[BC Brian]

I headed out before it had warmed up much, but was only riding into town to meet a friend of mine for breakfast. I had known and worked with Ian for many years at many different mines. I hadn’t seen him since last year, so we caught up, talked about mining, our KLRs and he told me how all about how much he was enjoying the Ducati I sold him last year J



I had a couple of stops I wanted to make, and I was looking for a right hand mirror for my bike, so I also headed up to see mi amigo Dave at New Life Cycle. He looked through his Big Box of Used Mirrors, but didn’t have the one I needed. We did get in a good visit before I headed out.

It had warmed up considerably by the time I got out of Williams Lake. I rode along, the bike running good.

From 100 Mile House, I turned off on to one of my favorite local roads, Horse Lake road, heading towards Little Fort. I stopped to make my bladder gladder along the way.



When I started the bike, the starter seemed to turn over kind of……….. slowly.

Hmmmm………..

Well, I know these old bikes don’t have the best charging systems, and I had bought a halogen light for it, and had been running with the light on for a couple of days ( it didn’t occur to me at the time that I had ran the light all day yesterday with no problems), so I would just run with the light off for a while to get the battery back up.

I wanted to stop and see good friend (inmate BucknBC) to see if he had a mirror that would work on my bike, so I stopped at his work, but he didn’t have one. We visited for a while, and when I went to start the bike……. Good thing I have a kickstarter………

I figured I would ride a while further, and see if I could get anything more out of the battery. I got to Kamloops, bought a multi meter, (of course mine was sitting on my bench at home), and I was putting out zip for volts.

Crap.

A friend of mine. Starsky, near Salmon Arm was a millwright / bodyman / painter / bike mechanic and had recently opened a bike / paint shop in Grinrod and specialised in working on old Harleys. I had been planning on stopping and seeing him anyhow in search of a mirror, so I called him, told him what was going on and he said he would stay open, call Terry, the wiring specialist, also a friend of mine, who worked at the shop with him, and that he would see me soon, and to call if my bike quit.

So away I went, sans headlight, for the hour and a half ride to Starsky’s shop. I stopped once for gas (thank goodness for kick starters) and made it in record time.

I pulled in right about closing time, another buddy, Heath, showed up with a 6 pack, looking for parts for his shovelhead, so we visited a bit until Terry (aka “The Doctor of Darkeness ) showed up ( he had already gone home for the day)

After a beer and some BSing, they tested the charging system, and, yep, I had fried the stator. No big deal, Starsky had a used stator that tested good and away we went to work. Well, Starsky and Doc went to work, while Heath and I had another beer and helped where we could.

The Doctor of Darkness


Heath


Starsky hard at it.


Terry headed out after a while, then Heath, so Starsky and I stayed till quite late, working on the bike and visiting. We got it mostly done, and planned to button it up in the morning.