GirlRiders First Annual Mountain Ride '10
I took a trip up to north Georgia with a local group I am a member of called GirlRiders, for Memorial Day weekend. We stayed at three cabins in Suches at "the airport", near TWO, and rode around the area for a few days. I didn’t get as much riding in as I would have liked since my bike chose this opportunity to have its charging system flip out, but more about that in a minute.
Some of the group arrived on Thursday and got a bit of riding in early. I didn’t get there until Friday evening, so my first day of riding this trip was Saturday. The plan was to ride from Suches to Morganton, around and over to Robbinsville, then back down to Suches. The morning was a little foggy and the roads were a bit wet, but not a big deal.
We had a nice little ride, split into 2 groups at first, then three when the crazy fast people split off on their own. We met back up at a gas station before the Cherohala Skyway.
We went along this road for a while, having an absolute blast. We (group 2) had caught up with the first group, who had stopped to meet us. When got back on the road, I looked down and saw that my gauge lights were flashing wildly, the tach was sweeping back and forth, and the speedometer was flashing “00”. It did this for about 5 seconds, then went back to normal. “Whew” I thought, “that was weird”, thinking it sorted itself out. But then it happened again. Then went back to normal, but freaked out again. By that time, I was starting to worry because there was no safe place to stop on that road. Nothing but one blind turn after another and no shoulder, except for the occasional scenic overlook. When I began to feel the power cutting out, I knew I needed to find one of these areas. Thankfully one appeared a few seconds later, and I pulled into it. My bike died as I pulled the clutch in and I coasted to a stop.
Hopping off, I become aware of a horrible smell, kind of like a paper mill. There was steam or smoke coming out from under my seat. Some of the people I was riding with stopped with me (others were ahead and hadn’t figured out anything was up yet). I turned the key back on and there was no power at all. Ok, something was definitely wrong with the battery. Someone had a 5mm allen wrench, and we got the seat off, to find there was steam and liquid spewing from the vent in the battery. It was toast.
Picture below by Lauren Cohn:
So there I was on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere with a broken bike. I had no cell phone service, from where I was standing anyway. However there was a deck that was pretty high in the air to look across the mountain, and when I climbed to the top I had a bit of service. We decided that everyone else would continue on the ride, since lunch was only about 15 -20 miles away in Robbinsville and there was no sense in everyone hanging out there with me. Lauren said she would stay, and I’d call for help and have that help either find me there or meet everyone in Robbinsville and they could lead help back up to me.
Next I needed to figure out what help I could contact. I have a membership to ROK, with roadside assistance, so I called them first. But for some reason they couldn't take GPS coordinates, which is all I had. There was no address up there! I also called my husband, but we couldn't keep a very good phone connection. Between a few words here and there, and text messages, I got him my GPS coordinates and we formulated a quick plan. He found the address to the restaurant everyone was at, then he got on the road with the trailer to find me. But he was at least 2 hours away. Oh well, we were in a beautiful spot, there was a picnic table and a little shade, and we had some water. We stripped down to our under armor and settled in for the wait.
A group of cruiser riders pulled up as we lounged there. Who knows what they thought, with a gsxr750 and a ZX10 parked there, and two women in their underwear laying in the grass under the trees. Hahaha…
Suddenly one of the guys appeared on his girlfriend’s ZX10 and the battery from his bike in his backpack. He thought if we could get some power to my bike, we could bump start it and at least ride it down. However the battery was too tall and whoever rode it had to basically hold the seat down with their butt. I didn’t feel comfortable doing that, so he rode it that way and I rode his girlfriend’s bike back down. Darn! I have to ride a ZX10??
Back at the restaurant, the bikes and batteries were restored to their rightful owners, and I settled in once more to wait for my husband to come and rescue me. We picked up a new battery on the way back to the cabin, and after it was installed everything seemed to be back to normal.
We decided to ride to Deals Gap the next morning. I had never been there and didn’t want to miss the chance, so we headed out again on wet roads and this time under a little misty rain. Our way out is down the technical end of Wolf Pen Gap. Yeehaw! The weather doesn’t seem to be getting any worse though, so it promised to be a good day.
Nancy's photo:
Until we stopped. Then I noticed that weird smell again. I looked at the bike and there was steam coming out from the under the seat once more. I felt like screaming. What is wrong with this bike? We pulled the seat off, and the new battery was steaming from the vents, though not as bad as the first one. I checked the power and still had it. Maybe the regulator/rectifier had overheated in it’s retarded place behind the radiator? One of the guys unbolted it and zip-tied it to the side of the engine where it could get some air. I rinsed the steaming acid off, put the seat back on and we decided to make a run for Wheelers, about 10 miles away. We stopped once and I turned the bike off to let it cool, but when we tried to leave it wouldn't start. Fine, we could bump start it, but they warned me to keep the RPMs as low as possible. Less than 4k, preferably around 2 or 3. Well, this bike hates low revs. Wreaks all kinds of havoc with the ECM, but I could deal with that rather than a blown up battery under my butt. It was painfully slow going, with the bike lurching and running poorly the entire way.
Finally we made it to Wheelers, he was open and I rolled up to a bay with an empty lift. Thank goodness, he could get right on it. He ended up putting a new regulator/rectifier and a new battery in it. My headlights didn't work either, so he finangled a way to make them work, basically connecting the headlight fuse to the turn signal fuse with a wire. And curiously, after he did that the lowbeams came on when the switch is set to highbeam and vice-versa. But at least they worked, keeping me legal. $300 and about 2.5 hours later, I was down the road headed for The Dragon!
Katie had waited with me, and we rode to meet up with everyone else. They had already run up and down The Dragon a few times, so just me, Katie and her husband went up as far as we could go, to the road block and back. The road was pretty wet with an occasional dry patch, and about halfway up, the rain started. By the time we headed back down, it was really raining hard, and the road is soaked, with puddles in some places. The good thing was, there was hardly anyone else out there. Still, I tip-toed around every corner. After the weekend I was having, I wasn’t about to push my luck in any way. It was good to just get through it without anything going wrong. And the bike was actually running pretty good, seemed happy.
We hung out for a while, checked out the tree of shame (I really wanted to hang my old rectifier from it, but decided to keep to give to the dealer to see if they’d warranty it), the gift shop and restaurant. Then we got back on the road. I stopped by Wheelers on the way out to pick up my battery, and headed home. However, every time we stopped all the way home, I noticed the bike was harder to start. Finally the battery became weak enough that it wouldn’t start the bike, so we went back to bump starts. For some reason, the battery wasn’t being charged at all. But I made it back to the cabin, riding through a torrential downpour in the process, and the group taking a couple of wrong turns. That was one of the longest rides of my life, or at least felt like it.
When we returned home, we dropped the bike off at the dealer to let them deal with it. Hopefully they can get it back to something like normal (whatever “normal” is for this crazy bike). Despite the technical difficulties, I still had a blast on my second trip to N Georgia and my first trip to the dragon.
