Journal · Bench Racing
So many reasons not to ride
I just spent a winter restoring a bike and the results are fantastic. Why not ride it?
On Tuesday I put new rubber on the wheels. This was the last stage and my plan was to come home, put the mounted wheels in the basement and then when I get back from my trip I will drag the bike outside and put the wheels on. But I got excited and called up my friend Rob and we finished the job. So the bike is complete and it runs, so why not ride it?
Today was the day to do just that and I worked my ass off to prepare. A couple days ago when I was putting on the tires with my friend Mark, he suggested we go riding Thursday at a gravel pit near Galetta. Galetta is pretty close to home by my standards. I could get there in 20-minutes so why not? I had two days to get ready and by Tuesday afternoon the bike was good-to-go. The trailer, well... thats another story.
I ordered a hitch for the car and lighting kit. On Wednesday I installed the hitch without issue but I got the wrong wiring kit for the car. The kit was for a Ford Focus Sedan. Mine is a hatchback.
Excellent hitch, very heavy duty and easy to install.
So now onto the trailer. It is a really crappy trailer and I have put bikes on it before but the wood deck is now rotting. It has no plate and the a broken light. I won't have time to go to Service Ontario for the legalities, but I had a new light to install. I inflated the tires, poped it onto the ball of the car and loaded the bike. Then I gave the deck test to see if it was solid and it broke right off.
The trailer project is discouraging. The rear wheel sits right on that broken deck so the bike fell off the back. The day is dwindling away and I need to have it ready today.
I decided to go the hardware store and buy some new plywood. So off I go with the trailer in tow. As I am going I start to thinking- Why! Why am I am doing this, I only have time to do a haywire job so why bother? A piece of channel iron would work good. I went to the Marina instead to see what they had laying around. I found a perfect piece of channel iron and was about to cut it and then changed my mind and went home. When I got home, the trailer had a flat tire and it came off the rim.
Being discouraged I sent Mark a text and said I would pass on the ride and gave him two or three reasons that he called excuses. Feeling a pang of guilt and some desire to ride, I got a second-wind. I used a ratcheting tie-down to help pop the tire back on the rim and inflate it. Tire has a nail hole and leaks too fast so I install the spare. The spare also leaks but much slower.
I know a neighbour has some scrap 2x10 pressure-treated boards so I trudge a half-a-kilometer through mud and snow to fetch it. I gather some tools and bolts, and proceed to install the board by flipping the trailer on it on its side. It is a good strong repair, I am not concerend with the stability but it sure is ugly.
I loaded the bike and tied it down, this will work for the short distance I need to go.
Even after doing all this I am still asking myself why I have decided to do this. Here are the "excuses" not to go. Keep in mind I just cleared about 10 other hurdles to get to this point.
- No lights on the trailer
- No plates on the trailer
- Tire leaks and so does the spare
- Bike has never been run, It might need to be re-jetted
- Riding pit is unknown, we might get run off the land
- Snow is still melting so I will get the bike muddy. I would rather ensure it runs fine before getting it dirty.
- I have no time. I have a Thursday morning appointment and an afternoon appointment. I have family obligations in the evening that I would have to bow out of.
- In just a few short days I am going to BC to go riding in biker's paradise.
- I could get hurt - That is a lousy reason, but I am traveling in three days.
Even with all the above reasons telling me to stay home and the bullshit I went through to get ready I was still planning to go.
Looking out my office Window I can see the bike and car beaconing me to go riding
I got an email from the print shop that I had some decals to pick up so for lunch I went for a drive to Almonte to pick them up and stopped by Galetta on the way to see where we would be riding. I found the place to park and lots of mud. There is also a new sub-division nearby and I got thinking that if we show up there at dinner-time with our loud bikes, we are going to draw complaints. In the end I decided the risk-to-reward ratio was far too high. One of my primary reasons for going Vintage Moto was that I would take fewer risks. This is just another hobbie to compliment the others, it is no longer an obsession.
Check out this trailer. The van too for that matter. This is how we used to roll- we were totally fine with risk.
Bernie built or had someone build it for him back in the 1970s. He'd tow behind his Olds Cutlass Supreme at 100Mph. We used it all through the 80s, we'd put three bikes on it and go to Thunder Bay. No fenders, probably no lights and a plate that I found in the bush that had fallen off a logging truck.
Once we got pulled over just before Blake Hall- the Thunder Bay race track. The cop would not let us go further. Racers are part of a community and we got help by fellow racers that saw us stopped on the side of the road. We loaded our bikes (we had three of them- one in the van) into other racer's trucks. We put the trailer in the back of the van somehow from what I recall and then made it to the races with plenty of time to spare. For the trip home, we just threw caution to the wind and loaded up as if nothing was wrong.
The thing about getting caught by the law is that it motivates you to fix the problems. Pat fashioned some fenders for the trailer, we fixed the lights and got a proper plate.
