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Published: November 30th 2008
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Ida and GG
all of us relaxing on the Costa Esmeralda Not having much of an understanding of machines nor how they work, I tend to name inanimate obejcts in the far flung hope there will be some kind of spitirual bonding, thereby bypassing any lack of knowledge and creating an artificial relationship with said objects. Therefore, our Honda CB 750 F SUPERSPORT is known as GG (gee gee). She, because all motorbikes are female, was bought online for a little over US$1,000. After spending three weeks in a Brooklyn garage, gathering dust and having her tyre pressure checked, oil changed and some other minor repairs done, I was charged over $600; this didn't include cleaning. Apparently, GG was ready to hit the road.
24 hours later she gave a sad deathly click when turned over in Washington DC. Push starting her was only good for about one minute before the engine died again, with an even more startling click. Our six hundred dollar service seemed quite pointless suddenly, especially since the main point had been to eradicate this known problem.
Garcia; "Meg az Isten is Magyar," (even God is Hungarian) he muttered into his curly beard, marking him as a Fidel Castro double (with Hungarian parents). He worked in
his backyard garage, a panopoly of bits and pieces of various make and vintage, some might say hodgepodge. But he worked on GG with delicate fingers, urging her back to life, diagonosing, listening, measuring and probing with all his instruments. "You have a serious electrical problem" informing us without any irony as we were bitten to pieces by the local mosquitoes. The battery wasn't charging when the bike was in use, hence the startling click, then stall motion. After an afternoon's work he declared us ready to roll, without headlights. The next day we made it 50 miles south before that click click clicked in, and stall, and splutter to a stop, luckily near a petrol station somewhere in Virginia. Two hours of charging and we headed back to Garcia's friendly panopoly.
Ben, (Garcia's cb 750 supersport riding next door neighbour) took a keen interest. "Believe me, it's the rotor," became his mantra. And so a rotor was bought from the most reputable seller online who promptly sent it to Tennesee, 800 miles south of where we were. We numbed the pain of our our stillborn journey with wine and food and tinkering. After three days the parts had shown up and were installed when the first of Autumn's storms rolled in. On the fourth day we left the freedom of his living room floor and hit the road, with headlights on and battery fully charging: all systems were go. We carried a spare alternator we had also ordered. "Your clutch is slipping" Ben muttered as we crawled out of the leaf strewn streets and headed south west. We were going to be just fine.
After the hospitality of Garcia's place we were let down by the sheer blandness of a couple of nights in motels down route 11. We eventually made it into Knoxville, a city surrounded by multiple highways and lane closures. There, we had lined up a couchsurfer, Dan and his brother Andres, who had grown up in Puerto Rico, grandsons of the Bacardi family: as in rum. Once again, our experience staying with the locals was great. We spent two nights with them hanging out cooking, looking around the local lakes and the local downtown area sampling the microbrews on offer, and there are plenty. After this, we made the fairly easy hop to Chatanooga to stay with Dave, a linguistic pizza waiter who reads Kant and cooks vegan and is another couchsurfer. He is a good man.
By the time we got to Mississippi, the weather was hotter and the people more difficult to understand, and the bike broke down, right outside of Yamaha Laurel, Mi. the local small town dealership. They kindly charged up the battery and fitted the alternator for ten bucks and threw in a free t-shirt as a souvenier. Even though English is the given language in this part of town, we were mistaken for being French, travelling to South America via Australia amongst a morning of misunderstandings.
New battery, new rotor and new alternator, all electrics were ready to go and so were we, but GG sounded like the 'sick man of Cuchulainn,' with TB. We seemed to have lost an awful lot of power.
Riding south towards the promised culinary land of New Orleans, haring down the rickety pot holed Lousiana highways at 50mph, the revs were screaming at 7-8,000 rpm. We'd used 20 litres of fuel to cover 90 miles. Just 70 miles short of our promised destination, GG came to a grindingly crunching halt on the luckily empty inclining highway. It was a gentle incline. We pushed and pushed, till our overheated selves were about to explode when finally, a couple of local guys in a pick-up truck helped us to push the extra 2 kms to the nearest petrol station. Squashed and splattered snakes were gummed into the forecourt area. GG just wouldn't start again.
Of course the garage had an eatery of the awful kind and two older blokes eating told me there was a local mechanic. It turned out he was too drunk at that point to be of much use to do anything. "I had one of those twenty years ago," drawled the balder of the diners, pointing at GG. "Lemme take a look." The oil had run completely empty and triggered an automatic shutdown of the engine. I was learning something nearly everyday concerning mechanics and engines; perhaps GG would become just another motorbike in time. The head gasket had been leaking since we set off, since we'd bought the bike, and the leak had got worse, mostly over my left leg and saddle bags, which were fast becoming a viable oil slick nation. So, a top up of oil and GG was good to go, at very high revs only. It was then that I decided the clutch was indeed slipping a lot and needed tightening, but how?
HONDA; Lafayette la.
"Hi Y'all just pull up there inshop, seventy bucks an hour not including parts. If we 'av 'em." 24 hours later and US$500 for a new clutch and still GG sounded like she had now developed TB and bronchitis combined. It seems the TOP MECHANICS in Louisiana couldn't diagonose the most simple fault. They didn't even try. I'd told them my clutch was slipping and they agreed, and changed it, and charged me. "Y'all never make it to Mexico."
After resting up for a few nights in New Orleans, we headed north west into Cajun country, land of crawfish, shrimp and bayeux and a distinct accordian driven country style music. "Hi Y'all."
Riding into Lake Charles La., we inexplicably came to a grinding halt on a slip road by the local expressway. I almost gave up the ghost there and stormed off to find a petrol station as again our tank was nigh on empty after having been filled the day before, 60 miles away. I was going to bring mohammed to the mountain this time and buy a petrol can or so. "No hon, so sorry we don' carry that item."
I was possibly the only pedestrian in the state of Louisiana when an old man picked me up and offered me a lift and his help. The people of this country have been fantastic throughout the whole trip and again a spontaneous offer of kindness was forthcoming. I ended up at HONDA, Lake Charles, La.
I spluttered in and what seemed like the main man smiled a genuine smile. "Ain't seen one of those in a long time," he almost laughed as he spoke. He probed and peered into the deepest recesses of the engine and declared, "Y'all running on 2 cylinders, man." A quick check on the inventory system revealed that Honda had stopped making a certain firing pin which apparently was broken on GG, a long time ago. "My uncle may have one otherwise y'all can camp in my garden for a while." Indeed his uncle had one and GG was refitted with a simple connector under the seat that restored her to the hoary queen she had once been.
We were back were we'd spent the previous night but the TB cough of an engine was fixed and so were our souls.
Next stop would be Mexico, to get that leaking gasket fixed.
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