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Published: August 28th 2011
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We were about 60 miles from Prince George, BC, when Dan said his engine was making a funny sound. We pulled over and I had a listen and something was seriously wrong. My first thought was it was a bad valve or a blown head gasket. He asked me if we could limp into town like that, so we continued at about 45 MPH.
That didn't stop us from visiting an ancient cedar forest along the way. We parked the bikes and took the half hour walk through this forest with cedar trees as old as 2,000 years. Beautiful majestic things they were.
When we were less than 10 miles from Prince George Dan's bike stopped running. We coasted down the hill and tried to get it to fire up, but nothing. I got on my bike to get into town to try to find a mechanic that we could get the bike to. I saw another guy with a KLR turn onto the highway just behind me so I pulled over to wave him down. He said that he didn't know of any 'good' mechanics, but there was a Suzuki dealer just as we got to town. The
Kawasaki dealer was on the other side of town so I tried my luck with the first one I found. The KLR rider led me there and I didn't get far with the shop after they said they couldn't get the parts and that I would have to go across town to the Kawasaki dealer anyway.
I decided that was enough information to head back to Dan with. I fueled up and got a cold drink to bring to him. When I got there he said he had a couple offers to put his bike in a truck to bring into town. About five minutes later a guy puled in behind us with a big Ford pick-up. He was one of the offers that Dan had from earlier. I followed them into town to get some ramps to get the bike into the truck. I left my bike at his house and went back for Dan's.
His name was Brian McBride, a long time resident of BC, and a motorcycle lover himself. We got the bike in his truck and he took us over to the Kawasaki dealer. When we went in we were greeted with a leer
and a sniff. The kid behind the counter explained that they wouldn't be able to see the bike until at least a week, because they were booked up. "Even if a professional rider came in here he would have to wait too, and his bike is his livelihood!" That just pissed Brian off an he wanted to reach over the counter and smack the kid. We went next door to the other half of the shop and a nice kid there was giving us numbers of other mechanics around town that could get on it sooner.
We went back to Brian's place to figure the next step. He called a friend of his, Randy, who works at the Suzuki dealer that we went to initially, explained our situation. He said bring the bike in and they would get right on it. We took it down, showed them to blown seal and they thought it would be a quick fix... That is if that was the only problem.
The called us an hour later and said that the engine was shot. The cam bolts (things inside the engine) had stretched and allowed the cam (another thing inside the engine)
to grind into the cam cover (something on top of the engine). This allowed metal shavings to go all throughout the inside of the engine (a very bad thing) and basically we needed a new engine or a new bike. There wasn't an engine to be found in town, so I got on Craigslist and found a 2008 KLR for sale in Smithers, about a four hour ride west (and on the way to AlaskA too!) of town. One of the mechanics offered Dan $100 for the bike and we thought we were golden!
Then the mechanic got a call from his insurance agent. She informed him that we would have to go to the US border to do the sale and he wanted out. That also meant that we would have to do the same with the new bike in Smithers. So Dan Got the number of a mechanic in Smithers, asked him if there was anything he could do. He happened to know a guy who had a used KLR motor!
He was about 2 hours south of Prince George, and had a brother-in-law that was a trucker and was heading through the next morning! This
whole time we were camped out in Brian and Karen's ( his lovely companion) back yard. We figured that we had a Friday night on the town so we went downtown (a 20 minute walk from Brian & Karen's). They said to go to Shooters, a bar in town to start and then see where the night took us. So we went there for a beer and a little grub.
We asked the bartender where we should go. He said the club down the street, The Generator was good, but he preferred a different spot close by. We later discovered that it was a gay club. So our search took us to the Ramada hotel in town. There were a bunch of teens out front like it was a club. So we asked them what was going on. There was a DJ spinning inside! We checked it out... not our scene. We started walking back up the street to see what else we could get into when a girl and three guys walked by. We asked them what there was to do and they said to follow them to the strip club!
We walked in and sat down,
quickly greeted by a waitress. We got our beers and then the show was about to begin so we went to the stage. The seats at the stage quickly filled up, and the first girl came on. Total B-squad. She did her dance and the next girl came on, C-squad. I guess there wasn't much talent in town! When she was done that was it, no more girls. So the group that we met invited us to go to that club we heard about earlier, The Generator, but were all calling it the Penetrator. We thought the night was about to get crazy.
The Generator, Penetrator, was a typical dance club, with loud music and a generous dance floor. We stayed there until it closed and walked out front. There were three squad cars and a paddy wagon. One guy started sizing me up and I noticed the mounties were busy taking a guy into custody while his friend was trying to wrestle him away from them. That was about when we decided to call it a night and walk back to Brian & Karen's.
The next morning Dan went to the shop to drop off the cash
for the engine. It wasn't there yet. He went for some breakfast while I slept in a bit. I went to get a cup of coffee and ran into him around 11. Still no engine. We called around one, still no engine. We were wondering if we had been bamboozled! Luckily he got a call from the shop a half hour later and the engine had arrived and they were working on it. We started getting packed and Dan learned that the guy, Tyson, that was going to sell Dan the KLR, offered us his yard to camp in as well.
The bike wasn't finished until six, and we didn't hit the road until seven. That put us into Smithers around 11. We were greeted by Tyson when we rolled into to town and he led us back to his place where were greeted with a camp fire and cold beer. He let us stay in his fifth-wheel trailer last night and cooked us eggs for breakfast!
We are heading to Hyder, AK today to see the Grizzly bears, and then where ever we can find a place to pitch a tent tonight.
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Al Herron
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You go guys!!!
Can't believe this latest adventure with the blown engine and finding a replacement that a truck driver can bring in. The gods are with you. Hats off -- Al