My scare at speed happened in 1986 while I was riding my 1980 Superglide on the loop in San Antonio, in the rain, at night, and with fairly heavy traffic and with my riding partner next to me.
We were about half-way into a long curve when, all of a sudden, this high pitched whinning sound started coming from under the bike. It screamed for about 5 seconds. Then pow!!! and the rear wheel locked up. Of course, at that moment and since we were running about 55mph, my partner shot on ahead of me. I didn't apply any brakes. I just let the back end do what it wanted to do and I just compensated with the front end. My partner went to the next exit and got on the feeder to come back to see what was wrong.
Well, what was wrong was that here I am, dead stopped in the middle lane of the freeway, in the rain, at night, and traffic blasting by me at 55 mph!!! I was freaking out, to say the least. One thing that I had in my favor was that since we were on a curve I could see down the freeway to be able to tell what lanes the on-coming cars an trucks were in. Cars and trucks were blasting by me on both sides, soaking me. There was nothing that I could do but stand there with my finger on the turn signal. During one lull in the traffic, I tried to drag the bike off of the freeway but made it only one lane. My partner, by then, had made it back around to help get it the rest of the way. We called a friend and he came and loaded up the bike and took it to a shop where they found out that the bearing that goes between the clutch and the tranny had exploded. Not only did pieces lock up the rear wheel, they blew a hole in the bottom of the primary case.
Moral? Do not hit your brakes. Just ride it out of you can.:newsmile071:
I had another scare with the front tire. Same bike. In 1987. I was at work at a plant down in La Grange, Texas. I received an emergency message from the guard shack (see my post in the 'In Memory section'). I hopped on my scoot and had the needle pegged the entire 34 miles to the house in the country. When I arrived at the house, I noticed a knocking noise. I didn't worry about it until after my emergency had been takin care of. For about a week or two I would take the bike out on I-10 to try and find out where that knocking was coming from. Everyone told me that it was in the primary. After a while I gave up. Then one day I was going to take some photos of a 'hottie' on my bike and I noticed that there were three chunks of rubber, each the size of the bottom of a coffee cup, missing, down to the cord, on the front wheel. The noise that I was hearing was the rubber hitting the fender. Moral? If you hear loud noises, check your tires first. I do.:newsmile071:
