Day 4-Roadside Repairs

Started this morning much warmer. No need for under armor or the insulation of my jacket. Coincidentally started out with two other riders, got separated from them and eventually caught back up with them about 1/2 way through. Matt rides a Vespa GTS 250 and is from NY and Kristen from CA also rides a Vespa. Both are capable of riding much faster than me but they seemed to enjoy the HD 200's leisurely 62 MPH. Matt was taking the lead and when we reached the town of Moody he hung a right. My GPS said to go straight, but, I was enjoying riding with them so I followed. It ended up tacking on an extra 20 minutes, but everything happens for a reason, right? More in that in a minute. I was planning on testing out the scooters maximum fuel range on today's ride, but there were some wild winds and that screwed everything up. I decided to go with Matt's 3 fuel stop plan because of that. It was at the third fuel stop when everything started to unravel.

We were trucking down the road about 62 MPH and then the scooter started to bog down. I let off the gas a little bit it sped up for about 5 seconds then bogged down again. The cycle continued until I pulled to the side to evaluate what the hell was going on. It felt exactly like when I ran out of gas. Problem was, I'd only traveled about 85 miles since the last fill up. Surely the wind didn't screw up my MPG that bad? I was still showing around 1/4 of a tank, was my fuel gauge wrong? I doubted both of the above possibilities, so started thinking of other problems. It definitely sounded and felt like fuel starvation so the only other thing it could be (hopefully) was the fuel filter. Could be a spark plug too. I had a spark plug but no fuel filter.

All of this was unfolding about 1/2 mile from our next fuel stop. Remember how I said everything happens for a reason? The gas station on Matt's 3 fuel up route had an auto store directly across the street from it. I had no intentions of stopping here or even taking this particular route. I made a quick call to Abe at second city scooters and he thought the same thing I had regarding the filter and plug. I ran across the street, picked up a filter and off we went. I filled up hoping there was an off chance my MPG got screwed up and the indicator was wrong. No luck. About 30 miles up the road the same thing started happening. I limped along like that another 20 miles and it got worse. I pulled over, told the other two to continue on since I was pretty sure it was one of the two issues I mentioned previously. I was only 30 miles from the hotel and there were other riders and support trucks behind me so I wasn't worried. With the wind not blowing on me anymore, I realized what the temperature was, around 105 in the middle of what you probably imagine Texas looking like. I pulled the plug and it didn't look too bad but I put the new one in anyway. I buttoned it back up and headed down the road. 3 miles in same thing. Process of elimination tells me fuel filter, so I pulled over again in the blazing hot sun, disrobed and started working on my broke ass scooter. I pissed about 1/2 a tank of gas onto the ground pulling the lines that connected the tank and the engine, but got the new filter hooked up eventually. The last 20 or so miles went without a hiccup until I got lost in Abilene. On the bright side, my scooter seemed to be running fine. Hoping that was the fix, otherwise I won't know where to being. Glad I took the longer route. Glad I used Matts gas stops. Glad there was an auto parts store across the street from the gas station.

Todays maintenance bugs screwed my time, not sure about my rank. I think it will only fall 2 or 3 spots. Not necessarily a bad thing, because if it gets low enough I can forget about the competition part and focus more on the ride part.

So here I sit at the hotel in Abilene. Today was my planned 1/2 way maintenance day. Some got accomplished road side and some got accomplished in the parking lot. When Dave told me last night he was doing his 1/2 way maintenance I remember thinking "but it's not half way". Jokes on me, since the temperature was 30 degrees cooler where he did it. I even forgot my socket to take the oil plug out. Idiot.

Off to Roswell, NM tomorrow. Sure hoping everything holds up. I'm going to leave early to avoid as much heat as possible!




Riding behind Matt and Kristina in the morning


Matt and Kristina at a stop light in some random Texas town


Checkpoint of Moody, Texas. A large group of scooters converged here at the same time for some reason


The $3 fuel filter I bought at the auto parts store


The auto parts store!


Spark plug change roadside


Unbuttoned scooter


Texas road. Middle of nowhere. Hot.


Like you, I also pictured Texas looking just like this