I would like to send a dozen red roses to the Biker Angels and Fairies who were watching out for me this morning!! We were on the road by 5:30 hoping to miss some of the chaos of traffic heading to Toronto, when we got on the freeway it was 5 lanes of traffic going 120 km/hour! I had written the route out on a piece of paper and taped it to Al’s windshield; when we got to one of the exits I went the wrong way and we were headed back to Port Huron. We were lost! I took an exit, stopped and tried to regroup, there were lineups everywhere to get on to the freeway. A woman at the gas station told me an alternate route, but before we left to try it I noticed that my clutch lever was loose again! Off we went, probably about 10 minutes down the road I tried to stop at an intersection and I had NO clutch!!! I got off the road and we used the GPS to find the closest Harley shop, 15.8 kms away. Super Al took over my bike, I wrote the route on a piece of paper, put the emergency flashers on and we headed down the road, riding the shoulder. I was the pilot bike while Al tried to keep my bike rolling, he ran a red light when no cars were coming, he took a right turn at a red light and pulled a U turn to continue in the direction we were going, and he walked the bike to keep it rolling when the lights were red. It was a very stressful hour but not nearly as stressful as it would have been if we had still been on the freeway, in the middle lane going 110 km/hr when I lost the clutch!
We made it to the dealership and they got it into the shop right away; within 30 minutes they had diagnosed the problem. It was a broken clutch push rod in the transmission, burnt out bearings etc. They only had some of the parts, they machined the ones they didn’t have and within two hours we were able to head out into that crazy traffic again, by then it was about 11:30. A few people had gathered around and gave us advice on how to get the F___k out of the city, the easiest route. I wrote the instructions on paper, taped one to Al’s windshield, one to mine and we made it to Barrie. By this time we were starving, we never ate before we left the hotel and it was 2:30 when we finally stopped. I am ashamed to say that when we got gas we ate at MACDONALDS; 1st time in over 20 years L. Another 200 kms down the road we stopped at TIM HORTONS, another place I haven’t eaten at for a number of years!!!! The choices are very limited! No wonder they are so FAT!
We made it to Sudbury by 6:30 after riding in a drizzle for the last 150 kms. The Martini was SO good tonight, I toasted to another safe ride (sorry I forgot the camera)! Last night we had just put a new Fairy Bell on my bike!
Caramel Macciachto
1 oz Caramel Baileys
1 oz Smirnoff Vanilla Vodka
1 expresso Coffee
Shaken with ice to a froth, topped with caramel drizzled across the top.
553/5296 kms
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