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By Dave Smith, GWRRA #127462, Merritt Island, Florida
My wife Margaret & I want to express our sincere gratitude to all those who helped us on our summer bike trip last year.
We’re not new to touring.When we retired, we bought our first motorcycle in 1998, a red 1994 Aspencade with 7,000 miles on
the odometer. What a hoot! The odometer now reads 160,000 and our tag reads “All 50.” We’re even sporting an Iron Butt
Association license plate frame. But though you may have read of our many trouble-free miles in earlier Wing World articles,
the trip I’m going to tell you about here was anything but trouble-free.
San Juan Islands, Washington.
As the summer months approach,
Margaret & I normally head for cooler
climates by going straight north from
our Florida home to visit family in Michigan.
Then we head either east or west through the
U.S. and/or Canada, down the coast, and eventually
wander back to Florida by whichever
path is cool and sounds good at the time.
This year, however, we decided to cross the
bottom of the U.S., ride up the West Coast,
and possibly even ride to Alaska before heading
back home. So we left on May 28—a
month earlier than normal—to avoid some of
the heat.
Hazard 1
The very next day, Memorial Day, we were
in the left-hand lane of I-10, just west of Lake
Charles, Louisiana, when our first troubles
began.While traveling at about 70-75 mph in a
light rain, with an 18-wheeler just behind us in
the right-hand lane, the bike started to wander
as though it was trying to follow a groove in the
pavement. Only problem was, there was no
groove to follow! Literally within two seconds,
it became obvious to me that the bike had a
flat rear tire. Which was strange because—as
is our custom before any long trip—we had
brand new tires installed just days earlier.
I had heard that a flat on the rear is worse
than one on the front.And trust me, it’s true!
I’ve now experienced both, and it took me the
whole lane to contain the bike’s oscillations
from left to right from the flat rear tire. It’s like
that uneasy feeling when you ride over a steel
bridge grating—times ten!
For those of you who haven’t experienced
a total flat on the rear, I’d recommend the following:
(1) Don’t touch the foot brake (rear
wheel brake); (2) If at all, use only the lightest
of front wheel braking; and (3) Don’t fight it or
over-correct. Just let the bike oscillate from
side to side, within reasonable limits, while
May 2007 55