Aug 17 - PM:
Having made it off the James Bay Road yesterday in Matagami, I headed south this morning in beautiful weather.
And the roads…… were spectacular, incredible, fantastic!
Smooth pavement!
So smooth, I couldn’t hear my neck crack by bottoming-out the shocks on those humps any more.
So smooth, I adjusted my mirrors and they STAYED IN PLACE.
So smooth, I could sit on the seat and ride like normal people do.
So smooth, my helmet didn’t feel like it weighed 50 pounds during those dips.
(“Helmet, I shrunk the kidneys!”)… Sorry about that one.
I dodged a bunch of mean-looking storms on the way south, and ended up getting all the way to Ottawa, Ontario without putting on the rain gear.
For dinner, I stopped at a restaurant in Kazabazua. I didn’t make that up.
Since it was my last meal in French Canada, I ordered poutine.
Very heavy and filling, and a small order is pretty big. But it was good!
“Poutine is a Canadian dish, originating in the province of Quebec, made with french fries and cheese curds topped with a light brown gravy-like sauce. Wikipedia”
Today didn’t end well.
I didn’t post anything about this issue before, because I didn’t want to cause ‘certain people’ who read this blog regularly to worry about it.
But when I left Chisasibi, and that washboard-surface mud road, I knew something was wrong. There was a shimmy in the front end that wasn’t there 2 hours before.
I checked it out the best I could alongside the road in the rain, but couldn’t find the problem.
My guess was either front tire, front rotors, or wheel bearings. I thought it might have been caused by mud caked on the front rim causing a severe out-of-balance situation, and stopped to clean off the dirt. That didn’t help.
I put the bike up on the centerstand and shook the front tire to see if there was any play in the bearings, but it seemed solid.
I knew there was nothing in Chisasibi or Radisson that would be of help, so I headed south, hoping I could make it to a city before anything failed.
After about an hour, it cleared up and the wobbling went away, although at very slow speeds I could hear a ‘clunk’ now and then.
After getting to Ottawa, it started failing for good, and I knew I was finally in a place where I could get it fixed. When the front tire started pointing directions that the handlebars weren’t, I pulled over and took another look. That’s when I saw that the bearings had disintegrated.
I called the Roadside Assistance people at Progressive, and they found me a hauler and located the Kawasaki dealership for me. We loaded it up on the truck and took it to the Dealership and dropped it off. I’ll go back in the morning and see what they can do.
The truck driver offered to take me to a motel nearby, and I said I’d take anything cheap.
He said there was a Ramada and a REALLY cheap one next to it. I told him Really Cheap sounded good.
I shouldn’t have said that.
Oh well. By morning, I’ll probably be used to the smell.
Here's your sanitized drinking glass, sir:
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