I am finally home!

I went to breakfast at 8:00-ish. Figured without company and the associated conversation I'd be back home by 8:30. Checked in and did a little work before I walked out the door, and was thinking I'd have some feedback when I got home.

'Round quarter to nine (I didn't factor in stopping by the PO and bank in my time estimate...decided on that after I left the house), I paid and left the Calhoun Grill.

The bike wouldn't start. It had gotten a bit warmer, but not so warm I would have thought it'd give me trouble. Spent a couple of minutes trying, and started to smell fuel, so I figured I musta flooded it. I thought maybe the carbs had gotten outta whack since I was parked in an inclined parking spot had used the kickstand, causing the bike to be tilted forward and way to the left. I rolled down the hill deeper into the parking lot and picked a pretty flat spot and hiked it up on the frame stand. I tried again a little, not thinking that enough time had passed, but hoping... The starter started whirring less, so I figured I was draining the battery.

I took this as my cue and locked my helmet back on the bike and went into the bookstore at the mall to kill some time. They've got a pitiful computer-related section (my computer-related section is bigger, and I only have one copy of each book...), so after I made a casual pass through the books, I got a couple of magazines and went back to the Calhoun to wait in relative comfort. I killed another 30 minutes or so, and headed back out 'round 10.

No go still. Wouldn't turn over, and battery started waning quickly. I checked the usual suspects, and found that the oil was curiously low. Weird since it'd not been leaking or obviously burning any, and was fine when I'd checked it a week or so ago. I trudged across the street and picked up some oil from the gas station. I went back and dutifully checked the oil before dumping in another quart only to find that the oil level was indeed fine. No oil needed. I must have stuck it in funny before.

Happened to be a couple curious guys wandering by, so I listened happily to their stories of days-gone-by. Everyone was nice enough, but no one had a suggestion. Seems everyone had a story of being stuck outside a diner somewhere.

I decided not to drag my stuck self back into the same diner, so I trudged across the street to the Caribou coffee shop. They have free WiFi... That was about noon.

I stuck it out there for an hour, e-mailing a few people and Googling "vapor-lock" and the like, trying to find tips and symptoms that matched mine. I stuck it out for an hour and headed back. Tried again, and no go. I pulled the seat off to see if I could check the battery levels, thinking maybe the battery ('though only three months old) had lost some liquid. I had no tools, so I couldn't tug it out far enough, but another curious dude happened by. We chatted a bit, and he lamented that it's too bad that they don't put kick-starters on bikes any more.

It's true, they don't. My bike, however, was put together in 1980, and it was on that cusp where kick-starters were losing favor to electric start. There's an obvious electric start switch on the handlebar, but there's a kick-start lever on the other side of the bike from the guy. I pointed it out and lamented that in the five years or so I've owned the bike I never had been able to get the bike to turn over like that. I gave it a few effortless pushes, and unlike any time every before, it gurgled like it wanted to start.

Dude said he could probably get it started in a couple tries. Took him three. He just hopped on and started pushing the pedal; didn't even wait for me to mount the seat back on. It fired right up on the third push. He hopped off, smiling that he still had the touch. He had a satisfied look of a good-Samaritan job-well-done, waved and wandered into the Applebee's. I thanked him as best as he'd allow and he just waved over his shoulder.

Bike ran fine all the way home. I let it sit for a bit idling to try to recharge the stressed battery. The drive is only a mile, so the only charge time it had was sitting there in the parking lot as I put the seat and stuff back together, and idling in the garage. I turned it off, comforted that if I was stuck I could casually walk inside like I meant to leave the bike where it was. Well, I did mean to leave the bike where it was.

It turned over on the second "grind" of the electric starter. I'm not even going to press my luck with the kick-starter.