A friend, a real rider

The last few days have been a trip. The weather has been so erratic that you just didn't know what to try and plan for. Sunny and 70's one day and cooler and heavy rains the next. There has been lots of flooding in my area and lots of people saying over and over that they are "tried of this *%#$".
The riding has been good for me. The warmer days work wonders on my arthritis and all that and it even brings out some unexpected fun.
I have a friend that has a 1972 Harley Sportster that he hardly ever rides. I tease him a bunch about it and the not riding. The truth of it all is he is so over worked that he just doesn't have anytime to get out and do any. However he jumps up and surprises ya once in a while. One of the warm days this past week he rode in and it worked out where we took a little time to go to a parts house close by to get him a head light bulb. In the process of leaving the parts house his bike started dumping out oil. Lots of oil!! Seems that a check valve was sticking and as the engine got warmer serious amounts of oil began flowing out on the pavement. Funny thing is that after much grunting and groaning and warming up it just stopped.
After we got back to work it had quit leaking altogether. I wrote it off as one of those thing that happens when your engine is cold. We were both convinced what the problem was and that it was an easy fix over a beer on a weekend to come and decided to grab a burger on the way home and went on back to work.
When the day finally ended I tooled around back to wait thinking we'd leave together and maybe miss some of the traffic. All was going good until he fired up and the oil started flowing again. This time it didn't quit after it warmed up and it looked like a serious problem was in the making. Now here is the deal about a (in my opinion) real rider. He seemed to know just what he needed to do to correct his problem and after listening to him, hey, he convinced me. And we got started.This check valve needed a real side of the road cleaning. So that's just what happened. We put together what tools we had and started to take everything apart. Once we got it all apart and looked it over it was apparent the there was some trash in the system. After cleaning it out and putting it all back together It fired up and cleaned out in a couple of seconds.
The ride to the burger place was a good one. Like most, just didn't last long enough. But hey, you get a ride wherever you can.
As I said before,in my opinion, a real rider is one of those that has a good knowledge of his bike and is willing to tackle a problem beside the road. I truly enjoy riding with guys and gals that, like myself ride a machine that you can actually still work on and aren't afraid to get into them when necessary. Most of the newer bikes are all computerised and there is very little that you can do yourself if you have a problem. Everyone says now days that they are just like a car and you don't have any problems any more. That worries me when I start thinking about taking a trip. "your in the bad lands some where and you develop a hiccup. How do you reboot"?
I like the fact that mine still uses carburetors, that I can stick a screw driver in and peak if the climate changes, that it still has a kick starter for those times that your battery turns up dead. The pros in my opinion for the older bikes goes on and on. Next time You see me just ask and I'll tell you all about it.
Well the temperature here has finally gotten to 50 today and I gotta head for the shop and put on a starter motor for those times the lazy streak in me comes out.

Note: No car washes or Credit cards were harmed during this adventure