Joe Gresh – Page 25 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

Endurofest Two

After Payson, Arizona and just a little past Pine, Arizona there’s a steep grade that climbs up into the mountains. Hell, it’s all mountains out here in northern Arizona. Ahead of me was a older Chevy truck, one of those faded metallic burgundy ones that is only burgundy underneath. The topsides were more of a peeled silver with just a hint of grape jam. The truck was struggling on the grade; it sounded like three or more injectors had lost their tips and raw fuel was pouring into the cylinders. Thick, black smoke flowed out of the tail pipe and I could hear the engine stuttering from 150 feet back.

Brumby, my 2.5, 4-banger Jeep smelled blood. This had to be the first and best opportunity to pass a car on the entire 500-mile trip to Endurofest. A series of tight corners opened into a short straight. I shoved Brumby into 3rd gear and gunned the little 2.5, neatly slotting Brumby alongside the old Chevy. I could see the driver of the Chevy now. He was long-haired, thin, with no shirt. He resembled one of those backwoods reality TV stars and when he saw Brumby’s hood hove into sight his expression changed from complacent anger to rage. He gunned the Chevy and a noxious cloud of almost pure dinosaur squeezings engulfed the road behind us. Damn it! That Chevy was picking up speed! I dropped Brumby into second gear and mashed the throttle to the floor. My efforts were rewarded as the Chevy dropped back, still missing and smoking. All this was happening at about 15 miles an hour. It was slow motion road rage for sure but Brumby passed the test.

Me and Hunter arrived late to the party and as we pulled into Endurofest headquarters several cackling two-strokes were already on their way out to explore our new digs. Next door to the Flagstaff Motel 6 was a combination Subway sandwich franchise and massage parlor. I thought that was pretty cool. I considered going into the massage parlor after eating a foot-long veggie delight but I had pretty good cell reception so I just looked at them on the phone.

Tomorrow I’ll get Godzilla started and join the fun.

Endurofest One

Things have been hopping and getting ready for the 2019 edition of Endurofest has only increased the load on our fragile infrastructure. The Toyota started shaking in that now-familiar way that indicates a bad driveshaft U-joint. And it was. The front joint was a mess and the others looked ok so I went to the auto store and picked up a joint.

While I was at it I figured I’d change the center bearing just because it had a zillion miles on it so add another hundred. The job went as well as any U-joint replacement, kind of a brutal war and a finesse combined to accomplish what needed to be done. Except that the middle u-joint had to come out to split the front drive shaft (to replace the center bearing) and It didn’t look so hot. Another trip to the auto store and I managed to button up the Toyota without further drama.

I turned my attention to Brumby, tackling a loose exhaust system that was an easy fix: One of the rubber hangers had deteriorated letting the pipe swing around playing a tune under Brumby. Another trip to the auto store and a slick-jiffy had the pipe suspended like a proper off road weapon.

The soft top on my tow rig, Brumby, had been damaged by a hailstorm earlier in the year. The ice balls went right through the windows and generally made a mess of things. Amazon sent along a nice Sierra soft top and all I had to do was send them a cool $250. The top went on without issue except for the rear door latch became stuck in the locked position.

The linkages for automobile locks are small bits of bent wire rod and they are held in place by tiny pieces of plastic that snap into the rod. The problem with this system is that after 20-30 years the plastic becomes brittle and breaks. When they break the link rod falls off whatever mechanical device they were supposed to operate.

The fix would be to dismantle the door and replace the plastic bits, assuming you can find them. I don’t have time for this hokey-pokey so I drilled two small holes in the link rod. Using a couple small washers and cotter pins I reattached the link rod and I could open the rear door and finish the soft top installation.

But that’s not all! The Harbor Freight trailer had been sitting in the sun for about a year and the wiring to the lights was rotted off in several places. Luckily there was enough wire to cut out the bad section and splice in new. I really have to replace the entire lighting system on that trailer but it will have to wait for another day.

The trailer was looking a bit like a shantytown and I had some house paint solidifying in their cans so I dumped the stuff onto the trailer in an attempt to make it look a little less distressed.

With the tow rig out of the way I could get Godzilla, the 360cc Yamaha ready. It needed a new tire in the rear but of course I’m not spending the kind of money they are asking for new tires nowadays. I managed to borrow a slightly used M21 from my buddy Hunter when he momentarily turned his back on me. The tire was relatively easy to install. Which really threw off my plans for the day.

I also fitted a new tail bag and assembled a new concrete mixer, the mixer having nothing to do with Endurofest.

Finally all was ready and loaded. Only one small problem remained: somewhere in all this messing about I lost track of the days and I am actually a day ahead of schedule. Ah well, it’s too late to change things now, this train is leaving the station. Next stop Flagstaff, Arizona.

Check out Joe Gresh’s magazine articles!

Product Review: MY Construction Supply Rebar Caps

We never used re-bar caps back when I was doing construction. I don’t think they had been invented yet. It was a different time: You had to be tough, man and I was. If you tripped and fell onto an exposed re-bar the thing would go clean through you and out the other side. The jobsites I worked on were grisly with dead men impaled on rusting steel. I’ll never forget that smell. In the hot Florida sun the bodies bloated fast, seemingly still alive as they twitched and waved a stiff, blackened hand each time a bubble of gas escaped.

Guys getting skewered on re-bar was so prevalent we didn’t bother to pull them off until it was time to pour the concrete. Why bother, another man will just come along and land on the thing.

I never fell onto a rebar myself. I’ve come close but managed to avoid spearing the bar, because I didn’t run up a bunch of debt going to college or paying exorbitant hospital bills for puncture remedies. Back then people took responsibility for their actions, not like now. Those guys stuck on the rebar? Maybe they should have eaten less fast food or bought a cheaper car. Today you see rebar covers all over construction jobs. It’s all part of the dumbing down of America.

Back to the rebar covers, I’m reinforcing the ground surrounding The Carriage House and there are a bunch of re-bars sticking up from the retaining wall. I’m not so worried about falling onto them (because I made wise life choices) but the damn things are sharp. The bars will eventually be bent down into the formwork and covered with concrete, until then I’m getting cut to ribbons. A good-sized gash to the elbow was the final straw.

At first I was going to use empty beer cans to cap the bars. That visual might be too much for my wife to handle and anyway I’d have to drink like 75 beers to get the job done. I’ve been trying to lose weight by drinking gin and tonics as a calorie saving measure. Processing that many beers through my gastrointestinal system was a non-starter. I found the MY caps online for 50 cents apiece.

The caps fit rebar from 3/8” to ¾”, inside the cap are 4 vanes that conform to the different sizes. It’s a good set up. The bright orange color alerts you to the bar so there’s less tripping and zero cutting on my jobsite.

They’ve been out in the sun for a few weeks and the color hasn’t faded yet. Kind of funny that the packaging says “Does not protect against impalement.” Which is the main reason you buy the damn things. I suspect some cell-phone owning construction worker fell 13 floors onto the MY cap and managed to sue the company.

Go ahead and call me a nanny-state mason. I deserve it. I guess you could say I’m getting soft in my old age. Seeing all those orange caps sitting atop the rebar makes me sad. I miss the old ways. I miss personal responsibility. And, funnily enough, I miss that smell.

Product Review: Marshalltown Grooving Trowel

We human beings spend a large percentage of our life-energy altering the Earth to better suit our desires. Take me, for instance. I’m constantly trying to rise up from Tinfiny’s mud-bound arroyo and beat Mother Nature into submission. New Mexico is no country for old men and I know I will lose in the end. We all lose in the end, our best efforts forgotten by the incurious, but that’s no reason to give up.

One of my favorite ways of taming nature is to pave it over with a layer of concrete. If it worked for Chernobyl’s smoldering, radioactive core it can work for Tinfiny Ranch. My latest attempt to delay the inevitable is the side patio. The ground on the north side of Tinfiny’s Carriage House was washing into the arroyo from heavy monsoon rains and, like the calcified bones of a long-dead Tyrannosaurus, the Carriage House’s foundation was laid bare. This is not good.

About 10-feet from the foundation I dug a footer and laid some blocks to serve as a seawall. I’ve been slowly filling it in with dirt, reburying the exposed foundation and compacting the fill in 8-inch lifts. It’s all going about as well as can be expected.

As I bring the north side up to grade I’m pouring a sloped, concrete patio to stop erosion and re-direct rain water away from the Carriage House’s foundation towards the arroyo. I love concrete as much as the next guy but even I know that great slabs of it are not the prettiest things to behold so I’m finishing the slab in smaller sections with each section grooved to resemble the cut blocks used in The Great Wall of China.

For grooving I’m using a Marshalltown trowel that I ordered online. The thing was not impressive right out of the box. It’s a flimsy looking tool that is not quite wide enough and it tends to create a border to your groove. You’ll need to practice a light hand for best results.

I thought the single direction canoe end would be a hassle, what with having to change the tool’s orientation with each stroke, but I was wrong. Grooving is much less labor intensive than edging so the back-and-forth motion used with an edger tool is replaced by a single stroke with the groover. One pass with this tool and the groove looks pretty well done. You’ll need to hit it a couple more times as the mud goes off but it’s easy as pie.

My initial reaction proved wrong: once you get the hang of it this thing really makes a nice groove. I’m free-handing the cuts just because I’m lazy and I don’t want all the lines perfectly square. The non-canoe end lets you get right up against the form. Except for making it a couple inches longer and a bit wider I am happy with how it performs. It has started to rust already but all my concrete finishing tools rust. I should probably oil them after use.

I’m so happy with the Marshalltown trowel I think I’ll keep on going around the side of The Carriage House and on into the back yard using the same method of construction. After all, you can’t let Mother Nature wash your house into the arroyo without putting up a fight.

What’s The Bright Idea?

The Husqvarna 510 SMR came stock with a 35-watt/35-watt incandescent headlight bulb that was nearly useless. I say nearly because when it was lit it provided a weak beam limiting nighttime speeds to 30 miles per hour. But it was worse than that because for some reason the motorcycle constantly blew the bulb leaving me to get home using the little parking light bulb (which never blows out). The plastic headlight fixture shows signs of melting even with the standard bulb so I set about trying to find a better idea.

Husky uses an S-type light socket base like you’ll find in scooters and mopeds. This bulb was used as my baseline for temperature and current draw. I figured if I didn’t exceed the standard bulb on these two measurements the plastic headlight should survive and the electrical system would be able to keep up with the program. Baseline was 2.5 amps @ 13-volts and 230 degrees. I did all the tests using highbeam.

The stock incandescent light surprised me. It’s the oldest technology, they’ve been around more than a hundred years, yet it wasn’t the worst of the bunch. I had to try and find something better, though.

I bought the LED bulb off of Ebay and I have no ratings on it because I can’t find it for sale again. The bulb has no markings. It was like a one-shot deal I guess. The reason I chose this one was that unlike the other LEDs it didn’t have the large heat sink or cooling fan behind the bulb. It was a direct fit for the Husky’s push-and-twist bulb socket. The LED used so little power I had to check a few times to believe it. Only 0.14 amps were required to fire the thing up! It also ran much cooler than the other bulbs, producing only 134 degrees. I’m thrifty so I loved the thing but there’s a reason those other LED bulbs have such a big big cooling system: The light output from the minimalist LED was weaker than the stock bulb by a lot.

The halogen was a 50-watt high and low beam. I tried to find a 35-watt halogen but couldn’t at the time. I’ve since found a 35-watt and I’m going to get one and try it. As you would expect, the higher wattage bulb drew more current and ran much hotter: 4.9 amps and 337 degrees (still rising fast). I stopped the test early because I didn’t want to melt my headlight shell. The Halogen was very bright and did a great job projecting all that power to the front. It was the brightest bulb by far. I’d love to be able to run the halogen but I think I’ll have a meltdown if I do.

I found a HID bulb-ballast combination with a multi-fit base that would fit in the Husky’s socket but I would have to gut the contacts to allow the harness passage through. I didn’t want to do this so I just held the bulb in the reflector housing. It was a disappointing bulb consuming more power and putting out less light than the incandescent bulb. If you’ve ever had one of those adjustable, wide/narrow beam flashlights you know how little it takes to change the beam pattern. Bulb position is critical for good output and the HID must not have been in alignment with the reflector’s focal point.

In the video link you’ll see the four bulbs I tested and the statistics on each one. All the bulbs had their pros and cons but none of them solved the problem. I ended up using the LED even though the bulb was the weakest. I was going on a trip to Utah and wanted to see if it would stay together longer than the incandescent. It is still going after 2400 miles. The stocker never lasted as long.

I think I will have to replace the entire headlamp on the Husky to get a decent light. The plastic construction limits how much wattage I can use and is borderline melting at stock levels of heat. I don’t ride much at night but sometimes you get caught out and have to muddle through. I added a bright off-road light to the Husqvarna just for those situations.

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Sweet Home, California and New Mexico!

Wowee, it’s been nonstop travel for Gresh and me these last few weeks. As you know from reading the ExhaustNotes blog, Gresh rode his Husqvarna to the Bonneville Speed Week in Utah from his home in New Mexico. He’s a better man than I am. I don’t think I could handle riding a Naugahyde-covered 2×4 all that distance. Joe is back on the Tinfiny Ranch in New Mexico now, no doubt thinking about concrete, motorized bicycles, getting his vintage Z1 back on the road, and more.

I’ve been on the road, too. It was a scouting expedition for an upcoming hunting trip with my good buddy J, back to Soprano-land for my 50th high school reunion, and then up to Seattle for a friend’s wedding. We’re racking up the miles, but I’m home now, and let me tell you, it’s good to be home! I was supposed to be on the road this past week for the Three Flags Classic (I would have been on the way home from Canada by now), but it was getting to be too much and I bailed out on that one. Like my good buddy Dirty Harry likes to say, a man’s got to know his limits, and I hit mine.

Scouting for Deer

Out in the boonies with good buddy J, proving that beer doesn’t work well as a mosquito repellant.

Good buddy J and I snuck away to an undisclosed location to scout deer. Where we were and where we’re going is a closely-held military secret, but we saw lots of game, we’re going back heavy, and we’re looking forward to bringing home the bacon (or, I guess I should say, the venison). We camped on this trip, which is something I hadn’t done in quite a few years. J makes camping seem like staying at a 5-star hotel. It was fun. Except for the mosquitos. Those little bastards were brutal. I probably won’t be able to make it up there the same time as J (I’ve got another secret mission to Asia coming up real soon), but if I don’t make it on the trip with J, I’ll be there a few days later. Venison beckons and all that. I’ve got a .300 Weatherby load with a deer’s initials on it.

Bonneville Speed Week

Joe’s trek to Wendover for Bonneville’s Speed Week was awesome, and you can get to his posts here…

Salt 1
Salt 2
Salt 3
Salt 4
Salt 5
Salt 6
Salt 7
Salt 8

Reading Joe’s blogs was a real treat; I felt like I was riding along with Uncle Joe. You will, too…click on the above links if you haven’t seen these great stories and enjoy some of the best motorcycle story telling in the world!

Joe has another trip planned in the near term for the Yamaha Endurofest. I’m looking forward to the photos and the stories on that one. I love reading Joe’s stories!

The Big 50

Hey, what can I say? My classmates from our Class of ’69 did one hell of a job putting together an absolutely amazing 50th high school reunion. Surprisingly, I didn’t get a lot of photos…I was having way too much fun. I did get a few, though, and here they be!

Just a few of my classmates taking a tour of our old high school.

Good buddy Tad, whom I met in the 7th grade, with his Honda Gold Wing.

Good buddy Mike, reminding us there’s no talking to the driver while the bus is in motion!

At one point, we started grabbing photos of folks from the different elementary schools in our area. Here’s one of the crew who went to Deans School…my elementary school alma mater.

I’ve known everyone in this photo from kindergarten. I had crushes on every girl in this photo at one time or another. Don’t tell Sue.

We then thought it would be a good idea to take a group photo of everyone who had detention in high school…you know, where they make you stay late to wash blackboards, clean erasers, and stuff like that for cutting up in class. I’m guessing they can’t do that anymore.

The kids who had detention in high school. I was the king of detention.

I can’t remember ever having as much fun as we did at the reunion. Everyone looked great. Some of the folks there I first met in kindergarten, and most I had not seen in 50 years. One of the young ladies you see in the photos above had saved some of our high school newspapers, which had a column titled Exhaust Notes. And you can guess who wrote it more than half a century ago. That’s a story for another blog, and it’s coming your way soon.

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Product Test: Progressive 412 Series Shock Absorbers

Most people I’ve spoken to are happy with their Progressive Suspension products. If you went by damping action alone I would be, too. The problem I had with the two sets of Progressive 412 shocks I’ve bought is that the damn things leak. When I say leak I mean like after a couple thousand miles of off road riding. Conversely, some of my riding buddies have the same exact shocks and report no leakage after several years.

Godzilla, my 1971 Yamaha RT-1B 360cc endure, has about 4 inches of rear wheel travel. When new, the Progressive shocks did a fantastic job damping that short distance. The bike would bottom out if you hit big ruts at speed but the rear end stayed in line and didn’t swap places with the front. It was a great boost to my confidence. I was able to gain some serious speed across open desert while the Progressives swallowed up big holes and bumps without spitting me off. I’m not saying it was a smooth ride, but it was controlled.

The shocks were great on hills. They helped the rear knobby tire follow the contours of the earth and allowed Godzilla to climb some really steep inclines. If I accidentally spun the wheel by feeding in too much power I could close the throttle and then bog the motor, taking advantage of the big two-stroke Yamaha’s grunt at low RPM without stalling the engine. It was a traction seeking beast, I tell you. I’ve replaced the 412’s with a cheap set of remote reservoir shocks and the difference in performance is huge.

The first set of Progressives lasted about 10,000 miles before one of them sprung a leak. I chalked it up to the rough trails Hunter leads me on. Since I liked the Progressive action so much I sucked it up and bought another set. The new set was just as good, except they started leaking after only 2,000 miles. The second set of Progressives failed dramatically: Both shocks went bad simultaneously and projectile vomited hydraulic oil all over the rear of the bike. I thought the engine crankcase had broken.

To give the shocks their due I was riding an extremely rough trail with lots of boulders and steep drop offs. The rear suspension was bottoming on the big stuff but I felt conditions were no worse than normal.

The leaking wouldn’t be a big deal if the shocks were rebuildable. Progressive 412 shocks are not. They roll the shock body over the upper shaft guide and seal. It’s a machine process that is difficult to replicate in the average home shop. Even if you did manage to un-roll the shock body, the seals are made by NOK and are proprietary to Progressive (and Progressive won’t sell the seal). The shocks are made in Mexico so I doubt they have any to sell. In my correspondence with Progressive the only solution offered was to buy yet another set of shocks.

At $250 a pair this was getting expensive, you know? Since I had so many leaking Progressive shocks I decided to cut one open to see if there was any way to modify the seal area to take a seal that is available. It looks doable. I will need to get my South Bend lathe up and running to spin out a new top bushing with an O-ring on the outer part to replace the crimped end. To keep the top bushing from popping out on full extension I’ll need a few screws around the circumference of the shock body. Any nitrogen charging will have to be replaced with air from a simple Schrader fitting.

I’ll do another blog on the seal/bushing refit but don’t hold your breath. None of this is going to happen in time for October’s Yamaha Enduro Fest held in Flagstaff this year. The remote reservoir shocks are so bad I’ve got a cheap set of Red Line shocks coming from Ebay to tide me over. For those of you keeping count, I’ve had the original shocks, two sets of Progressives, the remotes and now the Red Lines. Hopefully these last two won’t leak.

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Product test: Lucas Fuel Treatment

I won’t feel bad if you don’t believe a word of this story. I don’t believe it myself and I was there.

Here’s the thing: my 2008 Husqvarna SMR510 single cylinder thumper has always gotten around 50 miles per gallon of gasoline. Sometimes it does 47mpg, other times 52mpg. These are mostly highway mile ratings because traffic doesn’t exist in La Luz, New Mexico. Rain or shine, for 12,000 miles the fuel usage has been consistent. That’s not bad mileage for a high-strung, near race bike engine so I’m happy.

The Husky seemed to be stalling more frequently than I like on the trip to Bonneville. The clutch was dragging a bit, the oil was overdue for a change, it was 100 degrees plus everyday and the 510 spins only the barest of flywheel to ensure quick revs. Added to all this is the Husky’s tall first gear, which requires a bit of slip to get off the line. I checked the intake system for air leaks and tightened the hose clamps and gave all the whatnots a good look over. Everything seemed ok. Maybe Joe Berk is right: Maybe I just don’t know how to ride a big 4-stroke single.

My riding buddy Mike and I were at the Pilot fuel station in Wendover and he suggested I try some Lucas fuel treatment. “That’s good stuff, pour some in the tank each time you fill up and see if the bike quits stalling.” Normally I put no faith in fuel additives. It’s all snake oil to me but I figured I’d humor Mike and pour some in for appearances. Nothing happened. The bike kept stalling. It ran exactly the same. I made a special effort to rev the piss out of the engine to keep from stalling in traffic and went about my business.

It was on the ride home that the strangeness started. I was getting well over 50 miles per gallon at our first gas stop. I dumped a little more Lucas snake oil in the fresh tank. The next couple gas stops I didn’t bother to check the mileage but each time I filled up I dumped a little of the Lucas sauce into the tank.

On the second day of our homeward trip the Husqvarna did 70 miles per gallon. I was stunned. I figured I must have been doing something wrong so I dumped a little more Lucas in the tank and ran 100 miles down the road. This next tank was only 67 miles per gallon. These mileage numbers kept up all the way back to La Luz. I’m out of snake oil so it will be interesting to see if the fuel consumption increases.

How is this possible? How can a few ounces of yellowish liquid increase mileage by 40%? What am I doing wrong? Get this: normally I can go about 150 miles before running out of gas. With the magic sauce I can go 210 miles! I can’t believe it. Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon? Tell me about it in the comments section, please. I need to know that I’m not insane.

Salt 8

It seems like tents get larger the more time they spend exposed to sunlight. But the thing is, man, camps were made to be broken. As much as I liked the hot sun, dusty gravel lot and 4-mile walk to the KOA facilities, we had to go.

I’m good with the two days we spent on the salt. I feel like we got a really good idea of the situation and the Southern California Timing Association had their hands full. They didn’t need me prowling around stirring up the troops. The salt was in no mood to be trifled with and we left it to bake and heave, a different salt from a few hours ago and different from that salt in a few more hours.

There’s no good route east from Bonneville except for the hard slog on Interstate 80. From there it’s a long hot day south and the Husky beat out a steady tune all the way to Moab, Utah. The place was an endless parade of tourists, every one one of them healthier than the last. Their bodies were so chiseled they looked like they subsisted solely on finely ground pumice. Their smiles were stretched over perfectly dazzling teeth. I felt like Quasimodo lurching among this mob of Fits.

We swung through Monticello, Utah, a place where 11 years ago me and Hunter left Dave at a motel room with a broken foot and two hamburgers on his night stand. The past days and present days are crashing together on this ride. If you let your mind wander it’s easy to lose track of where you are on the continuum. The hamburger place where we stocked Dave’s nightstand is still there. Maybe Dave is still in that room. 11 years has gone-and-went representing one tiny tremor of time. What happened?

I rode away from Monticello on Godzilla back then. It was a hard pull up the grades. Sometimes the old two stroke held 55 mph. Now I rip up the same hills with the Husky spinning free. So much air pumping past 500 CC’s of modern 4-strokery. I’d still rather be on Godzilla. You earned a hill with that bike, man.

Tonight we’re giving Switchblade, the panhandler with a pickle, another shot at my ribcage in Window Rock. I wonder when I will be back to remember this place, to remember Switchblade. I wonder what the last place will be?

Get it while you can, boys.

Salt 7

During Bonneville Speed Week enterprising teens set up salt washing stations.

The rough wet salt did not bode well for the speed trials this year. After seeing how the situation unfolded yesterday Mike and I were in no hurry to get out to Bonneville and in fact it was almost 11:00 a.m. before we paid the SCTA man another $20 entrance fee.

The ticket man told us to avoid the start area as it was getting churned up and the competitor’s vehicles were getting stuck. It was kind of a pain because the start area was where we wanted to go. One thing I’ve learned in my short life is that there’s no sense in railing against mushy salt.

My hamburger-stand-at-noon meter told me there were fewer spectators and contestants than yesterday. Bonneville isn’t spectator friendly to start with as the courses are far in the distance. You pay to be surrounded by the ambiance: great things are happening just over the horizon.

The pits are very open, you can go bug the racers all you like. They really seemed to appreciate my helpful suggestions for grabbing that final 1/10 of a mile per hour.

I don’t know why my motorcycle brothers were being so obtuse on the track today. They consistently failed to clear off the course after their run much to the dismay of the hundreds of waiting competitors.

Even without the motorcycle guys gumming up the works wait times between runs stretched to 15 minutes. Multiply that by 100 or more competitors and you start to get at the immensity of the problem caused by Mother Nature shutting down three courses.

Bonneville is one of those events where it’s easier to compete in than spectate. After one really lengthy pause in the action we decided that racing may be over for the day. We headed back to camp feeling ill-used for our $20 entrance fee but it all goes to a good cause: The pursuit of speed.

Unrelated to anyone’s efforts on the salt, one of the bolts holding the luggage rack to the Husqvarna had fallen out somewhere on the trip to Bonneville. I removed the opposite side bolt for a sample and took the thing to Ace Hardware where they had no metric bolts. The next place I tried, CarQuest, had two of the small, 4mm bolts.

As soon as I located the correct bolts I should have known I was in trouble. The Husky uses those captivated-nut type of deals where a threaded nut is crimped into the aluminum frame tube. It gives you something sturdy and steel to screw into.

When the sample bolt was removed the captivated nut became a free range nut and it wandered off into the frame tube. Of course I had no idea any of this was happening.

I kept trying to screw the sample bolt back onto the Husqvarna. The thing would not start. As I became more confused I became more irrational. It was hot, Mike was making suggestions and I was not wanting to hear them: “I just took the bolt out of the F-ing rack minutes ago! Why won’t it start?” Semi-blind from sweat I removed everything off the back of the bike and it became clear that the bolt was never going to thread into the hole because there was nothing to thread into. It was a void, man.

Back to Ace hardware for a $35 drill motor, a $14 drill bit set, and assorted 1/4″-20 bolts and nuts. That bastard rack was going to be secured by any means necessary. I drilled all the way through the frame tube and into the plastic inner fender. Now the longer bolt was slotted through into a locknut on the other side.

This all sounds simple but it took three separate trips to the auto store and hardware store to achieve. I gave Mike the new drill motor hoping the shiny bauble would make him forget all that he had seen earlier. I spent the remains of the day sitting by the KOA swimming pool and drinking gin & tonics. Tomorrow we break camp and start heading back to God’s country: New Mexico.

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