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generally easing it toward the side of the road,
as traffic permits.
My sense was that if I had clamped on the
binders, or overreacted with the steering, we
would have been in a world of hurt. But
instead, we were very fortunate. When the
truck driver saw our hazard lights, he immediately
turned his on and slowed down with us,
thereby shielding us from overtaking traffic.
As it turned out, the trucker was also a
biker and knew exactly the danger of our
predicament. By the time we stopped, the tire
bead was completely loose from the rim, but
the tire had protected the rim by preventing
it from touching the road. We were about a
quarter-mile from Exit 8 and an open gas station.
But even so, I’m 5 foot 8, with short legs.
If you’re that short, and you’ve ever tried to
move a fully loaded Wing with a flat tire on a
sloping interstate shoulder in a light rain—
with holiday traffic to boot!—you know it’s a
job.
Lenny, the truck driver (and truly an angel
sent from God), and I took turns carefully
“moving” the bike under power, about 50
yards at a time, until we got it up to the gas
station. Each time I spelled him, he moved his
truck up the highway to continually block us
from traffic. What a great guy! He wouldn’t
even let us pay him. All he wanted was a big
Coke to cool himself down once we got to
the gas station.We thanked him profusely, said
our good-byes and, with a blast from his
horns, off Lenny rode into the afternoon sun.
God bless you, Lenny!
Now, it was Gold Book and Rescue Plus
time. Tom & Corinne Griggs, of Chapter LA-
Q, were the first Wingers we found at home.
Tom said, “Bring it to our house.Y’all come!”
So we had Guy’s Towing, of Lake Charles,
Louisiana, take our bike to their house.
Meanwhile, Tom got on the phone to John &
Mary Singleton, also of Chapter LA-Q. They
own a covered bike trailer, and they met us at
Sequoia National Park.
Tom & Corinne’s house.
There, we simply offloaded the bike from
the Guy’s Towing truck and loaded it into
John’s trailer. He closed it up and said he’d
meet us in the morning wherever we could
locate a tire. In the meantime, we all had a
great time trading biking “war stories” for a
couple of hours that evening.As it turned out,
all three of us were retired engineers. What
are the odds of that
The Griggs and the Singletons were the
most gracious and helpful people you could
ever hope to meet, especially in a time of
emergency. But what else could one expect
They’re Wingers!
Tom drove us to our motel that evening
and picked us up the next morning after we’d
located a new Elite 3 tire at Honda of Lake
Charles. John showed up at the Honda dealer
with our bike in his trailer, and we were “On
the Road Again” by noon. John even rode his
Wing out of town with us to show us back
roads to avoid a lot of interstate repair and
congestion in the area.
What great people! Also, many thanks to
the good folks at Honda of Lake Charles.They
did a great job and had us out in record time.
(By the way, what caused the flat on the brand
new Elite 3 tire We still don’t know.The best
guess was that it had been Hurricane Rita or
Katrina. Yes, those hurricanes! They’re still
hauling debris from all along the Gulf Coast,
including New Orleans.)
Anyway, there was nothing left in the tire
but a hole big enough to let all the air out in
seconds.We neither saw nor felt anything, but
we sure hit something!
We traveled on through the beautiful
Texas Hill Country (By the way, Coopers Old
Time Pit Bar-B-Que in Llanno, Texas, is an
absolute “must-stop,” I promise!). Then we
were on to the beautiful sights of New
Mexico and Arizona.We rode through Sedona
and Oak Creek Canyon, just before some forest
fires broke out.We stayed in Prescott and
then headed on to Needles, California, where
it was 121 degrees F.
Trust me. By the time we pulled into the
motel that day, the thrill was gone! But to beat
the heat, we were on the road before 5 a.m.
the next morning and had the coolest crossing
of the Mojave Desert we’ve ever experienced.The
next morning we left Paso Robles,
California, and headed up Highway 1. In my
view, it’s the best motorcycling road in the
U.S.—I just love that road.
At Carmel, we crossed over to
Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park.We then
thought we’d head through Yosemite—that is
until we learned that the pass was still
snowed in. So instead, we rode up to Tahoe
and then took Highway 89—a great motorcycling
road—on to Lassen Volcanic National
Park, where we were stopped again by a
closed road.
By now we were feeling pretty good about
the bike and any concerns about the troubles
we’d had way back in Louisiana were quickly
melting away. By the time we got to Yreka,
California, our new rear tire was performing
flawlessly and so was the bike. We were still
contemplating heading up toward Alaska.
Dave & Margaret Smith in the
1929 Travel Air bi-plane.
56 Wing World