Ok,
So the other Friday I'm riding my bike home from work. This is a glorious thing. In fact, there are few things more glorious than riding one's bike home from work on a nice, warm, sunny Friday. It's like a double dose of freedom. You got the normal, "Hey, it's Friday. I'm out of work. The weather is beautiful." feeling PLUS the "Wind in my face. I feel cool as shit. Everybody in a car wishes they were me." feeling. It's awesome. It's two great tastes, that taste great together!
So, what can you do to add to the perfection of such a ride? Well, my friends, you can stop by the bike shop.
My bike shop is cool. If you come in on a friday, the owner is likely to be found at the cash register with a beer in his hand. Or in the back fixing something, with a burboun and coke sittining on the lift.
Since it's that kind of place, I, and others, frequently stop by to hang out on Fridays. We typically stop and grab a beer to bring along. One or two people may come in old trucks, but it's generally a two wheeled event. And it's almost all male. The few women who are there belong to men who are there. We look at each other's bikes. We compliment each other. We tell obnoxious jokes. We give unsolicited advice to people working on stuff. We talk shit. It's basically Healthy Male American shit.
I had some serious engine work done on my bike a few weeks ago. It is now time to change the oil to get the nasty metal shavings from the new parts out of the lubrication system. (if you don't know what that means, don't worry. It's not critical to the story. Just accept that I need an oil change.) It is not cool, in this type of company, to have someone else change your oil. I am completely capable of this, but I'm getting to the place in my life where I have more dollars than sense. (that's a pun.) Despite this, machismo carries the day and I purchase an oil filter, pads for my front brakes, and four courts of oil.
I finish my beer, say goodbye to my biker buddies, and prepare to leave. Understand that my bike has absolutely no cargo space. Hell, I don't even have mirrors or turn signals. I do, however, have a back pack. It's a good one with the strap across the chest, and padded straps, but it's small.
So the question is how to get home with an oil filter, brake pads, four quarts of oil, and what ever I had in there when I left the house that morning. I'm able to fit the filter and pads in the bag. I decide to clip the plastic bag of oil to the carabiner (is that spelled correctly?) on my back pack. The oil is double bagged, like at the grocery store, and I'm only going a few miles. No high speed roads. I should be fine....
Well, it starts OUT fine. I'm rolling down Rolling Road, when I realize that the bag of oil rests conveniently on the passenger seat behind me. I smile at this, feeling that my Blink Impression (read the book) of what to do has worked perfectly as usual.
As I pick up speed, though, the wind starts to wip at the bag, and I have to keep my left arm behind me to hold the bag in place. This isn't too bad, as I am not going far, and I'm an expert rider.
Traffic, however, eventually forces me to use my left hand for the clutch. Newly released, the bag of oil begins to sway in the wind and bounce against the side of the passenger seat. I begin to become concerned over the structural integrity of the bag.
About a mile and a half from home it happens. I'm heading up hill and turning left. I really need to downshift, because I'm in too high of a gear, AND traffic stops in front of me. I have to let go of the bag. I think I felt bottle plastic, which feels only slightly different from bag-wrapped-around-a-bottle plastic on the tips of two fingers. I grab the bars, and clutch in to stop. Before I put my feet down, I hear "Ki-thunk" as a quart of expensive, specialty, V-Twin, high performance motoroil hits the pavement in heavy traffic and begins to slide along behind me.
At this point, I could really use three arms. The bike cuts off. I have to restart it and get it over to the shoulder, and shift, and steer, and not get run over, and still keep the other three quarts of oil in the confirmed to be torn open bag. I manage this with the only two arms I have, and park the bike along the curb. I drop my bags on the sidewalk beside the bike, and turn.
I need to take this opportunity to shout out the guy in the Jeep who stopped to offer help.
I run back along the side of the road to confirm what the sinking feeling in my gut is already telling me.
My quart of oil, is no more. Some... Commuter, probably driving one of those fake assed new "Malibus" or "Impallas" has run over my quart of oil, spreading it's contents like so much blood over the pavement. Sticken down, in the height of it's viscosity! What lubrication it could have achiened, lost to the world forever.
I take a moment to collect myself. I then walk back up-hill. The culprit in his murderous, fake, front wheel drive, bullshit mobile has made good his escape.
When I get back to my bike, I am now faced with a challenge. How to get home with brake pads, the oil filter, my stuff for the day, Three quarts of oil, and a pair of torn grocery bags.
I find, to my ironic relief, that Three quarts will fit inSide the backpack along with everything else.
Fate, it seems, is a cruel mistress....
Shrop
So the other Friday I'm riding my bike home from work. This is a glorious thing. In fact, there are few things more glorious than riding one's bike home from work on a nice, warm, sunny Friday. It's like a double dose of freedom. You got the normal, "Hey, it's Friday. I'm out of work. The weather is beautiful." feeling PLUS the "Wind in my face. I feel cool as shit. Everybody in a car wishes they were me." feeling. It's awesome. It's two great tastes, that taste great together!
So, what can you do to add to the perfection of such a ride? Well, my friends, you can stop by the bike shop.
My bike shop is cool. If you come in on a friday, the owner is likely to be found at the cash register with a beer in his hand. Or in the back fixing something, with a burboun and coke sittining on the lift.
Since it's that kind of place, I, and others, frequently stop by to hang out on Fridays. We typically stop and grab a beer to bring along. One or two people may come in old trucks, but it's generally a two wheeled event. And it's almost all male. The few women who are there belong to men who are there. We look at each other's bikes. We compliment each other. We tell obnoxious jokes. We give unsolicited advice to people working on stuff. We talk shit. It's basically Healthy Male American shit.
I had some serious engine work done on my bike a few weeks ago. It is now time to change the oil to get the nasty metal shavings from the new parts out of the lubrication system. (if you don't know what that means, don't worry. It's not critical to the story. Just accept that I need an oil change.) It is not cool, in this type of company, to have someone else change your oil. I am completely capable of this, but I'm getting to the place in my life where I have more dollars than sense. (that's a pun.) Despite this, machismo carries the day and I purchase an oil filter, pads for my front brakes, and four courts of oil.
I finish my beer, say goodbye to my biker buddies, and prepare to leave. Understand that my bike has absolutely no cargo space. Hell, I don't even have mirrors or turn signals. I do, however, have a back pack. It's a good one with the strap across the chest, and padded straps, but it's small.
So the question is how to get home with an oil filter, brake pads, four quarts of oil, and what ever I had in there when I left the house that morning. I'm able to fit the filter and pads in the bag. I decide to clip the plastic bag of oil to the carabiner (is that spelled correctly?) on my back pack. The oil is double bagged, like at the grocery store, and I'm only going a few miles. No high speed roads. I should be fine....
Well, it starts OUT fine. I'm rolling down Rolling Road, when I realize that the bag of oil rests conveniently on the passenger seat behind me. I smile at this, feeling that my Blink Impression (read the book) of what to do has worked perfectly as usual.
As I pick up speed, though, the wind starts to wip at the bag, and I have to keep my left arm behind me to hold the bag in place. This isn't too bad, as I am not going far, and I'm an expert rider.
Traffic, however, eventually forces me to use my left hand for the clutch. Newly released, the bag of oil begins to sway in the wind and bounce against the side of the passenger seat. I begin to become concerned over the structural integrity of the bag.
About a mile and a half from home it happens. I'm heading up hill and turning left. I really need to downshift, because I'm in too high of a gear, AND traffic stops in front of me. I have to let go of the bag. I think I felt bottle plastic, which feels only slightly different from bag-wrapped-around-a-bottle plastic on the tips of two fingers. I grab the bars, and clutch in to stop. Before I put my feet down, I hear "Ki-thunk" as a quart of expensive, specialty, V-Twin, high performance motoroil hits the pavement in heavy traffic and begins to slide along behind me.
At this point, I could really use three arms. The bike cuts off. I have to restart it and get it over to the shoulder, and shift, and steer, and not get run over, and still keep the other three quarts of oil in the confirmed to be torn open bag. I manage this with the only two arms I have, and park the bike along the curb. I drop my bags on the sidewalk beside the bike, and turn.
I need to take this opportunity to shout out the guy in the Jeep who stopped to offer help.
I run back along the side of the road to confirm what the sinking feeling in my gut is already telling me.
My quart of oil, is no more. Some... Commuter, probably driving one of those fake assed new "Malibus" or "Impallas" has run over my quart of oil, spreading it's contents like so much blood over the pavement. Sticken down, in the height of it's viscosity! What lubrication it could have achiened, lost to the world forever.
I take a moment to collect myself. I then walk back up-hill. The culprit in his murderous, fake, front wheel drive, bullshit mobile has made good his escape.
When I get back to my bike, I am now faced with a challenge. How to get home with brake pads, the oil filter, my stuff for the day, Three quarts of oil, and a pair of torn grocery bags.
I find, to my ironic relief, that Three quarts will fit inSide the backpack along with everything else.
Fate, it seems, is a cruel mistress....
Shrop
user119547201:
❤️❤️
skisby:
Ouch! Sounds as bad as my ride home after my clutch cable snapped 100 miles from home last year. Unfortunately it’s the 1st time in decades that’s happened to me but I always carry a vice grips in my tool kit. Clamp it onto the lever on the transmission side cover so I could reach down to activate the clutch by hand. Push start the speed shift up, suicide clutch for down shifts & neutral - a LOT more difficult for a 300lb man on an 800 lb bike than it was for a younger, fitter man on a 125cc dirt bike! Not to mention traffic! I hope the oil change went smoother after that, no o ring left to the side when you were all done or anything (don’t ask!).