After 20 weeks of healing I finally got to ride again! And then the bummer...

["Pen & Adam" <penadam@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

After a long 20 weeks of healing and physical torture (therapy) I finally
got to ride my Sprint ST again!  I was ecstatic about being bike on the bike
(note the verb is was)!

Friday night, I rode it to the gas station for my first ride.  I had my knee
brace on and discovered that the brace kept me from getting to the rear
brake.  I decided I was sick of wearing the knee brace anyway so this was a
good reason to toss it in the closet.

Saturday morning, took it for a short ride (without the brace) up to the
Awful Waffle (oops, I mean the Waffle House) and everything felt good.  My
leg was holding the weight of the bike just fine.  I'm thinking to my self
"at last,  I can ride again!!!!!!"

It was just my luck, that on Saturday my dealer had demo rides courtesy of
the very big Triumph of America truck.  I rode a demo on a RS and a Speed
Triple.  The RS seemed way down on power compared to my very slightly
modified '00 ST.  The S3 was a blast and the power seemed comparable to my
ST-it certainly had more pull than the RS.  I thought the RS was supposed to
be the close to the ST, but the bike I rode wasn't.

With all this riding I felt confident that my leg was ready to go (except
for maybe in rush hour).  So, Sunday morning I went to the local twisties
with a buddy.  Riding in, everything went well and I began to ride at 70% to
80%.  But, coming out of the twisties my bike began to spew fuel out.
According to my riding buddy, I was leaving a trail of gas down the road. He
said it looked like I was going to coat my rear tire and bust my ass at any
instant.  Luckily, I somehow heard his wimpy horn and slowed down and pulled
over.  I hopped off the bike, looked down and watched gas pour out of the
bottom of the bike.   And I mean pour, like you turned an open bottle on its
side!  After about 30 seconds on the side of the road, it stopped leaking
gas (maybe the pressure in the tank equalized with the outside air?).

What a bummer!  I finally got to ride after 20 weeks and the Sprint didn't
even make it through the weekend.  Maybe it was mad at me....

It took two different tow services and a whole lot of standing in ~110 F
desert heat and a several trips in and out of the mountains (since the
phones wouldn't work were the bike was broken down-it took 25 minutes of
driving to get where we could call anyone) to get the bike out of the
mountains. Six hour later, the bike finally made it to the garage and is
waiting for the dealership to open on Tuesday.

Oh well, that's life.
Adam
Gilbert, AZ


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End of st-digest V2000 #482
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