I fixed my Royal Enfield until I broke it

Somehow I failed to see the throttle cable hanging loose. But what I did next was a bigger problem.

 Kids learn early to take care of their favorite toys. Parents teach us well. 

"If you break that, you won't get another," is the message a child receives when a parent wags a warning finger at misbehavior. 

Intentionally or not, they're teaching the value of things, and our responsibility for them. 

So I feel badly that I've let down my 1999 Royal Enfield Bullet. It's out of commission, thanks to me. 

Always present in my mind is the knowledge that this is the way many motorcycles end up: partially disassembled for some long ago forgotten problem, a repair that was never completed, or was botched in the attempt. 

They're pushed to the side of the garage and left to rust and rot.

After my Bullet revved uncontrollably while I waited for a stop light to change, I pushed it home. 

Anxious to find the problem, I twisted the grip and found it operated.

I removed and opened the carburetor, but it showed no sign of any problem.

I examined the points and the timing and found no problem. Even the spark plug looked OK.

Stumped, I wrote the Unofficial Royal Enfield Community Forum, where members instantly pinpointed my problem: the throttle cable itself.

Checking it, finally, I found the outer cable loose, actually outside its housing.

While sitting stopped at the traffic light I had sensed that the idle was slightly fast, and had pulled on the throttle cable, probably dislodging the outer cable from its socket and, with the motorcycle in neutral at the stop light, the rpm had soared.

If I had only been more patient out on the road, I might have noticed the loose cable, tucked it back into its socket, and not had to push the motorcycle two miles!

Now that I knew the problem, I was impatient to effect a repair. I acted impulsively.

Instead of simply returning the cable to its socket, I figured the twist grip itself would have to come off for examination.

This was stupid: the inner cable wasn't disconnected from the twist grip; the outer cable was just dislodged from its socket on the exterior of the throttle assembly.

If only I had analyzed the problem more carefully.

To free the twist grip, I unscrewed the kill switch module and left it hanging by its delicate wires.

Then I twisted the rear brake light switch out of the brake lever pedestal, in the process breaking the delicate soldered connections to the switch.

Then I removed the rearview mirror.

Then I slackened off the front brake adjustment to free the brake cable from the lever pedestal.

Every one of these disabling steps was unnecessary and ineffectual: the throttle twist grip still wasn't free!

See, I was making two errors here: First, there had been no reason at all to remove the twist grip. Second, even if there had been, there was no need to damage the whole right handlebar control assembly to do it. 

Still more impatient now, I twisted and tugged and, finally! The twist grip suddenly came off in my hand.

What now? I don't even know what it was I did that freed it!

I now needed to put the outer cable end back into its socket (which I could have done all along) and reattach the needlessly removed twist grip. But I didn't know how to reattach the grip, since I didn't know how I'd gotten it off.

Struggling, pushing, lubricating, twisting; nothing worked. It wouldn't go back on. I was foiled.

Look around at the damage I had done:

On the workbench (or on the floor around the motorcycle) were my disassembled carburetor and the motorcycle's battery. The fuel line was off. Hanging from the handlebars were the wires and cables I'd unnecessarily broken or disconnected, erasing their proper adjustments.

I realized now that I wasn't certain how the carburetor went together. I didn't know how to adjust the front brake, or how I would fix the broken brake light wiring. (I'm the fool who had soldered the wires to the switch, not realizing that unscrewing the switch for maintenance would snap my soldering.)

I thought of all those ads I'd read over the years, for motorcycles that were in great shape, except partly disassembled by foolish owners who couldn't put them back together. Left to decay.

So is this where it could end? I ruefully imagined writing my own ad:

"For sale. My 1999 Royal Enfield Bullet. High mileage but good condition. Just needs new throttle twist grip and attach carburetor and cables. Easy fix."

That won't happen to my bike, at least not yet.

I'm not giving up.

Pushing a Royal Enfield for exercise

 I'm looking at a bright red bruise on the inside of my right kneecap. 

It's just about at the level of the the chrome kickstart lever of my Royal Enfield motorcycle. There is a reason for that. 

I pushed the motorcycle home this afternoon, a little over two miles, sitting on it and propelling it along by waddling ducklike. 

I made pretty good time this way: Google maps said the walk alone would have taken 46 minutes, and here I duck-walked the 400-pound motorcycle the whole way in only an hour more.

The price paid was the bruise on my kneecap, as every so often my right leg would catch the kickstart lever where it curves out to miss the side of the motorcycle. I considered stopping and removing the lever to make my waddling less painful.

There was one good thing about the pain, however. It was forcing me to keep my feet well spread (the foot peg was the main hazard on the left side).

The great danger was that the motorcycle might tip past the point of control and fall. My wide stance prevented that.

Still, it wasn't easy, and I had to stop at a park along the way to get a drink of water from the drinking fountain. Thank goodness that fountain was there.

As usual, along the way, people would ask me how old my Royal Enfield is. I'd give my usual answer:

"Not as old as it looks. 1999. But I AM as old as I look!"

Hardly anyone seemed to take note that the motorcycle motor wasn't running, as I pushed myself along.

"You don't see many like that anymore," one man commented.

"Maybe because they don't run!" I responded.

But, oddly, I still felt complimented even though the Royal Enfield was not functioning. It's a problem with the carburetor, or the throttle cable, I believe.

I'll fix it tomorrow. I've had enough exercise for today.

A veteran rider says farewell to bikes

 An insightful note from a guy my own age, a veteran motorcyclist, arrived in my email the other day. What is it like to arrive at the moment you have to get off two wheels? The answer, he advises, is not for sissies. 

Here's what he wrote: 

When I look at my drivers license and I see the "M" endorsement on it I have to chuckle knowing that those days are over. 

I had a lot of fun and excitement in 60 years of motorcycling. Starting with the bloated silly-looking Dreamsicle-colored Jawa step-through moped straight through to the Triumph Bonneville and Honda grocery-getter, the journey was a huge part of my life. 

Now, pushing 74 years-old, it is over. My motorcycle insurance doubled when I turned 72, never mind the fact that I never had any claims or accidents in all those years.

I also found out that my m/c insurance would increase every year not only because of my advancing age but also because the motorcycle is more than 20 years old; never minding the fact that it was serviced regularly and in excellent condition.

I am a fall risk; and while I didn't believe it at first, well, that time a few months ago when I fell getting off a bicycle and launched myself face-first into an evergreen bush and wiped off copious amounts of blood made a reluctant believer out of me. 

There were also a few other incidents that caused other issues that I never told anyone else about. 

"This happened to me???!!!" 

My ego almost went into overdrive. Ah yeah, it did, and now I have to face the fact that growing old is not for sissies.

There are others my age that are facing issues far more serious than being relegated to driving a car; Dementia and Alzheimer's have ravaged more than I'd care to count, and diseases related to advancing age in light of poor lifestyle choices made years earlier are also taking their toll.  

So, with that in mind I'll shut my mouth and count my blessings. Dammit — it was fun while it lasted.