The Moon.

     The Moon lit up the night and surrounding hillsides. Its rays glistening at me across the longer length of the lake, as I rode out of the canyon and into the warmer open summer nights air over the 49er bridge, crossing out of Calaveras and into the cozy familiarity of my Tuolumne.


     It was about 7pm on that night and I was wrapping up the last stretch of my round trip from Arcata to Sonora, CA. It was much cooler than I'd expected riding through the countryside along the 16 to the 49. The week I was gone there had been a series of rains that ran through the mountains and I'd just managed to miss all of em. I was actually surprised that I hit some rad warm evening weather coming into Tuolumne, Co. and it was one heck of a big breath of fresh air. Totally made me stoked to be back in the gold country.


     One thing I was encountering on this trip was that I was having issues with the circulation in my hands for about an hour or so. At first I thought it was the cold, but then I'd ridden through much much much colder weather and hadn't had my hands go numb before. So I thought the cuffs on my gloves were hitting my nerve or that something was pinching a nerve in my shoulder and causing my circulation to go out of my hands. Another thing, I felt like my bike was riding a lot rougher than usual. I blamed it all on my road fatigue. Well, I made it home that night, problem undiagnosed. I slept it off, and about mid morning, with my giant cup of coffee, I headed out to the garage to do my post ride checks on Boss and aim to diagnose the exhausting jiggles and funny knocking sounds coming from my front rocker. Ya see, before I headed up to Arcata 7 days earlier, I had replaced all the gaskets on my front rocker box. I screwed it all back together in the order I'd disassembled the housing, and well, she fired right up and held together a 700+ mile trip, so I was stoked for that. But I knew I had to tighten the rockers down and take everything back apart so I could use that thing called a "torque" wrench, which I'd totally ignored using the first time around. Well, this time I wrenched everything down, and washed and dried my gaskets and re inserted and then put it all back together the way I should have in the first place. I sometimes love a little extra work. Geeze, what's wrong with me? haha.


     But that wasn't the last of my worries. Another thing that peaked my concern was when I noticed a really weird body creak in my front end. Like when I lifted my bike to level her out there was literally a body squeak, and I was like, "Oh, dang, what the heck is broken on this lil mama?" I thought my frame had cracked on some of those really rough roads. I thought things had been unscrewed and my engine was gonna fall off. Well, I must have leaned and lifted her left and right a million times before my finely tuned ear had located the mysterious creaking sound in the front frame area. Guess what it was??? I remembered loosening but screwing back in one of my engine stabilizing bolts, and that dang thang had come all kinda loose, and my engine wasn't holding still like it had before. And that was the cause for my severe engine shakes. So I torqued that thing down too. I just went all kinda torque wrench crazy, and got every thing on my bike tied/bolted/wrenched/fastened the heck down.


     That afternoon after she was all reassembled and happy, I rode her around town and on down to Jamestown where my friends were barbecuing and I played them all my new songs that I'd written on the road.


     So, what I learned is that I need to use a torque wrench on my repairs, and also that I am decent at taking my bike apart and putting it back together. (wink wink)


See you on the road.