03-08-2017, 02:39 AM
So I sold my 2014 Honda CTX700n a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago. My cousin who is too busy with University and work to worry about riding at the moment is storing his 1982 CB450 in my garage and gave me the green light to ride as I please while waiting for the CB1100 which is coming in 1 week at the time of this writing.
So I get off work at 3:00 and it is sunny and 13 degrees C. This is unheard of for my particular corner of Ontario Canada where our climate is very similar to Buffalo. So I take advantage kiss my wife and kids goodbye and tell her I'll be home for dinner, and I also needed some time to warm up on guitar because I was auditioning for a rock band at 9PM that evening. I had a glorious ride, made it over to my favourite twisties the Pelham short hills, it's fantastic for this area. I spent a little too much time enjoying myself and now I'm pressing to get home for dinner and beat the sunset and expected cold front home.
I'm about 20 minutes from home on a two lane highway where the speed limit is 80 km/hr. Suddenly the lights flicker. Then the lights flicker a little more. Then the lights go out completely, yet the engine is still running. I had a friend who lived close but I would have to navigate sketchy country roads with zero light and no guarantee he'd be there. I pull over to see what I could see and fix myself. Everything looked in order. I go knock at a nearby farm house to see if I could store the bike behind or in the barn for the night and no answer to the door.
I make a few attempts at bump starting the bike to no avail, while getting very sweaty with my helmet and all gear on running the bike down the side of the two lane highway. My cousin had recently replaced the tach cable so in looking again at the electric connections behind the dash I lean on the tach with my forearm and the lights come on! I start the bike hop on and speed off with fingers crossed.
My hope is short lived and the lights flicker than go out about 400m down the road however this new location gives me the advantage of a side street, a street light to park the bike under and a cemetery with a building I could stash the bike behind if I had to come back tomorrow.
I get my cousin on the phone, who is much more mechanically inclined than I am and we start trying to diagnose what is going on. As we are talking a guy in a truck pulls over, at this point the bike is still running just no lights what so ever. He offers to help and I politely wave him off certain that my cousin and I can get it going over the phone. He ignores me, turns around parks and hops out of the truck.
I am checking what my cousin is asking at the same time the guy who stopped to help is asking me questions. He shuts the bike off and I'm like "Oh NO!" So my cousin and I agree to leave the bike and come back tomorrow and I hang up the phone. The guy comes back from the truck with a knife and is trying to undo one of the stash screws, I say "you'll strip it, I have tools under the seat".
So we check the bike over together and I find out he is from Poland and drives a truck over here, but when he lived in Poland he was an avid motorcyclist and he assures me he will get the bike and I home. The culprit as we discover was the solder on the positive side of the ignition column had broken.
His truck was very cluttered to say the least and he goes diving for some electrical or duct tape with no luck. He searches for zip ties, or anything suitable. Finally he gets out his cigarette pack and makes a small cardboard spring. However there is nothing under the ignition column to push back against. So he gets a plastic bag and stretches it into something resembling rope and procedes to tie the cardboard spring in place. It is working and the lights are staying on, he puts the dash back on and the connection is broken, no more lights. So we redo the connection and this time leave the dash in assembled with the ignition column freehanging over the handlebars. He takes the dash as I had no where to put it and agrees to follow me home.
So it is completely dark now and getting very cold. Street lights are pretty rare on this highway. I take my time getting to the speed limit as I didn't want people to over take the truck at the moment our MacGuyvered headlight system failed. It did fail a minute or two into our ride, he put his hazards on while I reached with my left hand into the penumbra created by his headlights for the ignition column. I give it a squeeze and nothing, as I get more concerned about doing 80km down a highway on stealth mode on an early 80's Honda. Just as I'm convinced I'd have to stop I squeeze it in the right place and the lights come back on.
Ten minutes later the bike is back in my garage and I'm very thankful my busy cousin doesn't have to miss any work, study or class to come and help me get his bike going. He hands me back the dash cover and I offer him some money for his trouble and time, he refuses. I offer him a beer or some wine and he refuses again. I only caught his first name Lushek, but long after I've forgotten that I'll remember the time I was rescued at the side of the road by Polish MacGyver.
If you got here, congrats! I can't believe you read the whole thing.
So I get off work at 3:00 and it is sunny and 13 degrees C. This is unheard of for my particular corner of Ontario Canada where our climate is very similar to Buffalo. So I take advantage kiss my wife and kids goodbye and tell her I'll be home for dinner, and I also needed some time to warm up on guitar because I was auditioning for a rock band at 9PM that evening. I had a glorious ride, made it over to my favourite twisties the Pelham short hills, it's fantastic for this area. I spent a little too much time enjoying myself and now I'm pressing to get home for dinner and beat the sunset and expected cold front home.
I'm about 20 minutes from home on a two lane highway where the speed limit is 80 km/hr. Suddenly the lights flicker. Then the lights flicker a little more. Then the lights go out completely, yet the engine is still running. I had a friend who lived close but I would have to navigate sketchy country roads with zero light and no guarantee he'd be there. I pull over to see what I could see and fix myself. Everything looked in order. I go knock at a nearby farm house to see if I could store the bike behind or in the barn for the night and no answer to the door.
I make a few attempts at bump starting the bike to no avail, while getting very sweaty with my helmet and all gear on running the bike down the side of the two lane highway. My cousin had recently replaced the tach cable so in looking again at the electric connections behind the dash I lean on the tach with my forearm and the lights come on! I start the bike hop on and speed off with fingers crossed.
My hope is short lived and the lights flicker than go out about 400m down the road however this new location gives me the advantage of a side street, a street light to park the bike under and a cemetery with a building I could stash the bike behind if I had to come back tomorrow.
I get my cousin on the phone, who is much more mechanically inclined than I am and we start trying to diagnose what is going on. As we are talking a guy in a truck pulls over, at this point the bike is still running just no lights what so ever. He offers to help and I politely wave him off certain that my cousin and I can get it going over the phone. He ignores me, turns around parks and hops out of the truck.
I am checking what my cousin is asking at the same time the guy who stopped to help is asking me questions. He shuts the bike off and I'm like "Oh NO!" So my cousin and I agree to leave the bike and come back tomorrow and I hang up the phone. The guy comes back from the truck with a knife and is trying to undo one of the stash screws, I say "you'll strip it, I have tools under the seat".
So we check the bike over together and I find out he is from Poland and drives a truck over here, but when he lived in Poland he was an avid motorcyclist and he assures me he will get the bike and I home. The culprit as we discover was the solder on the positive side of the ignition column had broken.
His truck was very cluttered to say the least and he goes diving for some electrical or duct tape with no luck. He searches for zip ties, or anything suitable. Finally he gets out his cigarette pack and makes a small cardboard spring. However there is nothing under the ignition column to push back against. So he gets a plastic bag and stretches it into something resembling rope and procedes to tie the cardboard spring in place. It is working and the lights are staying on, he puts the dash back on and the connection is broken, no more lights. So we redo the connection and this time leave the dash in assembled with the ignition column freehanging over the handlebars. He takes the dash as I had no where to put it and agrees to follow me home.
So it is completely dark now and getting very cold. Street lights are pretty rare on this highway. I take my time getting to the speed limit as I didn't want people to over take the truck at the moment our MacGuyvered headlight system failed. It did fail a minute or two into our ride, he put his hazards on while I reached with my left hand into the penumbra created by his headlights for the ignition column. I give it a squeeze and nothing, as I get more concerned about doing 80km down a highway on stealth mode on an early 80's Honda. Just as I'm convinced I'd have to stop I squeeze it in the right place and the lights come back on.
Ten minutes later the bike is back in my garage and I'm very thankful my busy cousin doesn't have to miss any work, study or class to come and help me get his bike going. He hands me back the dash cover and I offer him some money for his trouble and time, he refuses. I offer him a beer or some wine and he refuses again. I only caught his first name Lushek, but long after I've forgotten that I'll remember the time I was rescued at the side of the road by Polish MacGyver.
If you got here, congrats! I can't believe you read the whole thing.
