Stuck in Ann Arbor Blues

Hey when you come back for your 4 wheeler make sure you drop off that Mens BB championship trophy you guys stole a few years back

 

Go to Hell, I think the pizza joint is still there.

 

Congrats Kelly. I imagine that pounding out the slab miles on the Sporty was painful. I'm shaking and vibrating just sitting here thinking of it. The lack of wind protection, the seating position, the "controls", . . . no thanks.

I'm (obviously) not a Motor Company fan. They simply have never made anything I've wanted, and the Harley's I've ridden (friends') have simply underscored the fact that for me, I never need to go that route. I don't want to be a motorcycle bigot, but they ain't for me. I prefer my vintage motos to be somethings different, i.e., BSA, Triumph, Norton, Ducati, Cagiva, Bultaco, . . . .

Glad you made it home incident free. Love to hear the rest of the story.

Cheers,

Dave

 

Everyone knows two things about you ...
1) You are not a Scot.
2) You didn’t think, before you posted.

 

Just curious....why travel so far for a Sportster? Aren’t they a dime a dozen just about everywhere.

 

This may be tl;dr...if so, move along


As I said in another post, for the 96th motorcycle I've owned I decided to get a Harley. Have to experience the MoCo once before I hit 100. I found two choices; a Sportster Low in Louisville and a Roadster about an hour north of Ann Arbor. I really want the Roadster and to top it off, it's a nicer bike and $1000 less. Talk to the owner, Claus the German, and we really hit it off. I decide I'll drive up Wednesday and pick it up. I love a road trip.


I wake up at 3:50am yesterday and I'm on the road by 4:05. Wonderful ride up, no issues at all. Get to Claus's at 10am. Great guy, ends up he's a professor at U of M but may loose his job to Covid so he has already planned on moving back to Cologne. He laughed that it's a German thing, always has to have a plan. I brought him a bottle of Kentucky bourbon just because he seemed like a nice dude and now I have a friend for life and a place to stay in Cologne should we ever go back to Deutschland.

Loaded up, headed back on the road at 11am, I have one stop in Ann Arbor but I'm perfectly on schedule. I make my stop and notice that distinctive rear end smell, but my truck has had a slight leak into the axle for years. I typically just get a bottle of 75/140 and squirt it into the pumpkin, so I head to O'Reilly's for preventative maintenance. Wouldn't want it to go on the highway home. When I get under my truck, I see diff oil everywhere. As I squirt the bottle in it comes right out from the front seal. Toast baby. O'Reilly's gives me the name of a few shops but says they like this certain guy so I take it to him. Nice guy, but the shop is in a slightly sketchy part of town. I'm figuring the worst and my premonition is true...complete rear end is blown. I'm looking at $2500-3500 and they have to source the part so no clue when it will be fixed. Could be days or weeks. So I'm left with two choices...leave my bike in the back of my truck in a sketchy neighborhood and rent a car, or ride the bike back. Ride it is...

Here I am in a sketchy neighborhood, wearing khakis and a short sleeve button down shirt and tennis shoes. I look like a model in a J Crew catalog. No helmet, jacket, gloves. And I've got a Harley Sportster. I've only ridden a Harely once for 3 miles and that was 20 years ago. But I have no choice...I've got to get home. Oh, and by the way, about my stop in Ann Arbor. My little brother is a brain cancer survivor. He suffers from a myriad of little side effects due to all his treatments so he uses marijuana for relief. Well, Michigan being a legal weed state, I pick up $500 worth of product for him. So here's the scenario...I'm 350 miles from home, riding a bike I've never ridden with zero gear on and have $500 worth of weed in a little backpack and the bike has no license plate. And I have to travel the entire length of Ohio.

I search quickly for any kind of bike place to at least get a helmet and the closest is Toledo Harley, so I make the 60 miles ride to the dealership with no helmet. How people ride that way is beyond me, it was fucking terrifying. I was willing to pay $1000 for any helmet, but luckily they had a nice one for $150 and I got a pair of gloves too. Actually they were very nice people and didn't care one bit that I looked the exact opposite of every person in there. Helmet and gloves on, it's a peaceful ride now. OK, only about 300 miles to go. Truth is, the rest of the story is fairly uneventful. I did get a little piece of cardboard for the license plate and wrote "Plate Applied For" on it. Might have helped, because during the ride home I had two of Ohio's finest come up behind me but they went about their way.

About half way home, I hit a sweet spot. I realized that in a weird way this Sportster reminded me of my first real motorcycle, an 81 750F. They are just motorcycles meant to ride, with no gimmicks attached. This little Harley is a blast and that engine just motors along. I swear my old 750 vibrated more. I cruised home between 70-90 the entire way and the bike never skipped a beat. Yeah, I could hardly move when I got home but I could have been on any bike and felt that way. I squirm more on my GSA with a Sargent seat than I did on the Sportster. So while this turned out to be one of the weirdest road trips I've ever experienced, I believe I have a strange bond with this bike now. But I'm still not getting a Harley T shirt



After the 350 mile ride. The oil is from the wife's Pilot

 

The Roadster version is a fairly rare bike and that's the one I wanted. About 99% of Sportsters are the Classic with the big front wheel, no tach and single disc front. Roadster has regular front, dual disc and a tach.

 

Thought the same way as you . Was told 2 things when I bought my sportster .1) I would be bored with it in 6 months 2) I would not buy another metric bike agan. Sold the 1200r with over 56,000 miles and bought 4 metric motorcycles since.

 

Sure, That was what the Mary Jane was for!
Hey I've got a bridge to sell!

 

Good story, and a reminder to carry at least some gear when transporting bikes. It is too easy and like you discovered, not having anything is a PITA and very limiting. I mean, we always say if everything goes sideways, I can ride the bike . . . not if you are naked.

Good looking bike. I hope it does you well. It is already on its way to doing so. I suspect the dual disks assist in one of the aspects I've always found lacking in Harleys: brakes. A well setup 8" leading shoe drum on a BSA is more effective. As for the tach, it is unnecessary: if you can't tell what rpm you're at on a Harley, you're dead.

I like the vision of the J. Crew model sporting about with a load of weed. Epic.

Glad you made it home ok, and the trip tales are not more "involved." Enjoy the Sporty.

Cheers,

Dave

 

Sorry to hear about your truck.. Big bummer. Glad you got home safe, and I hope our states new cash crop helps out your bro. Im glad MI passed that marijuana legislation. I don't use pot myself, but I have many friends and family who do, and I'm pretty sick and tired of the police/courts ruining lives because of a natural plant.. Police could spend time/resources on much more beneficial things IMO.. It's been pretty great since they made it state legal here.

Now I just hope employers/scientists figure out an efficient way to test employees to see I they're under the influence while working, and not residual positives from at home/weekend use...

Anyway, glad it worked out for you. Ann Arbor is actually a pretty cool area. I'm from Kalamazoo MI myself, but I love going to the east side. There's just a "raw and unfiltered" feeling to that whole area. In highschool (circa 2007) some friends and I used to go to Flint/Saginaw/Detroit to street race our cars. It was a blast.

 

I almost always throw a helmet in my truck just for the hell of it, but spaced out this time. Never again And for $3500 , I had to give the Sporty a shot. That's less than I paid for my DR!

 

My Harley experience. Bought it from a retired cop. She wanted something more comfy. I took the apes off and installed short track bars. Had a little extra paint work done. Added a floating rotor up front with some HHs and rode it...not much however. About 500 miles or so in six years. It beat my old ass up every ride. Everyone who saw it loved it though, it was a mini bike next to the other hogs. Young Marine I knew wanted it, and when he got his finances together, it was his. I miss looking at it, but not riding it.

 

It ain’t a road trip unless you come back with a great story!

 

Not to be a killjoy but the real price includes fixing your truck and getting it back home.

 

That thought crossed my mind. Rear end was due anyway, I'm not fretting too much. Interestingly enough, I just drove this truck with a GSA and 990R in the back to Pennsylvania. If the rear would have gone out then it would have been a real shit show.

 

Yeah, but with the 990R, no matter where you were when you broke down, you could ride out.

Cheers,

Dave

 

cool story. glad it worked out.

 

If you’re still stuck in that city, visit Grizzly Peak, have a hanger steak with sweet potato fries and burnt onions. When you’re done with that, leave.

 

Kelly

this post reminded me of when my oldest brother and I went to Colorado to ride the Rockies back in 2013. My Silverado had the chronic “rear brake line failure” in East Colorado. Bed loaded with two bikes and all the gear, pulling pop up camper etc. The only thing that kept it from being a total crapper was (luckily) brake line failed at gas station fueling up and not in the mountains we would have been in a couple hours later. Eeeek!

glad you made it home.