DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

The battery in my motorcycle died again. I was downtown, in a place where every hill in sight goes up. If you’ve ever been stranded, you know what it feels like — but add to that the helmet and heavy jacket and boots and really heavy motorcycle and you’ll realize the depths of my despair. I was at the bottom of more than one sort of decline. Not only could I not get home, I’d have to carry all my gear, and deal with the dead vehicle too.

We don’t have taxis here, by the way.

After some moments of looking around dumbly, hoping for salvation to appear, I realized with a start that salvation had done just that: my bike had died one block from the garage where we have our car serviced.

Our mechanic is a great guy, always ready to help in a pinch. And I was pinched.

He was elbow-deep in a brake rebuild when I approached, yet he stopped immediately to help me jump-start the bike. He set out his portable jump-start rig (cables with attached battery). He was reaching for tools as I jogged back outside to retrieve the bike.

A half-block from the garage entrance, the street dips slightly. I hadn’t thought this would give me enough momentum to bump-start the bike, but as I rolled toward it I realized this was my last chance to drive home without getting messy. So I dug in. I pushed with everything I had. Bones bent under the strain. My boots sprouted talons. The top layer of enamel on my molars spontaneously ground to dust.

I think I achieved a whopping 10 mph. I dumped the clutch like a bucket of old paint. And with a feeble cough, the engine turned over, sputtered, and caught. Freedom!

With a wave to the mechanic, who was shaking his head in mirth at my slow-motion Flintstones sprint down the street, I sped home to arrange a maintenance visit to the Kawasaki dealership.

The bike was due for a major service: tune-up, valve adjustment, new battery, and an institutional-sized serving of TLC. Also I asked the dealership to wash the motorcycle, for it was filthy with grime and brake dust and chain wax overspray and cobwebs. Years out of maintenance, dead, and dirty, it was Frankenbike.

When I returned to the dealership, the guys in the garage were standing around, smiling at my approach. “What’s up?” I asked. “Your bike looks good,” came the reply. They were laughing because I’d dropped off a nasty, ugly thing, a real crime against motorcycling. (Even off-road bikers wash their bikes every weekend.) To their surprise, it cleaned up really nicely; under all the dirt and grime was a near-pristine motorcycle.

The service manager wouldn’t let me leave until he’d personally blown off the tiny bit of dust that had settled since the wash. Service with a smile! I shook everybody’s hands, grinning like an idiot.

I took pictures as soon as I got home. The bike may never be this clean again.