First of I want to thank Bob and Danita for allowing helping me out in a jam to scare the hell out of em. Ya see that thing in the picture that looks a little bit like an airplane with no wings? Well what that is is my lady's 4 wheel trike. Ah, you may ask how can it be a trike (tri meaning three) when it has four wheels? Easy enough grasshopper, it is one of them there increasingly popular "trike" kits that bolts on to a two wheel MC (in this case an old goldwing. Anyone know how hard it is to get parts for an old goldwing?).Ok, so now your going so.......? Well the "trike kit" comes with only two wheels. So my pea brain is wonderin how come they don't call it a "dual kit" by which to turn your MC into a "Quad Wheeler"? Yeah I know this sounds a little picky but ya got to ask these questions as opposed to leaving things up to what someone may wish you to perceive things to be.
For instance the directions say you can put this sucker on your MC in 10 minutes and have a "trike" (which we have now ascertained is actually a "quad") and take her back off in ten minutes and have your regular ol "dual" MC. But they lied. Well maybe not, as the truth is I'm not mechanically inclined and have to read the instructions on a shovel. But here's the thing, now day's it takes me about a whole damn ten minutes to even get down on the ground to where all them nuts, bolts and other "stuff" be located ok. And then after gruntin and sweatin I may just lay there the rest of the day wonderin why I'm doing this since it ain't my damn bike? So that blows the 10 minute gig all to hell and back.
But this little missive ain't about all that anyway. This is about what the instructions do not tell you. See the instructions do not tell you that, should you have to haul your "Trike" ("quad" or dual MC with a dual kit on the back) for service, you know like from St. Marks, Fl. to Thomasville, Ga. (or so they said but I don't believe em cause it took us long enough we coulda been in S. Carolina) to not try and do so on a "car hauler" as opposed to your regular ol trailer.
Now Bob and Danita agreed to help me by participating in this little endeavor and since we didn't read nowhere, "do not haul on a car hauler" and one just happened to be handy we figured why the hell not? So we gets that sucker on there and were thinking, hey were pretty smart. That sucker went up there easy and fits nice. So we strap er down in the back real good and tight with like boo coo straps. Then we not only strap, but "bungee cord" the handle bars down real good so that the front wheel draggin down the highway will drag straight and damn, we be ready to head to Ga. Not only that we figure we will take the back roads through the woods so we can get their faster. Yepper, thats what we figured.
So off we go. Well I forgot to mention that it was "Hammers" car hauler (and as many times as he accidentally puts diesel in his MC its a good thing he finally got a toy hauler) and had been laying out in the woods so long they had to use a metal detector (well almost) to find it and we had to liquid wrench the hell out of it so I guess it would only be natural that the tires was a wee bit low. So we stop and air them up being careful not to put the recommended amount of air in the tires for fear the tires would blow if one were to actually attempt to put the recommended amount of air in them. Ok so now it's off we go.
Welllllllll........here we are truckin down Highway 98 when we get all the way up to 40 miles an hour. Now I had every intention of riding in Bobs itty bitty pick up when I thought nah, better follow them in case something happens. Well man, remember up top when I said it looks like an airplane with no wings. It's a good thing it ain't got no wings cause that damn thing started trying to fly. It starts buckin and jumpin like a bronco and then the next thing ya know Bobs truck is buckin and jumping like a wild bronc so I said to myself, "self" maybe ya ought to blow the horn to let them know something is amiss. I think they figured it out though, cause they finally did get slowed down enough to stop on the side of the road w/ Danita jumpin out of the truck and jumpin up and down, hollerin, @#*&!+ and &)*@!! with a few ^%_*'s added in. Now Bob he was a little more calm and collected. He gets out of the truck and just falls on the hood with beads of sweat drippen off his forehead. I don't think I endeared myself to anybody when I said, "Ya think we ought to strap her down a little tighter?" In fact the look Danita gave made me think, hmmm I might need to go put my 4 way flashers on.
So we did. We went about strappin it down tighter. But of course you know how these things work dont ya? Yeah ya do, cause now it's raining while we are strappin it down. And this time we even used rope. Yepper we had it licked fer sure.
So we head out again. Now everything is going real fine and were up to about 40mph again and it's lookin good but I'm thinking Bob is a little leery about pushing it. So I figure I'll lay on my horn to get him to pick it up a bit cause it really is rollin good and it's now getting dark. Well just as I'm about to hit the horn, you guessed it. That sucker bout went airborne and I'm sure at least one part of Bob's truck (possibly more than one) was airborne at various different points in time. You know how things happen so fast ya know. I'm gonna tell ya what, the 10 or 20 cars we had backed up behind us cause we were going so slow on a road most folk speed on, they headed for the bushes. Well I'm thinkin oh Lord my ol lady is gonna kill me if something happens to that bike. But I don't think Danita was thinkin that. Cause ya know all @#&*'s I did up above. Well, I ain't got enough of them keys on this here board to do her justice on that one. Not really sure what Bob was thinking, it was taking him quite awhile to get out of the truck.
Well we did what all good mechanics do when faced with something they can't figure out. We stood in a circle around it going, "hmmmmm...". And after a heap of "hmmmm...ing" we arrived at the only conclusion one could arrive at. We was gonna have to go slower.
O.k. I know by now that some (if they have read this far) are probably wondering, "why didn't they just take the kit off?" Well hell, do ya think were stupid? 1. you can't haul a two wheeler on a car hauler (thats why they call em car haulers and not two wheeler haulers) and 2. We didn't think about it (well we did, but not very long, thought it might be to much work).
So anyway, we all agreed. Bob would go slower pointing out all the never before things you wouldn't see if you was going like 45 mph and Danita I think, was doing something like, "God grant me the serenity................" and I was doing my part by following behind ready to blow my horn at a moments notice. But (and this is a very important "BUT") we did get there. Safe. And very fortunately I was able to drive the bike back and Hammer, I think your car hauler is in Ga. somewhere.
Now right about now one might be wonderin what the moral of this story is? And if I think of one I will let you know. I just felt like sharin and sayin thanks to Bob an Danita (and yes Hammer we will get your toy hauler back cause I know what a good yard ornament it made).
There is an upside though, I did figure out how to make a real trike out of that sucker. Hell you take a turn tight enough you can make a two wheeler out of it. Ride free....rc
