The WIERDEST things.....

So Id like to get a feel for those who have had bizarre or weird events involving their rides or adventures.

Anything is open as long as its clean...

This am (12/1/2018) I went to inspect the foot brake switch on my flying brick.

OK, the front worked fine, the rear wasn't and the warning light was staying on on the dash.

So I tore the pedal mount frame off and removed the switch. Put it to a multi meter and found that the switch works just peachy fine. No issue, the contact closes and all is good in the world. So I went to see why the switch wasn't turning on the break light and (I missed taking a pic of this)...


Found a cluster of spider carcass in the switch well that was preventing the switch from closing.

Zen of motorcycle repair....

Once while breaking camp in Utah I found a mouse had setup housekeeping in the tank bag of my wife's bike. After chasing it around the bike for awhile I lost it so assumed it had run away. When we stopped for gas 100 miles later there it was, sitting on the rear wheel (obviously didn't spend 100 miles running treadmill style back there). It took almost an hour and disassembly of most of the body work to finally catch it and set it free, a long, long way from the bike. Still have to laugh every time I recall the situation. Though neither my wife, nor the mouse probably, saw the humor in the situation.

Was in Colo riding with a friend. He was ahead of me and we were southbound on the highway. We were approaching a canyon on our right. Now flying east and down canyon was a big raven. The raven, flying low and fast reached the end of the canyon and the highway, at the same time my friend was passing through the same space. The raven was able to pull up in time to avoid physical contact with my friend. But in order to pull off that feat and avoid hitting my friend, the raven had to lighten his load. Yep, as the raven did a very close fly over, it crapped all over my buddy.

I lived about 40 miles away from my favorite dealer. We had an excellent relationship and did each other favors from time to time. I received a call from the owner of the dealership. A guy had just bought his wife a new-to-them K75 and was riding it home - about 110 miles. He had pulled into the town near which I lived and the motorcycle was idling at 3,000 rpm and would not drop down below that engine speed.

The dealer said he could send a trailer to get the bike, but asked if I could go look at it, since this problem seemed so weird. The rider was in an apartment complex parking lot about 5 miles from my house. I hopped on my K75 and went to see what the problem was.

Sure enough, the bike started fine, ran fine, but the idle speed would not drop below about 3,000 rpm. If this had been an Airhead I would have immediately suspected an air leak. But the airfilter, airbox, and airtubes on a K75 are dead-stone reliable. I did notice there seemed to be too much slack in the throttle twistgrip. I looked where the throttle cable attached to the pulley on the throttle body assembly. Lo and behold there was a small rock about 1/8" in diameter lodged where it prevented the throttle bodies from returning to the idle position. It was jammed right where the throttle stop screw might have settled if the rock had not been there. I literally flicked the rock out of there with a ball point pen I had in my pocket. Of course, with the rock gone the bike idled perfectly.

The new owner was happy to continue home. I called the dealership and they were happy not to need to send a trailer. All was well that ended well.

Paul, I recall hearing you tell a story about a friend you were following suddenly falling back on his seat and what you found as the cause and fixed with a Leatherman. It would fit well here.

Probably 30+ years ago I was riding my '74 daily. Often I was riding to downtown Memphis; overlooking the river. Was sitting on a park bench watching the sunset over the Arkansas side of the river. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something moving under my bike. Walked over to investigate, saw a snake climbing my centerstand. By the time I got there the snake had disappeared in behind the transmission. It was in the flywheel housing. Yikes. Sit there for an hour. He stayed holed up in there; wasn't leaving. I had enough. I started the bike and rode home; sorry dude.

Rode the bike a couple more years. Decided to disassemble the bike for an econo resto. I pulled the tranny. Yep, I found pieces of the poor reptile in the flywheel. Sad, but true.

Many years ago I was riding home with a friend as we were returning to UT from Portland, OR. It was nighttime with no moon, and we were southbound in ID on US93 between Salmon and Challis as it paralleled the winding Salmon River, and planning on riding straight through to home. My friend was leading as we came upon, and closed with, a pickup pulling a stock trailer. In anticipation of a pass, my friend was following the trailer fairly closely when just as we entered a shallow right-hand bend I saw in the headlights of both pickup and bike a deer leap into the air from the river side of the road, and go BETWEEN the pickup and the trailer. My friend didn’t see it. Next thing I saw was the deer popping out from under the trailer and tumbling sideways down the road, right next to my friend’s bike. My friend looked down at the tumbling forest rat (rather nonchalantly it appeared to me) and simply motored on with nary a flash of brake light or weave of handlebar. The deer bounded to it’s feet and disappeared up the hillside to the left.

That episode was thought-provoking enough, but then a mile or so later I watched as first the pickup and trailer made a sudden swerve, then my friend’s bike doing likewise—so I slowed a bit. When I reached the spot I, too, swerved around the mama skunk and four little ones she was herding across the road.

Upon arriving in Challis, we grabbed a room!

Best,
DG

Friend was in Nevada somewhere riding late at night. He "misunderestimated" how much fuel he had and ran out a few miles from a town. He figured he would wait until morning when there was a better chance of a passing motorist stopping. He was putting up his tent when a guy came along and stopped. My friend gave him a $20 and asked him to bring back a gallon of fuel and he could keep the change. The guy had no container but my friend noticed an empty gallon jug of anti-freeze and off the fella went. He soon returned with the jug in his trunk. He lifted it out and found it only half full. It was only then that he noticed the jug had been shot with bird shot and his trunk was soaked in gasoline. My friend offered his condolences, but was glad he had enough fuel to get to the town.

Odd

Did not want to start new tread but email thing from Indian gifts under $50