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Eastward Distraction - Day Four

By Thom | May 25, 2008

Trouble in Rutland, VT

Well today we scooted off from Phelps, NY and tooks some beautiful roads to Rutland, VT attempting to set ourselves up for hitting Maine on the 5th day. Around noon I suited up to hit some rain that I thought I would be riding through for a short while. I found that my bike had problems with riding in the rain as it would kill until I pulled the choke lever. On my motorcycle, there are some carburator tubes that are made of rubber, and since my bike is seen the early 80’s, they are in pretty tough shape. We had thought that it was an electrical problem but using the choke to bring the bike back to life just didn’t fit. So we pulled everything that we could to see what would happen.

We ended up pulling into a parking lot of a Chinese restaurant that had puddles from the rain, and did about three hours worth of testing before we gave up and found a motel for the night.

I emailed some very smart people that I happen to be friends with, and they shot me emails back on what my next steps were. In the mean time, my father looked for a trailer hitch and trailer to tow the bike back to MN as we were at our limit of what to do.

I was supremely bummed that we couldn’t find the problem and so I went to bed churning the problem in my mind all night.

and so the bike sat waiting for more tinkering..