10-20-09 A good day to ride

365 Group (f)


This morning was an absolutely perfect day for riding. 55 degrees and the promise of 70's in the afternoon with no hint of rain in the forecast.
I filled my thermos with some of my award winning coffee and grabbed my helmet.
The bike fired up without a lot of whining, begging and pleading on my part and I took that as a good sign. As it is getting colder it's getting to where it takes a few extra kicks to get going in the mornings. But I write that off to old age.
While the bike was warming I kind of did a walk around to check for loose this and leaking that. I didn't find anything new, another good sign. Finally I eased down the drive to the street. At the street I had to wait for morning traffic to settle down. Seems like everyone was running late again and traffic was coming in little clusters of three to five vehicles at a time. Plus my drive hits the street at the start of an almost blind curve.
I finally got out and eased toward the highway and a gas station. I topped my tank and grabbed a bottle of carb cleaner and just for grins and giggles I bought a $2 lottery ticket. My gas came to $4. Carb cleaner $2 Lottery ticket was $2 ...big winnings on the ticket $10 So the state bought my gas, Carb cleaner lottery ticket and gave me 2 bucks out of the goodness of their heart.
Yep it was going to be a good day.
Since I'm still in the parts hunting mode I headed east for Harrison and points in between. The short scoot over 45 to Hwy 412 was a smooth one as all the heavy part of the morning traffic was pretty much gone. As I topped the hill to merge into 412 I noticed a car beside the road. The driver appeared to be an older woman. I pulled over and asked her if she needed any help. "darn thing wont start" was her reply. Sure enough it was dead. I asked the lady to raise the hood and let me look over the battery connections. Finally she said "I guess you'll have to do it, I don't have the strength to pull the latch". As I reached in to pop the hood I noticed the head light switch was in the on position. I asked how long she had been sitting there and she said she had pulled over just about day light to rest a bit. It was starting to look like she had pulled over and shut off the engine leaving the lights on. This I explained would be a quick fix if she had any jumper cables. We'd just flag someone down and get a jump and she could be on her way.
Looking through the car, lots of junk but no cables. Not even a spare tire. Unusual way to be traveling. Also, no cars came by. This was odd.normally cars are all over at this time of the morning.
I explained again what I needed and told her if worse came to worse I'd ride back and get some cables. While we were talking I noticed a short extension cord laying in the trunk with all the other junk. Thinking of an old trick I had used on bikes before, I asked her if I could use her cord to try and get her going. She said have at it. I cut the ends off the cord and stripped off the insulation and made a make shift set of jumper cables. I hooked them to her car and the bike. I had her take the keys out and lay them on the dash. I wasn't sure what it would do to my system if she got over anxious and tried to fire up the car while The bike was hooked to it. Starting the bike I idled it up to about 3500 rpm's and asked her if she drank coffee. I poured her a cup of coffee and set down to wait. After the coffee was drank I unhooked from the car and told her to try it. The car fired up like it was suppose to. I was tickled. My small alternator and make shift cables had done the trick. The lady was more than surprised as she had at the start of this little experiment, uttered many doubtful phrases. I took the extension cord lose from her battery and put the hood down. She asked what she owed me. I really hate it when people do that. Anyway, I told her I'd keep the extension cord and she wouldn't owe me anything. She gave me a look like I had gone simple standing in front of her. I pointed out that my mother was about her age and that I would hope someone would stop and help her if she were ever stranded. She seemed to understand my thinking and grabbed me and hugged all the air out of me and thanked me again. She also told me that she was headed to her daughters and when they wanted to know why she was so late, well, she had a story to tell em. She grinned real wide and got in the car. I watched her pull away and thought yep! a real story to tell everyone.
Pulling out onto 412 I tooled on down to Marble. I figured to top off my thermos and grab some of the mandatory hush puppies before continuing.
After my Marble stop I eased on over to Harrison in a pretty uneventful fashion. At the bike shop I gave em my list and asked what they could do to help me. Most of the stuff would have to be ordered and would take a couple of days. I paid them for the parts and told them I'd be back through in a week or so. This was to their liking, someone not in a life and death hurry. While we talked one of the shop guys spotted my bike and they all went out to look it over. One remarked as to how there are lots of them out there still yet but they hardly ever see em or see one that someone actually puts the miles on. Every one seemed to like the old bike and thought the glass packs off the old ford pick was cool as all get out.
After talking to the shop guys I decided it was close enough to lunch either way and headed toward something to eat. It's been so long since I spent any real time in Harrison, so aside from fast food places I really didn't have any idea where would be a good place to eat. Tooling through town, remembering how things ustawas it hit me. The Hospital. Sounds funny but when I was there with mom for her surgery I was told that they have a great lunch buffet. What the heck, worth a try. I eased up to the Emergency room entrance and made my way to the cafeteria. The buffet wasn't bad. They had a little bit of everything. Really the only thing that was missing was salt.I had a real good meal of roast beef with all the trimmings for right at five dollars. Not too bad I didnt think. have to remember this place in the future.
Pulling out from the Hospital I dodged a couple of obvious speed traps and made my way back north. I seemed to recall a place somewhere around Berryville or Eureka Springs that had a motorcycle bone yard.
The ride out to Berryville was a nice one as the weather had really warmed as the weather channel had promised. I asked around at several places but know one knew of a bike bone yard. heading on toward Eureka I met a lot of bikes on the road. Late season vacationers from the looks of the license plates. Pulling in to outskirts of eureka springs i stopped at the Iron Horse stables and a couple of other places that catered to bikes and ask them if they knew of this bone yard. All anyone knew of was the usual places, nothing new. So it looked like another strike out on new junk to prowl through. All in all I really wasn't too disappointed. It was a great day for riding and I was really enjoying it. I managed to kill a little time riding around Eureka and finally headed back toward the house.
It really was a good day for a ride. The bike ran along pretty well for all 237 miles and I was on it. Couldn't ask for more than that.
Catch ya on the road