Speed Kills...the Duc KiLR Strikes Again!

If you recall from last weeks meeting, the plan was to spend the weekend in MI at a wedding. Not only that, but also to deliver a motorcycle to the bride to be. Kind of a double bonus situation, the bike gets out of my garage, and there is a sweet vintage moto to add to the dowry. The CL350 came out to the GH meeting and received the KHK certificate of road worthiness. And with that I departed after 3hrs of sleep at 4 am Thursday morning.

The first 100 miles flew by, and it had only burned a little oil, but not much. Press on for the next 100 miles, reaching a maximum velocity of 60mph, and I'm thinking I've got this one in the bag. At the next fuel stop I notice the rear wheel has a heavy coat of oil and there are several steady drips coming from under the bike. I check the oil and sure enough its down a quart, top off the gas, and the oil and its back on the road. Geez, I hope that oil stays in the motor.

Back on the road, it is clear there is a bigger problem, and every time I look down I see a little river of oil flowing off the centerstand. Naturally I keep going, figure, I just put a quart in, how fast could it come out. Using the mental slide rule, I figure a quarter inch stream flowing at a half inch per second would take about an hour to drain a quart of oil. And as long as there is oil in the bike it should keep going, right? By this point we are about 40 miles from Wausau, WI, (which is where we'll meet up with Crash a.k.a. J. Nielsen) I know he'll know what to do.

Roll into Wausau, and the bike is still running, but it's not totally happy, won't idle, but has ok power, so I start to second guess my guestimations about oil loss and pull into a Country Market grocery store. It is immediately apparent that there is a lot of oil coming out of the bike and the back half of the bike looks more like a Harely than a Honda, I think less oil came out of the Valdez. So losing almost a quart of oil in roughly 40 miles brought me to the conclusion that the bike wouldn't make the remaining 400 miles to MI. But the good news, at least its not in my garage any more!

So we meet up with Crash, he agrees with the assessment of nogo on the moto, and we're off to the bachelor party. Felt really odd leaving a bike and driving off in a car, I have never left a bike behind, even when I should. Of course this party is in MI so there are copious amounts of beer, gasoline, and fireworks involved, but no women. highlight of the evening was lighting the bonfire.




After nursing the hangovers, and regaining general sensibilities it was time for a wedding. The wedding was very nice, but seeing that there were no explosions, motorcycles, or gasoline, it is not relevant to this website, and will therefore be spoken of no more.

Leaving MI I still had that nagging feeling that there was a fallen soldier sitting in a parking lot in the middle of WI. So on the way back through, I was compelled to once again insert a motorbike into my car. We broke it down in the parking lot, amid the stares of the mouth breathers.











After a little coaxing, she was in like Flynn. So now that I've gotten the bike out of the garage and into my car, who wants to come over and help me pull my head out of my ass, and then the bike out of the car?? Anybody??