Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Scenes from a motorcycle trip.

Ya 340, the irony is that I quit riding the KLR in '94, in favor of a BMW, "a bike that I could own and rebuild forever". Turns out the KLR has been in production for so long (and still is) that there is a huge aftermarket, and yes, if/when it dies, I could rebuild it forever, or at least for the rest of my natural life time.

Anyhoo... Sunday morning the 13th, the time came for me to leave. Seemed like a big deal at the time, like an adventure, truth be told the bike still felt alien to me, tho I had ridden so many miles on 'em years back. Loaded up, the bike looked like this, this pic taken later in New York State...



..and here was the odometer the morning I left...




My wife followed me to a restaurant outside of town and we stopped to east breakfast. I have been exceeding fortunate, I have not wanted to take a trip without her, the only reason this one was happening at all was the first grandchild is due in September, and she is taking her vacation time then.

After breakfast I rolled on alone 100 miles up to Austin, where I stopped in to see my ol buddy Tommygs and gloat (he ain't ridden in years either )

After that came the serious business of putting on miles. First day out, in the old days I always aimed for an even 1,000 . That was years back, I didn't know how I would do now.

North out of Austin towards Dallas I found myself running with droves of Harleys; turns out there had been a big rally that weekend. We was all running fast, 80 - 90 mph, but we had a tailwind. I have always been amazed at the performance Kawasaki wrung out out the simple carbureted thumper on the KLR. It will torque at low RPM through the dirt on the one hand, yet happily hammer along all day on the Superslab, smoothed out by a chain-driven internal counterweight.

It redlines at 7,500 rpm, but peak power is at 6,000 rpm, which is about 85 mph in top gear. It has useful acceleration all the way to that point, but ordinarily tops out and runs out of gears in the mid nineties. Fast enough for what it is.

I stopped to gas up just south of Dallas, made better than 50 miles per gallon despite the fast pace, probably due to the tailwind.

Heading east from Dallas on I 40, I arrived at near to Texarkana about 3pm, where I stopped for gas again.

This is where the trouble began.

Pulling up to the pump, my back tire, the new one, was almost flat. I rolled it over to the pump, fed in the quarters and put in air, but could hear air hissing out... damn....

No nails or screws in the tire, had to be the tube... damn again...

So I topped off the tire and parked the bike outside a restaurant and went in to eat, watching the bike to see how long till the tire went flat. About fifteen minutes. Put in a can of Fix-a-Flat, tried it again, no difference.

Hookay.... twenty miles outside of Texarkana... ten minutes of riding time per fill up. Ten dollars in quarters from an obliging cashier and off I went, exit to exit, putting in air at each.

Made it all the way through Texarkana that way, looking for motorcycle shops. There was a Harley dealer, but this was Sunday and it was closed. Got directions to a Honda shop across town, but it weren't gonna be open until 10am on Tuesday.... damn.....

Meanwhile the tire had gotten worse, now it was flat ALL the time, so I rode-walked it up the side of the road back to the interstate, looking for a motel I didn't want to stay in. Two nights 'till Tuesday.... damn....

First motel, like a crack house, the sort of place they raid on "Cops", "thirty-five dollars a night" says the clerk, "wait, is that too much? I can cut you a deal" he says as I leave.

Ninety-something heat, full Arkansas sun, off down the side of the access road to a Holiday Inn maybe a half-mile away. Except there ain't an access road, just construction on the interstate where a bridge takes it over a railroad track. No way for me to advance.

I seen a road running along the tracks and walked/rode the bike down an embankment to reach it, then started making my way up the road, looking for a crossover so I can get back to the Holiday Inn I dont want to stay at.

Took forever, maybe two miles before I reached a crossing over the tracks. At one point a well-meaning lady pulls up and shouts "Hey Mister, do you know you have a flat tire?"....

OK, this all started around three, now its seven pm, four hours later. I'm getting close to the Inn at last, except the bike finally gets close to overheating, a thing which I have heard can happen to KLR's.

So I shut it off and wait, hot, tired, dehydrated. Not stranded really, just delayed.

Just then a white delivery van pulls up, "I can help you" the driver calls out "get to that parking lot". God Hisself had sent Archie.

Archie (never did catch his last name) had just finished a 100-mile enduro in Arkansas and was headed back to Dallas when he seen my predicament and turned around.

He rolls open the back of his van.... there sits his race bike and all his tools, a rolling shop. All I did was hold the bike, meanwhile he pulled the wheel, took the tire off with a set of big honking tire irons, pulled the tube, replaced it with a much heavier one like he used, and put the wheel back on. Meanwhile I drank about a gallon of his bottled waters and didn't even have to pee afterwards, dry as I was.

Took maybe a hour, and all he would take fer saving the trip was $20 for the tube

By this time it was 9pm and getting dark, it had been a long day but I was pumped. So I pushed on that night on through Little Rock towards Memphis.

Slight problem with the bike... headlight flickering, going brighter and dimmer. I put it down to old wiring and hoped the alternator wasn't on the way out. It was still ridable and was running, so I rode it.

I finally quit around 11pm, I weren't all that tired but at the pace I was going I would pass through Memphis around 1 am, not a good thing.

In the old days I would have slept out, or maybe not, Eastern Arkansas 'skeeters are a force to be reckoned with, so I looked for a motel.

The little motel at the exit I got off at was clean and safe, and only $55 for a night.

The next morning the odometer read like this....



674 miles, not bad considering. If I hadn't lost them six hours with a flat it might have been 1,000.

I ain't complaining. Thank you God for sending Archie....

tho if I was to pick nits ya could have sent him along about five hours earlier...

Birdwatcher