Last Friday night about 6PM the wife and I were out riding with a couple we are friends with. We are about 16-18 miles from home out past the edge of the next town over when my bike just shuts off. We had just turned a corner, I had shifted from 2nd to 3rd a half second before and it was like someone hit the kill switch. I coasted to the side of the road with my buddy behind me. No check engine light, no bad noises, no warning, it had just completely died. I tried to start it back up several times and the starter would turn it over but it just wouldn't start.

Now, I'll give a full disclaimer here. This is my first bike. I've ridden borrowed and rented bikes for years, and probably had 4-5k miles under my belt before buying my bike, but in general I'm a fairly new rider. And I'm one of those miserable excuses of a human being ( )that barely wrenches. For years (especially when I was young and broke!) I did most of my own auto repairs, but my motorcycle mechanical knowledge is limited. I know that deserves some flak, I need to improve it, and I will (part of the reason I joined here and have spent hours reading). Also, since I just purchased the bike about three months ago, I have yet to take it to any shop for anything (it'd just had the 15k service done before I bought it, and I have all maintenance paperwork). The nearest HD dealerships are about 30 miles in either direction, and they both just closed literally minutes before. There are a couple indy shops that I know of, and I look up their numbers, but they are also closed.

So, there we are on the side of the road (not a busy highway, but a regularly traveled country road). Due to the lack of nasty mechanical sounds, no check engine light, and no forewarning, I'm guessing either something electronic is screwed up to stop me from getting spark, or maybe something like the fuel pump went out to stop the flow of fuel. I check all the wires I can easily access, nothing looks fried, nothing came unplugged. It sounds like the fuel pump is fine when I turn the ignition switch on. But it just won't start.

Here is where things start getting a little better. First, I remember that my next door neighbor owns a towing company. Even though his shop is 20ish miles away, I decide to call him instead of the guy closest to where I am. I figure at this point I'm going to have to take the bike home, then trailer/flatbed it to a shop on Sat or Mon anyway. So I call him and he sends a driver out. A few nice people stop and ask if we need help, but none have the mechanical skills to help, so we thank them, tell them we have a truck coming, and send them on their way.

Then a couple, probably in their early 60s, on a decked out Electra Glide come tooling up. I found out later that they have, since 2006, ridden through every continental state in the US save a couple up in New England, so the guy is a serious rider. He asks if we are ok, we explain the scoop, tell him we have a truck 10 minutes away, and thank him for stopping. He says "If you didn't already have a truck this close I'd run home, get my trailer, and take you home myself. Do you need a ride home after they get the bike?" I thank him for the generous offer, but tell the truck should be there any minute at this point, and since I'm having them take the bike to my house I already have a ride home. I told him my main dilemna was figuring out where to take the bike on Sat or Mon. I was probably figuring on the dealership closest to my house, but if he knew of a local Indy I could trust and that would be faster/cheaper I'd love to have a recommendation. He says "Well actually I'm semi-retired but I work part time for an Indy dealer right here in town." So he calls the owner, gets the ok to open up the shop for me, and tells me he's going to ride for another 15-20 mins but to call him once my bike is loaded on the tow truck.

A few minutes later the tow truck shows up. We get the bike on the flatbed, I call the guy who stopped, and we head towards the shop. We get the bike in the shop, take care of all the paperwork, and he offers me a lift home (almost 30 miles round trip for him from the shop to my house). I thank him, but tell him the tow truck is owned by my next door neighbor and the driver has to swing by his boss's house anyway, so he'll drop us off. When dropping us off, the tow truck driver hands me the bill. It's for $55. I know the driver had to come from 20 miles away empty, helped me load the bike, hauled the bike about 5-6 miles, helped unload it, waited 10 mins for us at the shop, then drove us almost 20 miles back home. I asked him if he was sure that was right, and he said that's what his boss (my neighbor) said to charge. I handed him a $20 for his troubles and followed up with my neighbor the next morning. He said I qualified for "the VIP rate" because I was a good neighbor. I tried to pay more but he insisted. In the end it had to have cost him money to come and get me. Sometimes it pays to actually treat your neighbor good, eh?


So the shop I took it to was closed on Monday, but they call me Tuesday with the update on the bike. Basically the o-ring from the fuel line into the tank broke apart and got lodged in the fuel line. It cut off the fuel to the engine, thus it cutting out with no warning and not starting. The guy recommended I let him change my fuel filter while he was in there, which I agreed to. Total cost of the repair with diagnosis, parts, and labor was $115. I picked the bike up this afternoon and it seems to be 100% fine.

Another side note was that both my buddy and his wife ended up telling my wife and I that, though they hated that my bike broke and they hoped it wouldn't cost much to fix, they still had a blast hanging out with us on the side of the road for an hour or more. We have plans to ride again with them next weekend, so hopefully we'll have fun again, but this time actually riding.

Cliffnotes - Bike broke. Neighbor's towing company towed it for $55 even though it was a 40 mile round trip. Indy dealer employee randomly stopped to help while we were broke down, offered to open the shop after hours so I wouldn't have to have it towed twice. Total repair bill was $115 and it was down less than a week. Still had fun with my buddy.

 

WOW, a 1245 word post. Glad everything worked out and THANKS for the cliff notes!

 

Great write-up and glad to hear that it didn't cost you an arm and a leg!

 

Yeah reminds me of the time my bike broke down and Pamela Anderson stopped and helped me fix it....all the while she mentioned how working on motorcycles made her horny....well you know the rest...

 

I seriously read that expecting you to admit that you ran it out of gas....I was ready to be so pissed off that you stole a few minutes of my time haha

 

I'm not THAT bad.

 

Sounds like it worked out for you.
You might want to hang out with the indy some too.

 

I was waiting for you to say you accidently hit the kill switch,oh well glad it all turned out for you.

 

You know how to make friends lol; it's good to hear stories about motorcyclists helping each other out. Ride safe

 

I can't believe you counted the words--------------that would be worse than reading it