Passes & Canyons Blog

This time it was my Honda being the one to get towed. Dang those valve stems.

I think I’ve got something figured out here. I have the vague notion that when you have a dealer put a new tire on your bike, they routinely put in a new valve stem. Maybe I’m mistaken, but that’s my notion. Regardless, I’m pretty certain now that Joel, my mechanic, does not. And in the future, any time I have him put on a new tire I will specify that I also want a new valve stem.

I had my first valve stem problem when I was getting ready to leave on the RMMRC‘s Great River Road ride. That necessitated that I take a different bike; not a big deal.

Well now I’ve had a second valve stem problem, and this was a lot bigger pain in the butt.

I’ve been taking some music classes over at Swallow Hill Music and so a couple weeks ago I headed over there on the Honda CB750 Custom, which had yet to be ridden in July. Just a few blocks away I noticed the handling on the bike was not as it should be, and it reminded me of the time when I had a flat back tire on the Concours. I got to Swallow Hill and parked and looked at the rear tire. It was fine. Great. I headed in.

When I came out and returned to the bike it was very obvious that my front tire was flat. Oh, dang. OK, I got here on it, if I can get air in the tire hopefully I can get home on it. I called Judy and asked her to bring my pump, figuring I’d put air in and she could follow me home, stopping if necessary to add more air along the way.

Judy arrived and I hooked the pump up but after way too long the pressure gauge was still showing no increased pressure. I turned it off and was disconnecting it when I heard a hiss at the valve stem. Sure enough, that’s where the problem was. And there was no way this bike was rideable.

I have roadside service through my American Motorcyclist Association membership so I called for a tow. It took a while to get through but I finally reached someone who took all my info and said I would be receiving a text message with the data on the company dispatched and their estimated time of arrival. We knew we had a wait in store.

The first part of the wait was not boring. We were at the corner of Lincoln and Yale, standing by the bike, when we heard tires screeching and a crash. Turning around, there was a Harley on its side, a rider on the ground, and a car stopped, all in the middle of the intersection. Holy crap. I went running to the guy, thinking about my recent crash scene management training.

The guy, an older, very gnarly-looking sort of old school Harley rider, was sitting up and bleeding badly from the left side of his head. The first step in crash scene management is to secure the location, and there were cars stopped in all directions so clearly nobody was going to come driving through and hit someone. The guy asked for a hand up and I hesitated. Another initial point in crash scene management was to do all you can to prevent the person from getting up and riding off, because they may suffer shock and once the adrenaline wears off they may find themselves completely incapable of even standing.

He asked for a hand up and I told him he really ought to just sit there for a few minutes. “F— that” he bellowed and insisted I help him up, which I did. Then he asked me and another guy to help him get the bike up, which we did. I was hoping he just wanted to move it out of the intersection but he climbed on, fired it up and rode away. Meanwhile, we could all see that the lobe of his left ear was almost completely ripped off, hanging by just a slender strip of skin.

Judy’s speculation was that he either had warrants out or else maybe he had been drinking or drugging and either way had no intention of dealing with the police. Who knows. Meanwhile, the young woman driving the car was on the phone with 911. She had not hit him; there had been no contact. I’m not sure what she had been doing, maybe a U-turn in the intersection, definitely not a left turn in front of him. All I got from her was that she was making her turn and he just wouldn’t wait for her to complete it. He must have swerved to avoid her but even that is odd because the bike fell on its right side and he was on the ground on its left. I have no idea what happened. The police were apparently never even dispatched to the scene.

We know this because we were there for another three hours, and they never showed up. After talking to the person I gave the tow request to we were told we would receive text updates and all we got were three messages saying sorry for the delay, we’re still trying to get someone to provide your service. After awhile my phone was going dead and Judy suggested we call again, using her phone, so I did.

Once we got through again I explained the situation and they escalated it to the supervisor and once again we were told we’d be messaged with update info. We finally did get a message, telling us who was coming and that it would probably be an hour and half more. Thank goodness we had Judy’s air conditioned car to sit it because we had no shade and the outside temperature was about 85.

Finally the tow guy showed up and I have to say, he was super nice. We were now late for a birthday party we were supposed to be heading to and he said go ahead to the party, I’ll get the bike safely to your house. Which he did, and then called to tell us he had done so. Nice guy.

So that’s twice now I’ve had valve stem issues. Valve stems are now very much on my radar.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if other people you consider bikers scare you.