Riding from Pickerington, Ohio to Duluth, Minnesota.

Between 2000 and 2007 I rode from Minnesota to Ohio and back several times a year, always aboard a 1981 BMW 800. These were wonderful bikes with famously weak electrical charging systems. My outbound route was east across US2 to the Mackinac Bridge then south on I-75 to Columbus. The route back was via a matrix of little roads up to the Ludington Ferry, then across Lake Michigan and then a bunch more little roads across Wisconsin northwest to Minnesota. About nine hundred easy miles each way, spread over two nice nine hour days. 55 and 65 mph two lane speed limits across sparsely settled northern Wisconsin and the U.P., then 75+ freeway south of the bridge all the way down to the Ohio border.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007, Pickerington, Ohio

Fed Ex arrived at about a quarter to eleven. Spent the morning in the hotel lobby, typing e-mails off line, waiting. Just as I’d unwrapped the bike parts Ken comes down. We have a good fifteen minute talk. He suggests the high speed ferry that takes only two and a half hours and lands at Milwaukee. He looks up the scheduled Muskegon depart time on his Blackberry, and I program the GPS and it says I can make it with 45 minutes to spare. So we forgo breakfast and I take off, zooming along following the purple line of route directions on the GPS and taking only a single fast gas stop (11 minutes from exit ramp to refill, to peeing, to back onto the entrance ramp…) and no food. I think I’ll just make it. Still my mind begins to gnaw on the timing, and the alternator warning light gets worse and worse. Hardly ever coming onto charge mode now, but at least I have a replacement diode board, and hopefully brushes (I did not see them, but assume they are there, inside the bubble-wrapped diode board package…). Things should be ok.

After thinking about the time the ferry leaves, 4:45pm, I wonder if it is on eastern time or central time? If it is central, I’m early by 45 min. If eastern, I’m late by fifteen. After pounding butt for six hours, it turns out I’m late by fifteen. I remount and ride along the shore toward Ludington, another 50 miles north to the old Badger ferry and a four hour crossing, arriving in Wisconsin at about 11pm. Twenty miles before town the bike goes onto reserve so I stop to fill it’s tank. Aboard the ferry I buy a salad and bottle of water, and read magazines. I also call ahead for a room at the dockside Best Western in WI. The only thing they offer is a smoking room, at a special rate of $98. Yeah, right. I ask if the windows open, and they say “yes”, so I’ll find out how stinky one of these smoking rooms really is when I get there. It’s been a few years since I was in one.

After the magazines were read, I typed this trip journal. The lights of Wisconsin just came into view. I’ll probably try and take the now full gas tank off in the motel parking lot in the morning and see if I can replace the brushes and diode board before riding the last six hours home. If I can’t, I can buy a battery or battery charger and ride home in the daylight in total-loss mode, so there is a ‘plan-b’. That gas tank will weigh about 80 pounds. I don’t remember the last time I took off a gas tank that was nearly full. Eight or nine gallons. Yuck. I hope I don’t drop it or break one of the petcocks. The tone of the Badger’s coal-fired triple expansion steam engines just changed. Must be getting near shore.

Wednesday August 8, 2007

Up at 7, clear, sunny, about 75º. Last night, after the ferry landed, I’d rode the two blocks to the hotel with the headlight off, in the dark, hoping there was enough juice still in the battery to keep two spark plugs sparking, and fortunately there was. After checking in (and opening the room’s window wide…) I unwrapped the bubble-wrapped BMW parts and found only the diode board. No brushes. Crap. So I went to the hotel bar and ordered a martini. Then back to the now-slightly-less-stinky room and into bed, where I fell asleep in about ten seconds.

The next morning right after showering, I went out to the parking lot wearing shorts, sandals and a fresh shirt, carrying the diode board and the small zippered ‘miscellaneous junk’ pouch from the tank bag. (It has a Leatherman multi-pliers-tool, some bits of wire, a cigarette lighter, a hot-melt glue stick, a small compass, some rubber bands, a mini-roll of duct tape, and various other odds n’ ends.) It’s seven thirty AM on a very fine day.

First, I roll the bike about five feet so it is more directly underneath a shady tree branch partly overhanging the pavement. Then I take the front cover off the engine, and remove the outer part of the alternator, called the stator. This is the part that holds the brushes. One of the brushes, the forward-most one, was much shorter than the other. The spring behind it was fully extended, so it was not making a continuous direct contact with the copper ring on the rotor beneath. I was sitting on my butt, cross legged, right next to the front wheel, facing the engine while doing all this. On the asphalt next to me was the bike’s unrolled tool kit, the motorcycle’s unlatched saddle, the tank bag’s ‘junk’ pouch, the Leatherman pliers, and half a dozen engine cover and alternator assembly fasteners and washers. Everything except the saddle was neatly laid out on an Aerostich envelope bag.

Right next to all of this and directly on the asphalt was an unused wooden kitchen match. I picked it up and stared at it. With the wire cutters of the Leatherman, I nipped about half an inch from the end. Exactly the right size. Using the tool kit’s small screwdriver, I positioned it behind the worn-out brush, re-installed the brush’s spring, and then put the alternator and engine back together. Then I rolled up the tools, put away the Leatherman, stood up, clicked the bikes saddle back into position and turned the key. Immediate vroom. Immediate 13volts of charging power. Fixed!! Yeayyy!!! This whole MacGyver job took less than thirty minutes. I went back to the room, packed, dressed, loaded the bike, checked out, and was riding north toward Green Bay by 8:15AM, with a nice tail wind, the XM radio on a forties channel playing thru my ear speakers, and a song in my heart. ‘Zip ah dee doo dah…zip a dee day…’ was literally playing.

By two thirty I was at Ashland, where I gassed the bike, ate a banana, a hot dog and drank a bottle of water, and then rode the last fifty miles to Duluth. At five minutes to five I stopped at Aerostich and worked there until seven. Then home to read and enjoy a Subway veggie sandwich. The bike will get it’s new alternator brushes and probably a transmission gear lube change this weekend, and then should be ok for a while. The day before leaving for Ohio I’d changed it’s engine oil.

– Mr. Subjective.

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