Prologue – Getting Ready
N53° 32.858’ W113° 33.635’
You would think, after a 6000km trip last year, that getting ready to head out on Wolfgang would be a straightforward exercise. You would think, given the planning and preparation of a winter, that he’d be ready to ride. You would think that after a shake down tour to Jasper to work out the kinks, that heading out would be short work. You would be wrong. In fact, you would be seriously, dangerously deluded.
I could be in scenery that looked list this. If only the bike was ready….
Simple modifications turned to an overhaul of immense proportions. A new radar detector led to a requirement for more power outlets. Additional devices that make noise led to the need for new audio cables. New audio cables led to a new comm system being dedicated to Wolfgang. A new comm system led to the acquisition of a new helmet. Come to think of it, it is exactly this kind of thinking that made a modest renovation of our house turning into a completely new, start from the ground up rebuild. Clearly I am a danger to myself and others. Particularly to myself.
All of this led to enormous frustrations as I tried to get the new comm system to function properly. This tale of woe has amply been documented elsewhere, so I shant repeat it here.
Still, one failed shake down ride later, there was still time to redeem the situation. All was not lost. A window of opportunity still existed, a week prior to heading out. This provided theoretically ample time to get things sorted.
Extensive correspondence with Autocom, the comm system manufacturer, yielded the following suggestion:
“Are you plugging into the riders lead or the pillions lead? As the common problem we find with our GS customers is that they are plugging into the pillions lead, and this then sets the BGNS to become a microphone that can not be controlled via the VOX control.”
One could interpret from this that all BMW GS riders are incompetent gits that can’t read instructions. While I have no statistically valid samples on which to draw in order to test the veracity of this theory, a highly unscientific sample of one yields the following conclusion: I am a raving idiot.
Problem corrected, Dianne and I head out on shake down ride number two. With a brief detour to a garden centre to enable Dianne to prepare for the impending arrival of her mother-in-law. A brief stop to stock up on some very cool, very large flower pots for under the tree and we’re ready to ride. Power on, GPS wired in, helmet hooked up, one final check and a thumb of the starter button…
Click.
Click.
Click.
… shit!
How, in the name of all that is holy – or at least sacred, as motorcycles are – does a battery die? In 10 minutes? When it worked just fine not half an hour before? Ask not how – accept sadly that it does. A week before I leave on a road trip. A day before I leave on a business trip. 30 minutes after the dealership has closed for the weekend. This is not good. This is deeply not good. In fact, this sucks.
Accepting reality for what it is, now we need to get the GS started. A jump start would be in order. Nothing to fear, though. Just last week, in fact, we finally replaced the emergency kit in the truck, after it was stolen 2 years ago. Except for one small, tiny problem. In order to make room for garden supplies, Dianne took the emergency kit out of the truck.
While Dianne heads home to rescue the aforementioned jumper cables, I make myself comfortable on the curb and look forlornly at my handsome, rugged, heavy duty motorcycle. The one that doesn’t start.
Seeing my plight, one of the staff of the garden centre, on her way home for the evening, stopped to make sure everything was alright. On hearing of my circumstances, she quickly got on the phone to her husband and asked him to grab the jumper cables before he headed out to pick her up. So the question is… who will get there first? Dianne? Or Tom?
It turns out to be Tom, but only by the narrowest of margins. And so, jumper cables and a charged batter in hand, we set about trying to start GS. Which leads to the next question… can you jump start a motorcycle with a car? Both are 12 volt systems, so in theory you should be able to. But something about the scale just seems, well, wrong… And yet, 12 volts is 12 volts, and not more than a minute or two later the GS has thundered back in to life. Once started, I head out on a nice long ride to charge the battery. And pray that I don’t stall the thing out.
The good news is that the comm system works. My ride – with the occasional excursion north of 140 km/h or so – reveals that the VOX system won’t kick in at all. The downside of this, though, is that even when talking really loudly the VOX circuit slams shut the second I try to take a breath. This is promising, but clearly we’re not there yet.
An update: as it turns out, the battery was beyond any reasonable point of redemption. A load test at the dealer saw it fail instantly. And a physical inspection revealed that one of the cells was bulging, which is not a very good sign. This I discovered on Thursday night, when I was finally able to pick up the new battery. Install it, and the bike fires up right away. We’re making progress.
No pressure, either. After all, I still don’t leave for another 36 hours.