It is the eve of the maiden highway voyage for me and my new ride and she put a scare into me last night. Pulling away from a traffic light the bike just died after half a block. No power, just coasted to a stop.
To say I am a bit nervous about this trip would be an understatement.
I still do not know her very well, there is no warranty, I have a 4 day trip coming up and the motor just quit. I felt like I was sinking into the road. This cannot be happening!

 I have a corporate gig that is up north and it would allow me to ride up through the Icefield Parkway en route to it. The Icefield Parkway is a ride I wanted to repeat after last year (see episode 9) and now it is to be the maiden voyage complete with new gear..,if I can get the bike fixed.

The forecast looks like it will be fine, not great as mother nature would never want me to have a sweet warm day to kick off the 2011 riding season, but it should not snow. If you ride through the mountains you know this does not sound out of place in early June and that is good enough for some riders and I am one of them. No snow means its biking weather.
I have been itching to do a highway trip and test out my new to me K1200RS and this is to the christening. When I toured on Suzy B I had the piece of mind of having a warranty the first 2 years. This bike's warranty has long since expired. It is luck and'or my wallet that will get me home should anything go wrong. I keep telling myself it won't but the little voice that disagrees is now pointing at my dead bike and getting louder.

I just had installed a new set of spark plugs with a bit of help from my riding pal Carl. Carl had recently rebuilt a very nice Honda Blackbird from parts and the bike is one sweet ride seen here next to my K bike.

Lets just say he knows his way around tools so I went to his shop to perform some basic maintenance and tap into some of his mechanical knowledge so the bike could get a good going over prior to the trip.

I learned the fairing panels on my bike take some getting used to, as those crafty Germans made it almost like a motorcycle Jenga game, but in reverse. The way the body panels fit together is bizarre to someone used to Japanese bikes but once I saw how they did it and why, the parts meshed with logic.
To get at the spark plugs requires the removal of the left body panels which opens access to a whole lot more. So we decided, to make sure nothing was amiss and pulled the fairing panels from both sides to inspect everything. Sorry that I have no pics of us ripping apart my new ride as time was tight so we focused on the task at hand.
To check the air filter meant unbolting the fuel tank but with 2 people it is not necessary to undo all the connections. You can however bump and loosen things while down there.

This I learned the hard way, on the side of the road. Since the sun had just gone down and the sky was losing light I was quickly on the phone to Carl. I was maybe 8 blocks from where we had just worked on the bike. He was on his way to diagnose it.
It had felt like it was fuel starved when it died so I checked all the fuses in case the one for the fuel pump had blown. Nope, I had a full set of operational fuses. "Now what?" I thought just as Carl and his buddy Tony pulled up.
Soon we had the seat off, grabbed the tools and were pulling the fairing panels off again but now it was right on the street.

Soon we found the connection we had bumped while moving the tank. There was a friction fit vacuum hose that had come loose and it  had something to do with the fuel delivery and I made a mental note to remember where they were. It was a simple push to seal the connection and the bike fired right up!

Hugh sigh of relief. 


No mechanical problem, just a goof up on our part.
I am positive she will be a reliable ride and think maybe that was just her way of saying "Gotcha!" just to mess with my head.

Its now late and I am going to attempt to ride over 7 hours on her tomorrow. I should be asleep, resting right now but these first voyages on new-to-me bikes are always like Christmas Eve to a young child. I don't want to miss anything by sleeping!
Maybe I should leave out some milk and cookies or some oil and spark plugs...just to make sure.