Arkansas - Glitch 3
We set off on the Yellow Brick Road to OZ in Ohio for the Women in the Wind Summer International conference on Tuesday afternoon. My daughter, Skye, was traveling with us on her '86 Rebel 450. 300 miles down on Tuesday, spending the night in Mississippi, and planning 600 on Wednesday. We should just be able to make the pig roast Thursday evening with a 400 mile day ... so we thought!
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Moving Rosie over to the diner parking lot after fueling up in Arkansas I got a bad feeling. She just didn't sound right. We pulled off a bit up the road after lunch so I could tighten up her mirror, and after that she just wasn't "right". Thinking we had gotten a bad batch of gas at the last stop, I gave her some dry gas and fresh fuel as soon as possible. Was she running better, or was I just hoping?
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A call to Alec at the next stop for troubleshooting ideas didn't yield any progress. After 300 miles any bad gas should have been run out of her, or at least sufficiently diluted down! We stopped for the night in Effingham Illinois because there was a Harley dealer nearby. Rosie was straining to go 50 mph and losing the battle.
Given that the 28 year old Honda was waiting for the 19 year old Harley, all Skye and I could do was bite our tongues and just give him a confused look!
Rosie was sick, really sick, with a bent valve. I called Alec and put him on the phone with the service department. So many mechanics take advantage of women, I didn't want to take a chance with a dealership I had never been to before.
It was already Thursday, and Legacy didn't rent bikes. I had to concede that for whatever reason, Creator did not want me to attend the conference in Toledo! Now what? We were stranded.
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Everyone at Legacy was really nice to us, offering us lunch and recommending places to stay. We had spoken at length with Kevin, the service manager during Rosie's diagnosis and deciding whether to go with a 1200 kit or just redo her valves. Once that was settled, he invited us to stay with his family until we could get going again!
Service sent a runner 100 miles to the south west on Friday to pick up the oversize valve and guide needed. Saturday afternoon they let me know she was ready to go.