Broken chain, broken bike
I think it's time for me to fess up. It really was my fault. I'd adjusted the chain 4 times in 2 months...so it was obviously in need of replacement. "I'll get to it."
*sigh*
Famous last words! I've been riding most of my life, so I should have recognized the words of denial I was speaking to myself. But no; I chose to ignore the obvious signs. And now, instead of spending $169 and an hour or two of my time replacing my chain and sprockets, my bike has been broken down since the beginning of January, I'm going to end up spending $1,800 to fix it, and I've already gone clinically insane due to lack of 2-wheeled therapy!
On that fateful January day, @Karlos and I went on a ride at lunchtime, per usual. I wanted to go hill climbing, so we went out to a hill I'd been eyeballing for a while. We got there, and I followed him up that rocky dirt hill. He made it. But about 3/4 of the way up, in first gear, around 25mph, I bottomed out over a pile of rocks and my chain broke, wadded up around the front sprocket, and halted my forward progress. Karl walked down and helped me get the chain wrapped around the swingarm (we couldn't dislodge it from the front sprocket), and I rolled down the hill to the little parking area at the bottom.
Karl rode back to work (lunch was almost over), laughing the whole way. I called my wife and asked her to go to Cycle Gear, grab me a master link and a chain breaker tool, and come rescue me. While she was on her way I assessed the damage. No oil was leaking, so I was hopeful that the engine case wasn't broken. The stator cover was obviously broken, as was the sprocket cover. It took a while to dislodge the chain, but I eventually got it free and found that only one link had snapped, so I had enough chain that with a master link I'd be able to ride it home. Whew!
I nosed around the bike looking for other damage, and found that the rear brake hose had popped out of it's clip on the swingarm, so I put that back where it belonged.
My wife showed up, I clamped the master link on and rode the bike around the parking lot, and all was good...so we took off. 6 miles later, at the first stop sign, I stepped on the rear brake pedal, and the pedal moved about 5". "That's not good" I thought. Then a new problem: broken radiator hose! Steam was coming up from below the bike. Oh, wonderful. There happened to be a parking lot just to the left of that stop sign, and as I was contemplating riding over to it, my wife rolled up behind me, flashing her lights and honking her horn, and yelled out the window "Your bike is on fire!!!" ??? What??
I rode over to the parking lot and hopped off the bike, and sure enough there were large flames coming from just forward of the rear wheel. I had nothing to put this fire out with, so as I wondered what the explosion would look like when the flames made it to the gas tank, my wife ran up to me with a gallon container of water that we always keep in the car. I used that and got the flames put out, let things cool down a bit, started calling around to find a friend with a truck, and then investigated the cause of the fire. Turns out that when I put the rear brake hose back in the clip, it ended up somehow pressing up against the rear exhaust pipe. When I stepped on the pedal, the now melted hose burst and started squiring brake fluid on the now hot exhaust pipe. So, it wasn't steam I was seeing, and it wasn't a busted radiator hose.
We finally found a ride home, and 8 hours after busting the chain we rolled my bike into my garage. And there it sits, 5 months later, waiting for me to somehow find some (a lot!) extra money and start rebuilding it. Chain/sprockets, left covers, cover gasket, oil/filter, rear shock (fire melted the preload tube and now the bike sags terribly), rear brake hose and mounting stuff. Turns out when I removed the left cover I found that my magnets had moved, even *after* I'd jbwelded them down! So I have to fix that. I might need a new stator, probably a new r/r. That stuff will get it rolling again, but this bike had a lot of things that needed attention when I bought it, so I might as well fix everything else that's wrong with it, since it's down anyway: suspension (front and rear), steering head bearing, brakes/brake lines/speedbleeders, clutch basket, rear wheel spacer mod, valve adjustment, throttle body sync, and anything else I can find that's broken / needs repair. It's kind of like unraveling a sweater. Once you get in there, you find all the stuff that you might as well do while you're in there!
It's been 5 months and I have about $100 saved up for all this work so far, so it's going to take a while before this bike rolls again. But I guess when it does roll again, I'll essentially have a brand new bike that'll last me a long time, and i'll get a lot of enjoyment out of it. It's just that the wait is killing me.
So, there's my story, and I'm sticking to it. That's why I haven't been around much. Moral of the story: routine maintenance matters!!!
Hmmm. Well, I'm not sure telling the story has helped my mental state, but maybe it will bring joy and amusement to some of you. That would make the telling worth it!
