Here's a long read, but pretty much on-topic. Published in Cycle Canada, way back when.
In nearly sixty years of travel in more than fifty countries, never have I been better treated than in the USA. Here's a true story to illustrate that.
From: Cycle Canada [cyclecanada@turbopress.net]
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 11:19 AM
To: Peter McLennan
Subject: re lucky logger
Peter, I hope to find a place for this soon. Can you have a look at the
edited copy?
Thanks, BR
The Lucky Logger
by Peter McLennan
It wasn¹t my fault, honest. It was near the end of a long day and maybe my
patience was exhausted, but not without reason. The blue VW microbus in
front me had been crawling along, holding down my speed for more than a few
miles, so I decided that the time had come to pass the slowpoke and be on my
way. I was turning about 6,000 in fourth up a long straight as I went by
him, and when I went for fifth gear, it just wasn¹t there.
Now, usually on this old Beemer, the shift into top gear is just a
formality, a last smooth, gentle caress of the gear lever as you change into
cruise mode. Not this time. I couldn¹t change to cruise mode because I
didn¹t have a fifth gear, or any other gear for that matter. Gentle caresses
turned to frantic stabs as I searched in vain with my left foot for
something, anything, that would connect my engine to my rear wheel.
I¹m sure the VW waved as it churned by, leaving me coasting ever more slowly uphill.
It always amazes me, when things go bad, and the machinery fails, how quiet
it is on the roadside. As I stood there, helmet in hand, gazing at my
lifeless motorcycle, I was aware of the distant grind of the VW as it faded
into the Idaho forest, and then velvet- black silence, broken only by the
ticking of the exhaust system as it cooled.
I set about verifying the symptoms. The engine ran fine, the transmission
seemed to shift correctly, but there was no connection between the two.
Nothing I did would produce the characteristic clunk from the drivetrain
that meant the machine was ready to move.
³Gotta be the clutch,² I said aloud to the wilderness. But the clutch-lever
action felt normal. A hands-and-knees inspection of the various links and
actuators underneath the engine revealed nothing awry there either. The
simple, brutal truth was that engine power wasn¹t reaching the rear wheel.
Without it, I was going nowhere.
I remembered passing a place called Island Park, a tiny town near West
Yellowstone a few minutes back down the road, and I recalled seeing a gas
station. At least they would have a phone. I turned the machine around and
began to coast back downhill.
The journey back to the gas station took longer than I thought. There were
several short uphill stretches where I learned enormous respect for the
effortless power of the little engine I took for granted every day. Those
few minutes of effortless cruising on the bike transformed themselves into
endless stretches of podium-grade effort as I struggled back those few
miles. But on balance, I was very lucky. Most of the trip was downhill, and
I reached Island Park, tired but thankful, in an hour or so.
I surveyed the gas station with dismay. A typical Mom and Pop operation, it
was more of a convenience store than a gas station. It had plenty of video
games, magazines, Doritos and Slurpees, but no mechanical shop at all, and
certainly nobody with any knowledge of BMW clutch systems. I was a victim of
modern times.
They did, however, have a payphone, and after a raspberry Slurpee, I went to
work. From a call to a Japanese cycle shop in Idaho Falls about a hundred
miles away, I learned that, yes, it sounded like clutch problems, and yes, a
truck could be dispatched to pick up my machine, and the cost would be about
$20 per hour for the driver, plus fuel and mileage for the vehicle. Both
ways, of course. Parts? Well, the nearest BMW dealers were in Billings,
Montana, or Boise, Idaho, each more than 300 miles away. It¹d be a couple of
days at least for delivery, assuming they had whatever parts I might need. I
did have some tools, but I¹d never even seen a BMW clutch before, much less
replaced one. I could take my chances and take the cheap-ticket tow truck to
Idaho Falls, disassemble things there and order the parts, gambling that I
could somehow get things running again. Or I could pay full-fare and get the
truck to take me and the bike all the way to the bike shop, where success
was guaranteed. As was an empty pocket soon thereafter. That¹s when I
remembered my own understanding of the meaning of the initials BMW. They
stand for ³Bite My Wallet.²
I began to add up the costs. Get the bike to a shop. Pay to have the problem
diagnosed, ship parts in from somewhere, pay for reassembly, motel and
restaurant bills for several days living in a town I didn¹t even want to
visit. A $1,000 bill would be getting off easy, even in U.S. funds. This was
quickly becoming an expensive vacation.
To hell with it. The Slurpee had made me thirsty, so I went inside the store
and bought myself a Pabst Blue Ribbon, lit up a Swisher Sweet and sat down
on the curb next to the bike to think.
³How¹s she runnin¹?² said the scarecrow in the straw hat silhouetted in the
evening sun before me. ³Huh?² I replied, returning from a dreary mental land
of blown travel budgets and missed schedules. ³I used ta¹ ride one a them
myself a few years back. Hadda Harley. Rode it all the way to the
Mississippi one summer.² He was about sixty, I guessed, grizzled grey beard,
plaid shirt and jeans, looked like any of a hundred guys in pickup trucks
I¹d passed in the last few days.
³Well,² I began, ³She¹s not running too well just now. Matter of fact she
and me are stuck here, trying to figure out what to do next.² I wasn¹t
feeling conversational, but the old guy deserved better than my real
feelings at the moment. I briefly outlined the state of the Beemer¹s health.
³Huh,² he said. ³Thought these expensive German jobs never broke.² Then he
disappeared into the store.
It was getting late. I swilled the rest of my beer and was preparing to call
for the pickup truck from Idaho Falls when he reappeared.
³Which way you headed?²
³Tough question.²
I had three current destinations fighting for priority. There was my
original destination, Yellowstone, my current destination (Idaho Falls, the
cycle shop) and my preferred destination (Boise), home of the nearest BMW
dealership. Trouble was, each point was exactly the opposite direction from
the other two. I tried to explain, but I must have seemed a bit confused. I
eventually settled on the sure thing: the dealership in Boise.
³Boise, you say? Weeelll,² he drawled, ³I¹m sorta goin¹ that way myself.²
(Surely he wasn¹t looking for a ride?) ³What¹s that thing weigh?²
³Oh, I dunno‹ about five hundred pounds,² I said, quoting the advertising
copy and not the bike¹s current out-there-for-a-month weight.
³We¹re gonna need some help,² he mumbled, then turned his back and ambled
across the tarmac toward a battered mid-¹60s pickup. A tiny light of hope
flickered deep inside me. This guy¹s going to offer me a ride! I began to
feel better.
Two hours later and a hundred miles closer to Boise, with the bike safely
tied down in back and my insides warmed by a couple of burgers and a coffee,
I knew a lot more about Jim Williams, CB handle ³The Lucky Logger.² He made
his living with this old pickup, cutting firewood for those who had no time
to cut their own, and Jim was on his way to Boise to visit his sister.
As we made our way through the desert night we talked of war and peace, of
travels and friends, politics and women, and a thousand other things until,
four hundred miles from Island Park, Idaho, at about three in the morning,
we pulled up under the welcoming glow of the BMW logo high atop a steel pole
in suburban Boise. Never before or since has that logo looked so good.
The two of us off-loaded the bike somehow, and, after finding a soft bit of
lawn devoid of automatic sprinklers for my sleeping bag, I practically
strong-armed him into accepting some gas money and thanked him for the
hundredth time. We wished each other well, and, as he sat there, elbow
cocked out the driver¹s side window, preparing to leave, I asked him, on a hunch: ³Jim, do you really have a sister here in Boise?²
³Hah,² he laughed, and he drove off into the night.