Title: Day Zero – Getting there
Date: August 13, 2007 11:48 AM
Category: Bike
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I’m headed on a family vacation. We just drove 1400km across the US in six days, stopping in various New England towns mainly as we’ve never been there. The destination is the Maritimes and fourteen days touring Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island with my mother and step-father. We drove here in the Ridgeline with the Daytona tied down in the bed and having seen some of the roads on the way through, I was beginning to wish I was riding at least some of it, but that will be another trip. In no particular order, some of the following look like lots of fun
        * The Eastern Adirondacks, east of Diana at least (route 3). The roads looks simply wonderful.
        * CR7/70 in Eastern NY state. There’s no town here, but the tarmac is totally new and unused. It’s level, looks quick and VERY twisty.
        * Route 2E looked good too – few too many straights for the wannabe-Rossi crowd, but had great scenery, good tarmac and very few cars.
        * Most of Vermont looks awful to ride (agricultural). New Hampshire looks to offer some options, as does Maine (and we didn’t even drive the coastal roads here).

But enough of the regret, as before I get started, I have a confession to make: In Berlin, just outside Montpellier VT, I had another stupid bike moment. Earlier I said that I was carrying my Daytona my in the bed of my pickup. For those of you that don’t have pickups, I should perhaps explain what this means: It means I should get a trailer. As the bike weighs something like 180KG, I cannot simply lift it in. Instead, I use a fold out aluminum ramp which makes maybe a 1 in 3 grade. I did once try to ride up this on my KTM 450EXC which is both lighter and much cheaper to repair, but I got halfway and fear got the better of me. As the ramp is very narrow, it’s not possible to put your feet down. This, combined with the truck bed being only about 7′ long means I also can’t hit the ramp at speed, at least not without nerves of steel, lest I wish to come to a rapid stop at the rear truck window and potentially land on the hood. As I don’t possess the balance or clutch skills to do it slowly, I usually just pop it in first gear and slowly walk it up the ramp, using a small set a step ladders to climb the four feet to the bed in more than one step.

Now, I must have done this 20 or 30 times now, with no real problems. OK, once I did drop my 450EXC but that doesn’t really count as I was coming down the ramp forwards and misjudged how grippy knobbly tires could be on aluminum, but I digress. However, after a long days drive in to Berlin, I needed to get some stuff from the truck. That being the case, I took the bike down and left it on the side stand for the night. If you’ve ever been to Monpellier, VT, you’ll know what the hotels are like. Basic is perhaps the kindest word one can use to describe them and suffice to say, I slept poorly. The next morning while everyone is packing up, I go to put the Daytona back on the truck. I deploy the ramp and steps as usual and fire the Daytona up. After a few laps of the parking lot, the oil is starting to warm up so I position myself. Before I attempt the ramp, I leave the bike idling while I put the tie-downs in place on the sides of the truck. If you’ve never used them, their webbed Nylon straps that come in two parts. One is basically the “tie” and is simply a long strip intended to either hook or look around something, with the free end then being placed through the ratchet which is the other part. As such, I usually set the ratchets to accept the tie straight through and hook them to the bed and lay the ties over the side of the truck, one at each corner, so I can grab them easily. That done, I’m now ready to start. Standing on the left of the bike, I hold the clutch with my left while reaching down with my right foot to both kick out the side stand and place the gear selector in first. Two fingers covering each of the brake and clutch I gently rev the engine and release brake and clutch. Slowly the bike inches onto the ramp. As it’s steep I need a little more power to hold the weight and keep things moving as I will only have my body weight to actually hold the bike upright.

Things are going OK up to the point where the bike is part way up the ramp and I need to step up. As usual, I’ve not placed the steps well, but my long legs are foregiving of this and I manage, just to step up while holding the break and clutch fully in. Now the last step: Geting the bike actually into the bed. I realize now the truck is actually on a camber, or maybe it’s the cheap whiskey from the night before coming back to me, but the bike seems to be falling away from me. I grab the levers once more and pull it to me. Seems OK. Once more I gun the engine and the front wheel is up. At this point, I’m usually home-free, but in this case something goes wrong. I now know what I did, but at the time I had no idea, let alone what I was thinking. I was probably over eager to get going (Montpellier will do that to you) or tired or any number of other excuses but for whatever reason, I manged to open the throttle too eagerly while popping the clutch and failing to release the break. In other words, I was asking the rear wheel to move while simulatenously preventing the front end going anywhere. Those of you that ride might recognize a “burn-out” from this, but if you don’t, you still might if I tell you it’s that stunt where riders make the rear wheel spin while the bike goes nowhere, while simulteneously producing a lot of smoke. In my case, I didn’t have tarmac to spin the rear wheel on but an aluminum ramp that I now know was poorly secured. As such, the ramp upon which the rear wheel was resting managed to come free and shot back across the parking lot. With nothing to support it, the rear wheel remembered that gravity would prefer it on the groud and proptly fell. I guess I’d had my share of bad luck that day, that or my instincts kicked in and I caught the front brake. The weight, now hanging free at the back and supported only by the plastic fairing seemed to be holding steady. Gingerly, I started to release the brake lever. It was holding steady, so at least the entire bike wasn’t going to hit the parking lot, at least not yet, but I had a mess on my hands. Luckily, I could put the bike in neutral and kill the engine with my free hand but what next? I couldn’t put the bike on the side stand as there was no clearance to put it down and there was no-one around. Worse, from the four cars in the lot and the fact I didn’t have my phone, there was little chance of anyone for some time. Unable to support the bike except ny holding it, I couldn’t put the ramp back. In fact couldn’t anyway as the rear wheel was too low to allow it. I was going to either have to lift it on or off and do it myself. Letting go of the clutch, I realized the former was the only real option if I was to avoid damage. I let go of the levers and reached back to the exposed frame under the pillion. I could feel the heat from the exhaust can starting to tickle my fingers, so I knew I either didn’t have long or had to wait a good 20 minutes for it to cool, so I just lifted and pulled forward was hard as I could. Miraculously, it lifted, and looking back the bed grooves meant I only needed to really provide enough forward and upward momentum to actually walk the rear wheel up on to the bed, but I was ecstatic and didn’t care. I was idiotic, sure, but also a master of the bike, bending it to my will. That and my gym membership had surely paid for itself now.

After putting the bike on the stand, I took a look at the damage. I expected maybe cracked pipes, or at least maybe I needed a new set of fairing lowers but no. All that hand broken was a small plastic tab and a press clip was out. I realigned the fairing and pressed home the clip and there was no indication that anything had transpired that morning, beyond the fact my ramp was six feet from the truck. As my heart slowed down, I tied of the bike and went back inside to get the luggage, thinking that a trailer was perhaps a really good investment.

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