The day dawned muggy and overcast, but Steve Villanueva, my trusty Channel 4 weatherman, said it would burn off in a couple hours. It did, and the weather was glorious from about 0900 on. GLORIOUS!
Feeling chipper from my recent victory over my hard-start gremlin, I planned a day of Void practice. That is, as a way of prepping for the Void, I'd be gallavanting around the countryside gathering up QIT points, doing it the Rally Way(tm), and generally having fun.
First gas receipt - 0805 - and we're off.
I made Waterlick VA by around 0930 or so, part slab, part fun roads. Next stop...
Head Waters VA.
Interesting road, US 250 to Head Waters. It goes right through George Washington National Park, up one side of a mountain and down the other. 15 mph hairpin curves, most nicely banked. I always do better going uphill than down, but it was both fun and pucker-inducing in both directions - followed the same road out & back.
My bike was running great. Smoother than I think it's ever run since I got it. New ignition coil, new plug wires, new plugs, fresh engine oil - just a smooth ride all around.
I didn't see many motorcycles during the early part of the day, but all of a sudden, in Strasburg (this is after Waterlick), there were ... 20 or 25 cruisers rumbling by in the other direction, seemingly from out of nowhere. Pretty cool.
Anyway.
I jumped on I-81 S, then onto I-64 E to head to my last QIT spot for the day, Lovingston VA. From there, I was going to visit my mom, who was in the hospital earlier in the week due to an infection of some kind. Mom lives in Bumpass VA, and as I was planning on staying the night, I planned on gathering the points for that location on the way home Sunday morning.
Tomorrow morning.
At Exit 91, I decided to jump off the highway, hit the Sheetz mentioned on the signs, and grab some lunch. It was, after all, about noonish. A nice cheese & veggie sub with some chips and a nice bottle of water would set me up nicely til suppertime at my mom's place.
I ordered, I ate, I relaxed with my helmet off. I took a leak, then geared up to head to Lovingston...
...which is when the sh*t hit the fan. Until that precise point, the only "problem" I'd had all day was discovering that the mount I bought for my 2610 doesn't fit quite as snugly to the bar as it needs to to keep the GPS from slowly drifting downward, but some duct tape in Waterlick had fixed that problem up pretty quickly.
A new problem emerged. My bike wouldn't start. At all.
No matter what I did, the fuel pump would not prime.
I went over every connection - vent hoses, electrical wires, fuel lines. Went over them again. In the parking lot, 8 feet from the front door of Sheetz.
Nothing. I mean ... nothing.
I remembered at that point a conversation I had with myself 15 seconds before I walked out the door. "Self," I said, "do you think you should take your BMWBMW member book, the one with all the phone numbers in it?" "Nah, Self," I replied, "you fixed the problem with that new ignition coil and those g-damned expensive spark plug cables, remember?" "Yeah, Self," I re-replied, "I did, didn't I? Won't need the book."
I started making phone calls based on the numbers I have stored in my phone. Chaz was first. Then Wiredcur. Then my brother. Then my in-laws. Then my other brother. Then my wife, who I knew wouldn't be able to help me, but at that point I just wanted to talk to a human being instead of a voice mail system. Little did I know the battery on her cell phone died 16 hours previously. Then I called my friend Jason.
Finally, I called my mom. Well, my stepfather, who happens to live with my mom. He lives in Bumpass, too
He hooked up his trailer to his truck and drove the 80 miles / 90 minutes to pick me and my dead m-f'ing bike up at the Sheetz.
In the meantime, I talked to Chaz, Wiredcur, Kitty, one of my brothers, Jason, and my in-laws. I got Anton's phone number - and Anton's voice mail.
For those of you wondering at this point, Fishersville is slightly NW of Waynesboro - 30 miles or so west of Charlottesville. To get from F-ville to Bumpass, we had to pass C-ville on I-64. I figured if I could get Anton, I could take the bike to him and he could fix it.
Because, frankly, at this point, I'm ready to make a ritual sacrifice of the f'ing thing and dance naked around it in the moonlight as it burns.
My stepfather took me back to his house, arriving about 1700 or so, where I met up with my wife & kid and learned of my wife's cell phone dead-ness. We had a nice spaghetti supper, ooh'd and aah'd over my daughter's artwork for the day, then loaded up in stepdad's truck to trailer my soon-to-be-crispy motorcycle back to my house, where it is currently sitting, still on the trailer, as I ogle the brand-new Caberg Justissimo my wife bought me as an early Christmas present.
Right now, this very second, I'm actually thinking that I may never need the shiny new lid.
At least I'm home, though. At least I'm home.
--chiba