A day of Bike Misfortunes

haha i just gotta share the day i had a couple days ago.

So I was riding around town with a girl thats new to town that I'm mentoring for my practicum.

Bike starts to sputter a bit, i knew i was low on gas, so i went to downshift to neutral and pull over.

Shift from 3rd to 2nd, clutch lever feels pretty weird..

go to shift from 2nd to neutral,

and click/snap, clutch lever goes to the bar.

kill the bike and just coast to a stop on the side of the road.

walked home.

hitched a ride back at like midnight with the cable i yanked off the parts bike i have.

replaced clutch cable.

was trying to start bike to see where the engagement was at.

couldn't get bike to start.

3 minutes later...

realized i didn't put the gas tank on...

put the tank on..

pops right off...

rough adjust clutch...

put tools in pack...

start off riding down the road back home...

ran out of gas 3.5 blocks later..

pushed the bike .9 miles to the gas station....

debit card got declined cause i forgot the banks were closed on labor day...

pushed the bike the remaining .7 miles home..

soaked in sweat...

what a day, lol.


I'm just happy that this wasn't a month ago, considering all of the ridiculous places i was.

anyways, first time ive ever ran out of gas, so its one for the books :wink:

But its also a good reminder to check your cables, whats weird though is i checked it literally just last week when i detailed it and it looked just perfect, and that it was a BRAND NEW cable that i put on just this last spring when i replaced the springs and friction plates. hmm. odd.

oh well, a new cable is on order and all is well!

 

Q.

1. Where was the cable bought from?

2. Do you reset the odometer when you fill up?

3 What has a declined card got to do with a bank being shut?

 

Out to impress that girl...huh...didn't quite work out.....

 

Did you try switching the tank to "Reserve"?

 

Almost more importantly than the source of the cable, did you LUBE the new cable when you installed it?

And I would highly recommend an OEM Yamaha cable (Len carries them too) they are much better constructed than the majority of aftermarket stuff out there, even the "good stuff."

But lube the new cable, OK?

 

Oh, and at what point did the girl decide she'd had enough "motoring adventures" for the evening and bolt?

 

Dammit! How in the bejesus did I double post? :?

 

think we've all had days like that..... so, the question is, did you get the girl?

 

Running out of gas with a girl along, so okay you fixed the bike, but what about the girl?
Some of the more (hahem) mature members will know about pulling out the manual choke on the dash of a car so that it would stall out when on a date...."gee what can we do until the car starts"? ;-) ;-)

 

She probably helped push the bike the .9 mile back to station.....if not, she probably caught a cab ride home....all in all, there is probably no 2nd date for mtnbike...lol

 

Either she left, or after he posted this they spent the next couple of days in the rack because she was so impressed on how creative he was at making all of the misfortunes happen on the first date....lol...he did say she was blond didn't he....oh...we haven't heard from him...haha

 

Funny - I got a "One Pull" warning when my clutch cable snapped.

The plan - -

Ride and "Jam-Shift" to the gas station,
Credit card denied ? ! ?
Woman ! Card please !

 

1) that's a good point you have, and to be honest it was a cheap cable... like 12$ cheap lol.

http://www.d2moto.com/p-30441-1982-1983 ... Ogoddm8ArQ

2) sure do, thats another odd thing, i usually hit reserve around 150 miles. I flipped it to reserve early at like 145.. ran out at 165, must have been a bit poorer with the mileage that tank. I DID think about how light the tank felt when i took it off to swap the cables though..

3) because usually i bring my work checks to the bank on the 2nd of the month as i have my CC auto-pay every month, but that happened at midnight and the banks were closed on the 2nd, so i thought that i would have an extra day to get to the bank before it took the $ out of my account. guess not, lol.

 

I shot some tri-flow in there when i put it in, but diddnt use anything official like a cable lubing tool or whatever.

I'll look into picking up an oem cable for back-up, as i already ordered a replacement through work, we'll see what the quality looks like when it arrives. I cheaped out last time and now see why spending that little extra $$ is a good investment. Will be picking up an OEM for the seca for sure.

haha she was pretty chill, we walked home after it snapped and she held a flashlight while i swapped out the cables. Was pretty embarrassing when i forgot to put the tank back on though, for someone who works at a bike shop, lol. It's funny, the kill switches always seem to get me too hahahaha

 

But for the record, it diddnt feel "bindy" at all though, felt real smooth.

well at least till it broke it did lol