Prospect purchase

[FJmonkey]

Kyle, if you make it to North LA I can host a night or two if you need a warm landing place. Might add some miles but could add some rest and comfort... Look up 91214 if you have a smart phone or internet.

[Firehawk068]

The weather is nice here in Austin if you are planning on being home in the next week.......It's supposed to be 80 on Tuesday....
70 all weekend!

[Mark Olson]

Kyle,

pay your tickets or they will catch up to you later.

I got a notice of suspension for a ticket I received 21 years ago in arizona.

all the states are now linked up with dmv.

most of the time you never know until you get pulled over and find out from the cop.

keep your payment receipt , I ended up paying for the same ticket twice. 21 years later.

[I make oil]

Glad the bikes working out so well for you.  Sucks on the tickets though.  The weather down here is Glorious I'm riding today.  Hurry up and get south!  I was in Longview TX day before yesterday and it was nice there too.   Have fun and be safe.

[fintip]

Will catch up soon, thanks everyone. Just made it into Sacramento last night... Was an eventful ride. Fate is determined to give me interesting stories wherever I go.

[Tiger]

Will catch up soon, thanks everyone. Just made it into Sacramento last night... Was an eventful ride. Fate is determined to give me interesting stories wherever I go.

   

[movenon]

        

[Klavdy]

Kyle, if you make it to North LA I can host a night or two if you need a warm landing place. Might add some miles but could add some rest and comfort... Look up 91214 if you have a smart phone or internet.

[FJmonkey]

Kyle, if you make it to North LA I can host a night or two if you need a warm landing place. Might add some miles but could add some rest and comfort... Look up 91214 if you have a smart phone or internet.

I love you too K-man...

[Klavdy]

Hey!
Check this out,

[FJmonkey]

Hey!
Check this out,

Late to the party Eh? Saw that already, still love you man....

[Flynt]

That bike is you sir...  tell us how she rides.

Frank

[Klavdy]

Oh, you'd seen it before?
It's pretty awesome, eh!
You've still got time to get that wallpaper up in the guest room.

[FJmonkey]

Oh, you'd seen it before?
It's pretty awesome, eh!
You've still got time to get that wallpaper up in the guest room.

If I knew when you were coming to visit, I will have it ready for you.... But I will need to tear it down after you leave to keep the property values from tanking...

[fintip]

Those diversions aside... Haha.

So, I'm in LA, being hosted by the venerable power ranger. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After staying with some friends from Israel who are staying for a few months in Redding, several days there, I decided I needed to hit the road before I got rained in for another few days. In an attempt to hold me for as long as they could, I ended up not being able to leave until 8:30PM. Next stop? Sacramento. Scrambling to get going, in a rush, and having been rushed all day cramming things together, I just rushed out the door to leave as quick as I could.

But not so fast. While I was in Redding, I noticed something. My now 'functioning' starter button is an intermittent issue. Sometimes it reverts to its old behaviour, and doesn't start. I left it alone at least once for several hours, and then, voila, it worked like a charm. Odd.

So I hit the road, rushing to meet my next host--the famous mrmaxstorey from youtube, who I learned a lot of motorcycle mechanics from and whose videos were helpful to me in repairing my petcock. When I asked him some questions about my FJ before I'd seen it, he heard of my plans and said that if I was passing through California, I should let him know and he'd put me up for a night. Knowing I was close, I messaged him, and he sent a number and an address and invited me over.

So I'm driving down the main highway in the dark, trying to make good time, when the bike suddenly dies on me. Seems electrical in nature, but lights are all still on. Starter button isn't working now, just flashes oil and fuel lights at me...

Try to bypass the solenoid. Cranks, but doesn't fire.

Figuring this sounds like a sitcom episode, I call the guy whose videos I learned so much from. He says it sounds like I don't have spark. I had considered that unlikely, since my starter button woes seem to kind of be the issue, and I had spark when I had that problem, but I agree that the symptoms make more sense that way. I pull the bike apart, pull out the factory toolkit and remove a spark plug. Short out the solenoid with one hand and hold the plug to the block with the other...

...No spark. Huh. I text him that he was right. He had texted saying to test my safety switches while I was checking for spark. I figure maybe one of them went bad after I disturbed it before after all, and tell him I'll start that--but he texts back telling me to instead just vigorously switch the kill switch back and forth. I am certain that can't be it, since I never have touched the kill switch (maybe once or twice for troubleshooting, but other than that I always turn off the bike with the key, so as not to disturb and cause the kill switch to eventually fail).

I rock it back and forth, hearing the solenoid switch on and off as I do so, convinced that the sound vindicates me. I press the starter button.

Bam! Even with the #1 spark plug sitting out, the bike starts and starts idling on three cylinders. (!!!)

I stitch it back up together and repack and hit the road again.

Having noticed a seemingly properly functioning fuel light on a prior ride, I figure I should be fine--reserve worked as it was supposed to I noticed before, when the bike cut out on fuel, and flipping the reserve switch worked out.

I normally go off of trip odometer anyways, but I needed gas shortly upon leaving Redding, and the first place I found was expensive--3.89 for basic. So I only put in $10, since my budget relies on me averaging quite a bit cheaper than that for gas (hoping for $3.70).

So I don't know how far I have with what gas was in the tank plug whatever $10 was.

The fuel light comes on after 120 miles or so. I start looking for the next exit with a gas station. Finally see one, fairly isolated, 10 miles later. I pull over, stop at the stop sign, turn to go over the bridge, and pull into a shell. Another expensive one. It's now 11pm. Swipe my card. "ENTER ZIPCODE."

I put in the zip code for the mailing address for the debit card.

"AUTHORIZATION FAILED. SEE CASHIER."

Only, there is no cashier... Station is closed....

Ok...

Drive over to the 79 right next to it.

Aaaaand it's a direct repeat. Lovely.

Not a soul around this whole time.

I've only gone 10 miles on reserve, I reason, I should be able to make it to the next string of gas stations.

I pull uphill and over the bridge, to the stop sign from before on the southbound side of I-5.

Aaaand the bike dies.

??

I try to start it. Starter button: crank, no fire, few stumbles.

Try push starting down the on ramp.

No dice.

Open the gas cap. Bone dry. Not a drop in there. You have got to be kidding me.

There's an RV parked in the dark on the on ramp. I pull over next to it and knock on the door, saying loudly, "Is anyone there?"

"Yes?"

"Sorry to bother you, this must sound weird, but I'm on my motorcycle and my card was not accepted because it is out of state across the street, and so I've completely run out of gas. Any chance you can help me? I can pay cash if you can help."

Silence. Crickets.

Great. A few minutes. "I guess that means no?"

Silence.

Wonderful. I try stopping a few cars. Eventually I realize I just need to push this hulking beast up the on ramp, and up over the bridge, to the gas station, and then wait for someone else whose card works, pay them cash, and have them put gas in the bike. I start pushing. It's killer with all the weight, surely 600 lbs or so.

Then an old truck pulls beside me with a camper while I'm stopped halfway up the ramp to rest my legs for a second. I wave him down, and explain my situation. Crusty old character. Says we can load it up in the back of his camper, but he doesn't have money (that's fine, I wasn't asking for any) and doesn't have a gas can (bummer), and doesn't want to enter the highway, go down a few miles to the next uturn and come back or anything...

...So we should load it up and go to the next exit. I tell him that probably won't work, this is a big bike. He goes back to look at it and realizes I wasn't kidding, we'd have to unload everything and have a nightmare, I really don't like the idea. Eventually, I tell him I'll just try my luck at the gas station across the street. He starts to walk away and asks, "Hey, you know who you just met?"

"Who?"

"The Harley Davidson family." He then listed a lot of names I wasn't familiar with, and said they were his relatives. I offered to shake his hand, but he turned me down. He had kept saying that he'd been dealing with bikes his whole life, and when he first saw the bike (I have the FJ1200 decals stripped from my side panels) he asked if it was a YICS bike (a technology Yamaha used on the XJ line). Who knows?

Anyways, I finally push the beast over the hill and coast down to the gas station. Stop and start waiting. Someone pulls up. I explain my situation. They try and help.

Their card is rejected too, same response. They try the 79 across the street. Same thing.

So we're waiting together. I go across the street to the closing Jack in the Box. I ask the employee if he can help. He says he can probably run across for a few minutes. Just as we get there, there's a nice Tahoe pulled in at a pump. A guy looking like his late teens hops out in a "onesie". I call over and ask if it's working for him. He says it is. Great!

Can he help me? I explain my situation. He says sure, walks over, I pay him $18, he puts $18.75 in my tank. I start looking for change, and he tells me not to worry about it. He says he's on his way to Seattle now. With a thanks, and goodbyes to everyone around, I finally get back on the road.

I get to my host after 1AM. He's cool, though, he understands. I hate being late, so it was a relief to find him so gracious in accepting a stranger in the middle of the night.

Over the next few days, we become fast friends. Max is really a great guy who is every bit as friendly as he comes off in his videos. We swap stories and talk bikes and work on stuff. I let him test my bike out, and his response upon coming back: "Seems like a bike that would be very easy to get a ticket on."

Oh how right you are....   (Looking at you, Oregon...)

It starts to rain on and off after I come, but after two days of befriending him and his wife and starting to feel like I could happily stay there a week, the weather clears for a day unexpectedly, and is clear all the way down to LA. I decide that it's better to leave earlier than wait for my welcome to wear out, though, and decided to hit the road before I get rained in again. I load up, say my goodbyes, call Monkey, and head out to San Fran so I can see the Golden Gate Bridge (1st time in my life) and drive down Hwy 1.

Golden Gate Bridge is nice. It's red, not gold. It's big. Fairly pleasant ride out there. Stop at a starbucks to pick out the next leg of my journey on their wifi. It's now 1:30pm. I start heading down 1. I stop once or twice, but mostly just ride along. I don't realize it, but I am not covering many miles for the time. Traffic isn't bad, but it certainly isn't light. The view is nice, though the section I'm in mostly isn't spectacular. Traffic is detracting from it. Eventually it's about 3:45pm and I stop for gas. I ask how far to LA. "10 hours" someone tells me. WHAT? "Yeah, if you go down 1. Maybe a little less." Her friend argues and says she thought it was 8. Woah woah woah, I was expecting to be there in 3 hours, I've been riding since 11:30AM.

I keep riding down. Around 4:30 I see a little roadside farm/market that had a sign for 9 avocados for $1! Can't pass that up, and haven't eaten since breakfast. So I stop and do a little shopping. Stock up on avocados and get a good price on some Salsa. Pull out bread and cheese I got at the supermarket in Sacramento and make myself a sandwich of avo, cheese, and salsa on bread. Delicious. I also got 3 bananas--I eat one. Hit the road. About 4:50. Starting to dim. I get to a down down the road around 5:30 and ask the gas station attendant how far to LA. He tells me 6-8 hours depending on speed. He says he wouldn't recommend it at dark. I ask him how he would go. He says he'd go north a few miles, find 46(?) east, take it to 101, and go south on that. So I do that. Get terribly confused because 46 west and 46 east are separated by about 5 exits, and I keep trying to figure out a way to get 46 west exit to bring me to 46 east.

That takes me about 45 minutes. I get to 101 and start flying. Around 8pm I stop and call Monkey and let him know what's up as I fill up the tank--I pulled in literally on fumes, coasting the last 1/4 mile mostly on the clutch to conserve what little gas I have. (I hadn't been able to fill up all the way because of these darn fume-recovery fuel pumps that won't let me stick the last gallon in the tank, and my light came on but maybe late again...)

He was expecting me to arrive any minute, so he's obviously a little shocked how far away I am, and tells me that heading further east and taking 5 will save me a fair amount of time. So I do that. I am flying, trying to make it by at least 11PM. I don't speed passing cars on my own, but this connecting road between 101 and 5 seems to go on in the back country forever, and everyone is flying around 80mph or so.

When I get to 5, people are going even faster. I'm following people getting up past 100mph. Eventually we're in mountain passes in the dark, and some cars are going so fast and weaving so aggressively that I simply cannot safely tail them. Generally, though, I'm making excellent time. It's about 210 miles from the last gas station where I called him to his house, so I'm hoping that all my speeding will pay off. I spend the time calculating average speed by watching the trip odometer and the clock--5 minutes, 6.8 miles... 5 x 12 = 60, 6 x 12 = 72, .8 x 12, 81.6. Then at ten minutes, recalculate, and get closer. Eventually my average for 30 minutes was close to 91mph.

Just when I'm in LA, with no gas light having ever come on, the bike starts to feel like it's low on gas. I switch to RES and start leaning off the throttle. After a half mile, the bike is slowing down. It's been about 190 miles, less than ranges I have had before, but then I have been flying. Crap, I just passed an exit for a gas station. Bike won't accelerate. I take the next exit, and roll to a stop. I try waving some people down. No use, they're going to fast on the exit to get a chance to consider it. I check in the tank. Empty. I try and figure out what to do. The off ramp here goes downhill steeply into the dark.

With no better idea, and figuring I can't do any worse, I finally decide to coast down the off ramp. I coast down some mild sweepers on the shoulder, with lights on and a blinker to make sure I get noticed. I hit another highway shoulder, still going downhill. I keep coasting around 8mph. I coast up to an exit and hop off the disappearing shoulder and coast down the exit itself. I coast up to a light, aaaaand, lo and behold, there's a shell across the street. I could kiss the gas pump as I stop at the light, hop off, and push the bike across the street. I fill it up, take a look at what little of LA my tablet maps app cached, and realize I had missed my exit when I ran out of gas, and I am almost to Monkey's. I figure out that I can start heading east and just about get close to where he is, but my app has also for some reason dropped his location, whereas I had tried to close the thing with his address indicated. Now it's gone, and all I remember it that I need to take the philidelphia or something exit off of 210.

I don't make it to his house until 12, as I took the correct direction on 210, felt like maybe it was wrong when I wasn't seeing his exit and did a Uturn ONE exit too early (!! ugh), and then went all the way North before realizing that no, he is south, have some stranger at a gas station pull up the address on his smart phone and FLY south at 110 the whole way to get to his house ASAP. (Also, highways outside of Texas are odd. You guys don't have "Frontage Roads" like we have them in Texas--which is virtually EVERYWHERE. A glorious thing when you need to head the other way on the highway...)

Finally arrive. Hit the hay. 13 hours of driving. Unbelievable. -_-

And there. We're caught up to a couple days ago.