomato sauce, she sat up straight.

"What'd you get?" she asked excitedly.

The butternut ravioli and tiramisu were a hit with both of us, the perfect finish to a nasty, wet day. I'd happily pause my next trip to go back to Osteria.

Dipstick

It was 40 degrees when we woke up at 5:30 on Monday morning. I made coffee and breakfast while we loaded the bikes and layered on long underwear, hoodies, and gear. When the gear was bungeed and the zippers were zipped, I pumped my fist and we started our engines. Well, Rogue did. I pressed Bee's starter and listened in disappointment while she cranked and then died with a whining noise.

That's a standard feature of the Bumblebee, but she did it so many times that eventually the battery died. We had jumper cables in hand (thank you, Cider) but I had to remove all of my luggage and the seat to get to the battery. Once we hooked her up, the starter stopped working entirely.

Two hours later, I had found a blown fuse, traveled to the auto parts store, replaced the offending part, successfully jumped the bike, packed a whole kit of fuses into the last inkling of space in my luggage, reloaded and strapped everything, and was actually able to roll out of the driveway. We rolled straight back to the car store so I could get a portable jump pack and some oil.

Out in the parking lot, I pulled the dipstick and poured oil all over the engine bars and the ground, because the bottle was a wide-mouth and the filler was not. Rogue went inside for paper towels and a funnel while I looked for a clean patch of asphalt on which to park the dipstick. Not finding one, I decided to prop it in the mouth of the oil bottle, but I didn't double-check my plan first. The dipstick dropped into the bottle with a bloop, and I stared after it in vague horror.

"Rogue," I said when she reappeared. "Guess what I've done now."

"Oh god," came the reply.

"Guess where the dipstick is."

She looked around - at the bike, at the ground, at me. "Where is it?" she asked. "Skipper, where is the dipstick?!"

I couldn't talk; I just pointed at the bottle of oil. The two of us sat on the ground, and I rested my forehead against Bee and cried with laughter. Eventually Rogue fished out the dipstick with a hook pick from Hades' tool bag, and we were really on our way.

Austin to Tyler

On my way out of Austin on Monday morning, I took a large chunk of something to the chest. A fleeting glimpse of blue and white and the fact that it left a big powdery white mark on my shirt tell me it may have been a bird, but when I looked down, I found a rock in my lap. Maybe it was a bird carrying a rock? A bird that was stuck by a rock and then fell into me? I'll never know, but I know it hurt.

I took the interstate to Dallas, more interested in making time to see my friend Randy than in seeing every tree between the two cities. On the outskirts of the city, the bike started to jerk and slow, and I took an exit. The ramp was uphill and the engine died halfway up, but I had enough momentum to coast into the parking lot of a towing company. I didn't make it into a parking space, but at least I was off the freeway.

With the seat and a side cover off, I was able to see that there was fuel in the inline filter, and a fold in the hose above it. After unfolding the hose, Hades started again. I set off toward Randy's house, and made it another couple of miles before Hades stopped again, this time in the parking lot of an auto parts store. (At least she has excellent timing.) I bought a couple of feet of fuel hose and set off once more, this time leaving the side cover in my luggage to give the hose as much room as possible to do what it wanted. The fuel light came on, and I was perplexed for a moment before deciding that the pressure buildup between the pump and the kink must have caused a leak. She died a third time, and I put her on reserve and rolled up to a gas station.

It was then that I thought back on my last stop for gas. I remembered pulling up to the pump, resetting the trip meter, chatting with a woman selling vehicle cleaning products, going inside, getting a bottle of water and a banana, eating the banana...and leaving. I hadn't put gas in the tank.

I filled up the tank, replaced the side cover, tucked the spare hose away in my bag, and made a mental note never to reset the trip meter before getting gas.

Randy introduced me to his cat menagerie and then took me to lunch at a Mexican-Asian fusion restaurant. We talked a lot about comics and cats and a little about a lot of other things.

When his wife got home, I realized how late it was and gave her a nice-to-meet-you-I've-gotta-go-now hug, and got back on the road.

I passed another lady biker on the highway and waved. She had a Barbie-pink crotch rocket, with a matching helmet that had a raccoon tail hanging off of each side. She fell in behind me and tailed me for about thirty miles, until I got off in Tyler. I turned north, trying to track down a campground on my map. I'd gone a couple of miles when I realized I must have taken the wrong exit. I stopped on the side of the road and waved at the traffic behind me to go around, but a white pickup truck pulled in behind me.

"I'm sorry," I said to the driver as he got out, "Were you trying to turn here?" I gestured at the parking lot beside me.

"No no," he said. "We've been following you. We're looking for food. You ride better than most guys I know!"

I laughed, thanked him, and went through the process of replacing my sun goggles with my clear goggles while he talked. He introduced himself as Gypsy and offered to buy me dinner. Since I try to avoid cooking in the dark, and it looked like I'd be setting up camp after sunset again, I agreed and followed him back to the highway.

The only game in town was a McD's, so I had a salad. Gypsy and his friend had picked up the brand-new truck in Texas and were on their way back home to New Orleans. We exchanged phone numbers so we can go riding if I ever get down that way.

Significantly after dark I finally found myself in Tyler State Park, choosing a campsite. There was a place to park, a picnic table, a fire pit, and a pole I couldn't explain with two creepy-looking meat hooks on it. I tried not to look at it and pitched my tent as fast as possible, skipping the annoyance of removing the sleeping bad from my luggage and inflating it. I debated about the rain fly and finally decided to put it on but leave the front open.

And thank god for that. I slept horribly, and it wasn't quite dawn when I was awakened by a great boom of thunder.

"Oh, here we go," I said to myself, and leaped out of the tent to finish staking out the fly and make sure everything on the bike was covered. I debated packing up quickly and running for it, but Tami had warned me that the usual lack of rain in Texas makes the roads shockingly hazardous when they do get wet, so I decided I'd be better off hunkering down and waiting it out.

A ranger came by a few minutes later to give me a campground pass, and warned me there were bad storms coming. I felt like saying I had noticed, but he was kind, so I stowed the sarcasm. I counted the storm in, enumerating the seconds between lightning and thunder, until the sky opened up.

The tent area was a sand pit, which had fortunately made staking quite an easy task, but it turned into a riverbed when the water came down. It poured and rumbled and flashed, and I alternately read a book and mopped out the corners of the tent with a bandanna. A couple of hours later, the monsoon had passed and I'd stayed remarkably dry. The tent gets two thumbs up.