Ride Report - GirlRiders Memorial Day adventure, from my perspective

[acalliste]

I thought everyone was aware of everything that happened on this trip, but apparently that is not the case. Therefore, here the ride report I posted on the other forums for people who weren't there or who may have missed some things that happened.


I took a trip up to north Georgia with GirlRiders for Memorial Day weekend (and some lucky guys who got to tag along). We stayed at some nice cabins in Suches, and rode around the area for a few days. I didn’t get as much riding in as I would have liked since my bike chose this opportunity to have its charging system flip out, but more about that in a minute.

Some of the group arrived on Thursday and got a bit of riding in early. I didn’t get there until Friday evening, so my first day of riding this trip was Saturday. The plan was to ride from Suches to Morganton, around and over to Robbinsville, then back down to Suches. The morning is a little foggy and the roads are a bit wet, but not a big deal.

We had a nice little ride, split into two groups at first, then three when the crazy fast people (Claus, Ken, Teresa, Tasha, Fugi) split off on their own. We met back up at a gas station before the Cherohala Skyway.

We went along this road for a while, having an absolute blast. We (group 2) had caught up with the first group, who had stopped to meet us. When got back on the road, I looked down and saw that my gauge lights were flashing wildly, the tach was sweeping back and forth, and the speedometer was flashing “00”. It did this for about 5 seconds, then went back to normal. “Whew” I thought, “that was weird”, thinking it sorted itself out. But then it happened again. Then went back to normal, but freaked out again. By this time, I’m starting to worry because there is no safe place to stop on this road. Nothing but one blind turn after another and no shoulder, except for the occasional scenic overlook. When I began to feel the power cutting out, I knew I needed to find one of these areas. Thankfully one appeared a few seconds later, and I pulled into it. My bike died as I pulled the clutch in and I coasted to a stop.

Hopping off, I become aware of a horrible smell, kind of like a paper mill. There is steam or smoke coming out from under my seat. Some of the people I was riding with stop with me (others were ahead and hadn’t figured out anything was up yet). I turn the key back on and there is no power at all. Ok, something definitely wrong with the battery. Someone has a 5mm allen wrench, and we get the seat off. There is steam and liquid spewing from the vent in the battery. It’s toast.

So here I am on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere with a broken bike. I have no cell phone service, from where I’m standing anyway. However there is a deck that goes pretty high, and when I climb to the top I have a bit of service. We decide that everyone else will continue on the ride, since lunch is only about 15 -20 miles away in Robbinsville and there’s no sense in everyone hanging out there with me. Lauren said she would stay, and I’d call for help and have that help either find me here or meet everyone in Robbinsville and they could lead them back up to me.

Now to figure out what help I could contact. I have a membership to ROK, with roadside assistance, so I called them first. But for some reason they can’t take GPS coordinates, which is all I have. There’s no address up here! I also called my SO, but we can’t keep a very good phone connection. Between a few words here and there, and text messages, I give him my GPS coordinates and he also finds the address to the restaurant everyone is at and he gets on the road with the trailer to find me. But he’s at least 2 hours away. Oh well, we are in a beautiful spot, there’s a picnic table and a little shade, and we have some water. We strip down to our under armor and settle in for the wait.

A group of cruiser riders pulled up as we lounged there. Who knows what they thought, with a gsxr750 and a ZX10 parked there, and two women in their underwear laying in the grass under the trees. Hahaha…

Suddenly one of the guys appears on his girlfriend’s ZX10 and the battery from his bike in his backpack. He thought if we could get some power to my bike, we could bump it and at least ride it down. However the battery is too tall and whoever rides it has to basically hold the seat down with their butt. I didn’t feel comfortable doing that, so he rode it that way and I rode his girlfriend’s bike back down.

Back at the restaurant, the bikes and batteries are restored to their rightful owners, and I settle in to wait for my SO to come and rescue me. We picked up a new battery on the way back to the cabin, and it seems like I am good to go.



We decided to ride to Deals Gap the next morning. I have never been there and didn’t want to miss the chance, so we headed out again on wet roads and this time under a little misty rain, and our way out is down the technical end of Wolf Pen Gap. The weather doesn’t seem to be getting any worse, though, so it should be a good day.

Until we stop. Then I notice that weird smell again. I look at the bike and there’s steam coming out from the under the seat once more. I felt like screaming. What the hell is wrong with this POS? Pull the seat off, and the new battery is steaming from the vents, though not as bad as the first one when I noticed it. Check the power and we still have it. Maybe the regulator/rectifier is overheating in its retarded place behind the radiator? One of the guys unbolts it and zip-ties it on the side of the engine where it can get some air. I rinse the steaming acid off, put the seat back on and we decide to make a run for Wheelers, about 10 miles away. We stopped once and I turned the bike off to let it cool, but when we try to leave it won’t start. Fine, we can bump start it, but they warn me to keep the RPMs as low as possible. Less than 4k, preferably around 2 or 3. Well, this bike hates low revs. Wreaks all kinds of havoc with the ECM, but I guess I can deal with that rather than a blown up battery under my butt. It’s painfully slow going, with the bike lurching and running like shit the entire way.

Finally we make it to Wheelers, he’s open and I roll up to a bay with an empty lift. Thank goodness, he can get right on it. He ended up putting a new regulator/rectifier and a new battery in it. My headlights don’t work now either, so he finangled a way to make them work, basically connecting the headlight fuse to the turn signal fuse with a wire. And curiously, now the lowbeams come on when the switch is set to highbeam and vice-versa. But at least they work, keeping me legal. $300 and about 2.5 hours later, I’m down the road headed for The Dragon!

Katie had waited with me, and now we ride to meet up with everyone else. They had already run up and down The Dragon a few times, so just me, Katie and her husband went up as far as we could go, to the road block and back. The road is pretty wet with an occasional dry patch, and about halfway up, the rain starts. By the time we headed back down, it was really raining hard, and the road is soaked, with puddles in some places. The good thing was, there was hardly anyone else out there. Still, I tip-toed around every corner. After the weekend I was having, I wasn’t about to push my luck in any way. It was good to just get through it without anything going wrong. And the bike was actually running pretty good, seemed happy.

We hung out for a while, checked out the tree of shame (I really wanted to hang my old rectifier from it, but decided to keep it to give to the dealer to see if they’d warranty it), the gift shop and restaurant. Then got back on the road. I stopped by Wheelers on the way out to pick up my battery which I was going to return, and headed home. However, every time we stopped all the way home, I noticed the bike was harder to start. Finally the battery became weak enough that it wouldn’t start the bike, so we went back to bump starts. For some reason, the battery wasn’t being charged at all. But I made it back to the cabin, riding through a torrential downpour in the process, and the group taking a couple of wrong turns. That was one of the longest rides of my life, or at least felt like it. Sheesh.

When we returned home, we dropped the bike off at the dealer to let them deal with it. Hopefully they can get it back to something like normal (at least whatever “normal” is for this crazy bike).

Despite the technical difficulties, I still had a blast on my second trip to north Georgia and my first trip to the dragon.

[acalliste]

If you ride with RT, pack a clear shield!

[not2slow]

Originally Posted by acalliste

If you ride with RT, pack a clear shield!

So he rides early and late?

[acalliste]

Something like that.

[not2slow]

Originally Posted by acalliste

Something like that.

Well goodness girl what am I missing?

[acalliste]

Nothing, I'm just poking at Tom. He leads a good ride. But the last time I rode with him, someone crashed in the morning and we lost some time getting him sorted out. Tom's route is a long one, so we didn't get to Pecks for lunch until about 3, then when we left I wanted to just jump on 44 and blast home, but Tom talked me into a "short" detour. This was in Jan I think, winter time at any rate, so the days were shorter. We ended up out on some grove road miles from any civilization when the sun went down, and I only had my dark shield. No moon, no lights anywhere, on a dark, deserted road. I couldn't see shit, so I had to slow way down. Luckily Lauren realized what was up and stayed in front of me so her headlights extended my field of vision enough that I could keep my shield down and go faster than 15 mph. Going faster with my shield up made my eyes water so bad I couldn't see anything anyway.

I have no problem riding at night, but it is nice to be able to see what's more than a few feet in front of you.

[LaurenOE]

Originally Posted by acalliste

Nothing, I'm just poking at Tom. He leads a good ride. But the last time I rode with him, someone crashed in the morning and we lost some time getting him sorted out. Tom's route is a long one, so we didn't get to Pecks for lunch until about 3, then when we left I wanted to just jump on 44 and blast home, but Tom talked me into a "short" detour. This was in Jan I think, winter time at any rate, so the days were shorter. We ended up out on some grove road miles from any civilization when the sun went down, and I only had my dark shield. No moon, no lights anywhere, on a dark, deserted road. I couldn't see shit, so I had to slow way down. Luckily Lauren realized what was up and stayed in front of me so her headlights extended my field of vision enough that I could keep my shield down and go faster than 15 mph. Going faster with my shield up made my eyes water so bad I couldn't see anything anyway.

I have no problem riding at night, but it is nice to be able to see what's more than a few feet in front of you.

Yep. One of my rules going on FSB rides. Always take my clear visor, especially in the Winter. It was a fun day none the less.

Here is a pic of the guy and his BRAND new Ducati with the matching Rossi helmet. Another guy getting intimidated and riding over his head.

[not2slow]

Originally Posted by acalliste

Nothing, I'm just poking at Tom. He leads a good ride. But the last time I rode with him, someone crashed in the morning and we lost some time getting him sorted out. Tom's route is a long one, so we didn't get to Pecks for lunch until about 3, then when we left I wanted to just jump on 44 and blast home, but Tom talked me into a "short" detour. This was in Jan I think, winter time at any rate, so the days were shorter. We ended up out on some grove road miles from any civilization when the sun went down, and I only had my dark shield. No moon, no lights anywhere, on a dark, deserted road. I couldn't see shit, so I had to slow way down. Luckily Lauren realized what was up and stayed in front of me so her headlights extended my field of vision enough that I could keep my shield down and go faster than 15 mph. Going faster with my shield up made my eyes water so bad I couldn't see anything anyway.

I have no problem riding at night, but it is nice to be able to see what's more than a few feet in front of you.

Well Ok then sweetness as long as it was not once again my badI(lol) as usual.

[acalliste]

You haven't had a "bad" yet. I'll let you know when it happens.

[Alawicious]

[not2slow]

Originally Posted by acalliste

You haven't had a "bad" yet. I'll let you know when it happens.

Well OK then But if I have not already told (HA) you that avatar pic just plains ROCKS!