Sidetrip--This is where the trip takes me

Next morning was the day, I was to head up the remote road and leave civilization behind. I did some last minute laundry while packing the bike. Said goodbye to Scott and then pushed the starter, nothing. In fact, no electric at all. I couldn't believe it and though there must be something simple I'm not doing right here, maybe the excitement of the trip and all. This is where I lost 2 days. I took the stuff off the bike, puled out tools and found a blown fuse. Opps. this isn't good. To think, I was getting read to head out hundreds of miles away. Wow.



Looking for the problem... should have printed out those schematics from my Clymer...



It's a long story that involves Scott finding extra fuses, a guy named Paul who overcame his limited knowledge of English and had more fuses brought in from town to troubleshoot the problem, worked like crazy to find it himself. Then there were the guys I ended up with who picked me and the bke up, back to town to their shop where they didn't find the problem. At Matagami with Geoff (right) and Mike, the guy Geoff says is amazing with electronics. Well, he wasn't with my bike. Didn't find the bare wire.



Then there was the delivery driver, who, for $40 Canadian, took me on a wild ride of pickups and dropoffs with my stuff in the back of his truck 110 miles SOUTH to the town of Amos and a Kawasaki service shop.



I try to explain to the guy that I need to get to the Kawa dealer before they close, so I can get my bike in the shop before they lock up. No comprend pas. I also was wondering what he was saying with "ohwe". He said this when cars were in his way, when he dropped something, when he saw a note for a pickup, he saw a pretty girl, turns to me smiles and says "ohweee". What is this word. I think it's the swiss army knife of words, means a little of everything. Pretty efficient.

We end up getting to the shop at 6pm. They close at 6pm but tonight they were late closing so I lucked out! I stashed my stuff in a locked room, the bike was in the shop and first thing in the morning, a technician would look at the bike.
At that point, my bike in the shop, I started thinking throught he what-if options. I know this isn't always a great thing to do and my mind was going to towm. My wife didn't have her passport so she couldn't come get me, could I rent a truck and drive into the US, or fly to the US and rent a truck here, or just go home and get my truck.

At least there was a cool coffee shop I could ponder these questions.





All this was exactly as I hoped it would be, unnessesary. Mathew found the bare turnsignal wire that I had in my hand the day before, but he saw it was bare and fixed it. He also re-secured the wiring to handle the bumps and vibratiion of the gravel rougher roads I travel. All I had to do then was kick myself for not finding it, many times over! This appears to be the same harness that's in the recall for 08-09 KLRs.




Cost: A few bucks and 2 days.