I had a clutch cable go on me about a month ago so I got it fixed at the dealer. While in the shop the staff told me that my fork seals were leaking and need to be fixed. I put air in the tires a week before the cable broke and didn't notice any leaks. I thought the mechanic was trying to pull a fast one, so I picked up the bike and brought it home to take a closer look. It was leaking so I tried the 35 mm film trick I found online to clean up the forks and the leak stopped. I tested my handiwork by putting 1,000 km on the bike before taking it back to the mechanic.
I didn't want to take any chances, for all I know the fork could have been running dry. I was also worried because the mechanic that called me said the fork was gushing oil and the brake pads were contaminated with oil. I would ruin the router and have no braking power, the repair would be costlier if the oil got to the router. Even though I thought I fixed the leak, I didn't want to take any chances because I wanted to save a few bucks. I took it back to the dealer, and gave them all the time in the world to fix the problem (7-days), that's with an appointment. I didn't call them to nag or put pressure on them because the last thing I wanted to do was to piss off the person working on my bike, after all they could have saved my life.
The day finally came to pick up my bike. The salesman drove it out and didn't say anything, so I thought everything was OK. I was about to take the highway until I noticed the clutch had too much free play. It rained throughout the week and there were some mud / water marks on the fork and bike, that wasn`t a good sign. I had to fully pull in the lever in to disengage the engine, also the lever was angled more forward than it should be so I had to reach a little more forward than normal to grab the lever.
The clutch nuisance made me take the main road instead. A few blocks down, I had to pull over in order to adjust the free play so that I can get better control of the engine. Despite pulling the clutch lever all he way in, I had next to nothing to get the clutch to grab and re-engage the engine, there was a lot of revving going on but hardly any bite. About 20 km into the ride I had to stop at a red. Something didn't feel right when I pulled on the front brake. It was spongy, and I had no braking power. Squeezed again and it got worse. I was getting close to the intersection so I hit the Engine Kill switch and stepped on the rear brakes.
The bike was slowing down but not as fast as I wanted. There was a teenager on a 10-speed bike at the intersection about to cross until he saw me struggling to a stop. He pulled back and gave way as I passed him. I glanced at his face and he was wide eyed full of fear, probably how I looked. I managed to hang a right at the corner and parked my bike on the side of the road.
At first, I thought my brake lines were cut. When I checked the eye of the brake fluid holder, it was still full of fluid. My next thought was that I lost a pad somehow. The caliper looked OK at first but something was off. There were two bolts that held the front brake calipers to the fork but only the top one was present. The bottom bolt was missing and the calipers were pushed aside by the force of the router, to the point where it couldn't grab anymore. It explained why I had braking power when I first departed and lost it at the end.
I called CAA to get it towed back to the shop. During the wait, I ran through a few scenarios. Maybe, I insulted the mechanic when I took the bike back instead of letting him fix it. Perhaps he wasn't impressed when there wasn't much of a leak when I brought the bike back in. Or maybe he didn't like the fact that I tried to negotiate a lower price by trying to combine my major tune-up in conjunction with the fork seal repair to get a better rate, the price actually went up by a couple hundred dollars when they called back with the quote.
Paranoid that the mechanic was up to no good, I decided to change the dealership to another location instead. The tow truck driver took a look at my bike and wanted to fix it before towing it away. The bolt holding the caliper to the fork was so loose, he was able to unscrew it with his fingers. There was no replacement for the missing bolt so a tow was the only option.
I had to take the TTC home but on my way back I replayed the situation over-and-over in my head. What if I didn`t adjust my clutch before my brakes failed. What if the pedestrian was already in the intersection and I had no room to steer around him. The forecast was for rain, with a possible chance of thunderstorms that day. What if I picked up my bike earlier instead of the end of the day when there were more cars on the road. What if I went into the intersection and was run over or killed. What if I took the highway instead. What if...
Fortunately, I walked away without a scratch, without hurting anyone or damaging my vehicle. On the bright side, I probably wouldn`t have known what to do if my clutch cable didn`t snap earlier in the month. After that mishap, I said to myself, it could have been worse, I could have lost my front brake. I asked myself what I would do in that worse case scenario. Whatever I thought up kicked in on a subconscious level a month later.
The strangest thing about the two mishaps were that they happened on the exact same street 1.2 km apart from each other. I live 45 km from the dealership, talk about being at the right place at the right time in the two worse possible situations.
I didn't want to take any chances, for all I know the fork could have been running dry. I was also worried because the mechanic that called me said the fork was gushing oil and the brake pads were contaminated with oil. I would ruin the router and have no braking power, the repair would be costlier if the oil got to the router. Even though I thought I fixed the leak, I didn't want to take any chances because I wanted to save a few bucks. I took it back to the dealer, and gave them all the time in the world to fix the problem (7-days), that's with an appointment. I didn't call them to nag or put pressure on them because the last thing I wanted to do was to piss off the person working on my bike, after all they could have saved my life.
The day finally came to pick up my bike. The salesman drove it out and didn't say anything, so I thought everything was OK. I was about to take the highway until I noticed the clutch had too much free play. It rained throughout the week and there were some mud / water marks on the fork and bike, that wasn`t a good sign. I had to fully pull in the lever in to disengage the engine, also the lever was angled more forward than it should be so I had to reach a little more forward than normal to grab the lever.
The clutch nuisance made me take the main road instead. A few blocks down, I had to pull over in order to adjust the free play so that I can get better control of the engine. Despite pulling the clutch lever all he way in, I had next to nothing to get the clutch to grab and re-engage the engine, there was a lot of revving going on but hardly any bite. About 20 km into the ride I had to stop at a red. Something didn't feel right when I pulled on the front brake. It was spongy, and I had no braking power. Squeezed again and it got worse. I was getting close to the intersection so I hit the Engine Kill switch and stepped on the rear brakes.
The bike was slowing down but not as fast as I wanted. There was a teenager on a 10-speed bike at the intersection about to cross until he saw me struggling to a stop. He pulled back and gave way as I passed him. I glanced at his face and he was wide eyed full of fear, probably how I looked. I managed to hang a right at the corner and parked my bike on the side of the road.
At first, I thought my brake lines were cut. When I checked the eye of the brake fluid holder, it was still full of fluid. My next thought was that I lost a pad somehow. The caliper looked OK at first but something was off. There were two bolts that held the front brake calipers to the fork but only the top one was present. The bottom bolt was missing and the calipers were pushed aside by the force of the router, to the point where it couldn't grab anymore. It explained why I had braking power when I first departed and lost it at the end.
I called CAA to get it towed back to the shop. During the wait, I ran through a few scenarios. Maybe, I insulted the mechanic when I took the bike back instead of letting him fix it. Perhaps he wasn't impressed when there wasn't much of a leak when I brought the bike back in. Or maybe he didn't like the fact that I tried to negotiate a lower price by trying to combine my major tune-up in conjunction with the fork seal repair to get a better rate, the price actually went up by a couple hundred dollars when they called back with the quote.
Paranoid that the mechanic was up to no good, I decided to change the dealership to another location instead. The tow truck driver took a look at my bike and wanted to fix it before towing it away. The bolt holding the caliper to the fork was so loose, he was able to unscrew it with his fingers. There was no replacement for the missing bolt so a tow was the only option.
I had to take the TTC home but on my way back I replayed the situation over-and-over in my head. What if I didn`t adjust my clutch before my brakes failed. What if the pedestrian was already in the intersection and I had no room to steer around him. The forecast was for rain, with a possible chance of thunderstorms that day. What if I picked up my bike earlier instead of the end of the day when there were more cars on the road. What if I went into the intersection and was run over or killed. What if I took the highway instead. What if...
Fortunately, I walked away without a scratch, without hurting anyone or damaging my vehicle. On the bright side, I probably wouldn`t have known what to do if my clutch cable didn`t snap earlier in the month. After that mishap, I said to myself, it could have been worse, I could have lost my front brake. I asked myself what I would do in that worse case scenario. Whatever I thought up kicked in on a subconscious level a month later.
The strangest thing about the two mishaps were that they happened on the exact same street 1.2 km apart from each other. I live 45 km from the dealership, talk about being at the right place at the right time in the two worse possible situations.
