Dead Bike

I've been riding my CL350 Scrambler a lot recently, but it, as old bikes will, leaks. A lot. The first engine was leaking out of the head gasket after I put a few hundred miles on it, so I figured that I'd swap it with one of the other 6 engines I have laying around. The one I put in it was out of a bike that I payed $55 for, and was seized at the time. This one ran a lot better, and didn't leak out of the head gasket much for the first 1000 miles, but just after I fixed the leak in the crankcase, the head gasket sprung a leak, and it started smoking. On saturday is started smoking so bad, that I decided to swap the engine out again, this time with the engine from the bike that Mark Risvold, Sky's dad, gave me in exchange for working on his GoldWing. I spent the better part of the day on Sunday and Monday Morning working on this, and started it up about 3 hours before I had to head to work. It sounded a lot better than the engine I had been using, so I went on my first test ride.

About a mile down the road, I thought it was sounding pretty good, so I turned onto the highway, intending to take it up to speed. Half way through the corner, my rear wheel slipped. This could either be dirt, ice, or oil. There was no dirt on the road, and it's the middle of summer, so that leaves the last option. I proceeded slowly to the first place I could park, looked down and oil was pouring out of the engine onto the ground as if the drain plug had come out. I shut it off as quickly as I could, and the oil slowed to a trickle. I had my phone, so I called both mom and dad, who were just leaving for vacation, to come pick me up. Mark however, is always free, so I called him and he was able to come pick me up.

So this week, I'm riding granddad's GoldWing, which I've gotten a lot of comments on since it's in almost pristine condition except for the dents that Kelsey put in the tank a few years ago. It's also one of the few GoldWings without a fairing and saddlebags, which makes it cool, and the bike that I wish I was on when I bad ass Harley rider (or so he thought) challenged me to a race a few weeks ago. (It would have been fun to kick his ass, but I still probably wouldn't have raced him.)

In other news, I've been working for one and a half weeks now, and I'm trying to get a job at REI. It's part time, so ideally, I can work there in the mornings and at my current crappy job in the evenings, and easily make my November goal of returning to Tokyo.

Also, coffee helps get blogs posted. This is the second post today? I've had so much that I can't stand still.