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Wild Motorcycle Tales Here's a great story from Deb. Got your own story? Send it to me. How I Spent My Summer Vacation Every once in a while in life, opportunity knocks; and no matter what, you just have to answer. At least I do. The company I work for has an office in New Hampshire, and one of the women who works there recently married a man who rides, so when they came to Florida for their honeymoon last October, we made arrangements to meet in Daytona at Biketoberfest. I only spent a few hours with them, so you can imagine my surprise at their insistence that I come up to New Hampshire for Laconia Bike Week. I've been to all of the "big" bike events, but never thought I'd have the chance to go to Laconia. What better opportunity than to go with someone who lives there?? Making the decision to go was a tough one. I had to figure out how to get myself and my bike (my only bike ever; a '96 Heritage Softail I bought brand new) up there on a "shoestring" budget. Being a woman, and with many warnings received from friends about the northern traffic, riding by myself was not an option. So I borrowed an open trailer from a friend, and in spite of my trepidation about the condition of the trailer tires, hit the open road in my pickup truck with bike in tow, way excited about my trip! I had plotted a course where I would stop at my daughter's in Jacksonville, then at a friend's in South Carolina, and from there a mid-point overnight stay in Fredericksburg, Virginia, the only place I'd need a hotel room. I didn't even make it to Jacksonville before the "service engine" light came on in the truck. No problem; my son-in-law insisted I leave my truck there and take their new Honda Ridgeline. Now I'm stylin'! On the road again next morning, made the scheduled stop in South Carolina with no problems. Had some "real" southern barbecue (which means hash and rice for those that don't know) and left early the next day for the next leg of the trip. Things were going so smoothly I almost kept going past my scheduled stop in Fredericksburg, but after driving all day I was ready for a drink and some dinner. Pulled into the hotel, discovered there was nowhere right there to eat, so I got into the truck again and drove a few blocks to Ruby Tuesday's. After dinner, I took the service road back to the hotel, and heard a distinct "clunking" coming from the trailer. Looked in the rear view mirror, and saw the left wheel of the trailer wobbling to the point of almost coming off! At this point I was right around the corner from the hotel, but pulled right into an Exxon "convenience store" station to assess the situation. Looked at the wheel, saw a big "chunk" missing, and decided to call AAA. Dialed the number, and then realizing I had no idea where I was, hung up and walked into the store to find out where I was. Upon hearing my dilemma, my second "rescuer" (a very young clerk employed there) volunteered his tools and services to help change what I thought was a bad rim. Unfortunately, his wrench did not fit the lug nuts, and after several inquiries of customers at the pumps, I managed to borrow the proper wrench. Even more unfortunate was the discovery that it was not the rim that was damaged, it was the axle hub. At that point, I thanked my store clerk friend, and asked if I could leave the trailer and truck there overnight, as there was obviously not going to be a quick resolution to the problem. I now had no choice but to "call home" in the hopes that someone would be able to help. As luck would have it, the friend I borrowed the trailer from (much to my amazement) had a friend right there in Fredericksburg, and although he was working that night, he offered to come over the next morning. He arrived at 8 a.m. and after hours of searching for parts (and much anxiety on my part), a new axle, hubs and tires were installed on the trailer, and at 1 p.m., I was on the road again. What angel was looking out for me, not only that help was right there, but that I had stopped before the wheel might have come flying off at 75 mph?? I arrived at my friend's house in Nashua, New Hampshire at 11:15 p.m., and after socializing a bit, turned in for the night and readied myself for the "Big Day." We unloaded my bike and put it in their toy hauler with their bike, and headed north for the one-hour trip to Laconia. They had planned ahead of time to park the camper in the driveway of a condo that some of their friends had rented for the weekend, so we were all set. I had my bike serviced before I left home, including a new battery, so I knew I wasn't going to have any problems. Little did I know the "fun" had just begun. We left the condo on our bikes and headed into town. I needed gas, so we stopped on the way. After refueling, I hit the "start" button and was greeted with absolutely nothing. No problem. There were plenty of people there to push-start it. Off to downtown we went, to get our HOG pins and watch the slow races. While there, we got a phone call that we had parked the camper on the wrong side of the condo, so we had to go back and move it. Good thing (again, luck on my side) as we push-started the bike again and rode the 10 or 12 miles back to the condo. There was one guy staying there that was a mechanic, and between my phone call (again) to home and this guy, it was determined the stator needed to be replaced. No small job, particularly with not many tools. But had we not gone back to the condo, we could have done a lot more damage to the bike had I kept riding it. I have to tell you that it was at this point I finally got discouraged, and began to question myself for even attempting this trip. I decided to put the bike away, and consider what little bit of riding I had done "enough." But my friend's husband wouldn't have it. He insisted that we call the closest Harley dealership in Meredith and take the bike in. Of course, when he called, their "take-a-number, it's first-come, first-served" attitude reinforced my earlier decision. Not one to give up so easily, he called Heritage H-D in Concord, a mere 30 miles north, and at 4 p.m. they said, "Sure, bring it on in. We may not get it finished today, but you can pick it up in the morning." My logical side knew I could bring the bike home and get it fixed for half of what I would pay up there but if I did that, then I trailered it all the way up there for nothing. So we borrowed a trailer, and off we went. We stayed at the dealership long enough to find out that it was not only the stator, but also the voltage regulator. Definitely not ready until the next morning, and I was to call the dealership at 8:30 for a progress report. Called at 8:30, they said two more hours. In the meantime, everyone's waiting. Knowing that everyone was sympathetic, that they really didn't mind, still didn't help to keep me from feeling like crap. Here I am, someone they don't even know, keeping them from spending their time doing what they came here to do: ride. Called back to the dealership at 9:30 for an update, since it would take almost an hour to get there. Much to my surprise, the service writer said, "It's done. Unfortunately, we had two incidents beyond our control happen when the mechanic took it out for a test drive. The first was the left highway peg fell off. He retrieved it, and it's fine. The second, we weren't so lucky." Then he pauses. I wait for the hammer to fall. "One of your saddlebag lids flew off. He got it back, but not before considerable damage was done," he said. My anger over these two unfortunate incidents was quickly diminished by my relief at not hearing that he had wrecked the bike. At least he got the lid back, so no matter how bad it is, it's fixable and far easier than trying to replace a 1979 FLH saddlebag. I told him we were on the way, and suddenly realized that these things had to have happened due to all the bouncing over the 1,300+ miles I had traveled. I ran this by him, and asked him to please look over the entire bike and make sure nothing else was loose, and he agreed. Upon arrival at the dealership, the service writer looked me in the face and told me he checked the bike over himself, and everything was tightened down and ready to go. The lid was not as bad as I had anticipated, but still required fastening to make sure it didn't come off. And now, finally, I'm "on the road again!" About halfway back to the condo, I looked down and the highway peg was spinning around. In his usual spirit, my friend's husband got his tools out again, and tried to resolve the problem. The dealership had reinstalled the highway peg with a bolt that was too long. I told him to let it go, everyone was waiting, but he insisted on trying to fix it. He got on his bike and took the bolt to a nearby marina and had a mechanic cut it down. As luck would have it, it was the wrong bolt entirely, requiring another trip to the hardware store, but it was finally done and we were ready to ride. We had two long rides scheduled for the weekend. One was a trip around Lake Winnipesaukee, and the other was up to the Kangamangus Mountains. Since part of our day was already gone, we opted for the lake ride. It was one of the most beautiful rides I've ever been on; truly spectacular, and well worth everything I had endured to make it happen. Saturday morning, we set out for the mountains. We had gone less than 20 miles when I realized things were not right. The bike was getting louder and louder, and by the time we found a safe place to stop, the muffler had come completely loose. We had no tools with us whatsoever, but we had pulled into the parking lot of a small post office, so my friend's husband went inside to see what we could borrow. In the meantime, I phoned the service writer and not-so-tactfully advised him where I was and WHY. It was not a nice conversation. He returned with only a wrench; not enough to get the pipes back together. After several attempts, he said, "If I only had a screwdriver." and an elderly gentleman walked over with a leatherman's tool. He had stopped at the post office on his way to take his grandchildren home, and helped us get the muffler back on and tightened up. The children had never been on a motorcycle before, so they sat on my friend's bike and we took their pictures while the repairs were made. We thanked him profusely, got back on the bikes and headed up to the mountains. After ten miles or so, we came to a stop sign, where I pulled up beside my friend's husband, and said, What a beautiful road!" He looked back at me and said, "You've got problems." (Is this story ever going to end??) We crossed through the intersection and pulled into a fire station, where I discovered that my lights had been going on and off since we left the post office. I was not comfortable heading up into the mountains without knowing what was wrong, so we called the dealership, and they promised to get the bike right in. We headed back to the dealership, where a new service writer helped us. The first one never said a word, or even acknowledged I was there again. After waiting three hours, we were advised that they found three places in the wiring that were corroded, and they think they resolved the problem. I thanked them, paid them, and we headed back to the condo. Most of the day was gone at this point, so we parked the bikes for the night and took their truck into Weirs Beach for our last night there. Next morning, we loaded their bike into the toy hauler, and I rode mine back to Nashua. Mostly highway, but hey, I was riding. I probably rode a total of 250 miles in New Hampshire, but what incredible miles they were! And what a great time I had! And what I learned:
At every biker event, I look for a new souvenir pin, and always have a problem choosing one. This time, I found it right away -- a beautiful little pewter pin, "Laconia 2007" with an angel on it! -- Deb
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