My daughter returned to college for her senior year. Like last year, she rode her bike -- a 1995 Suzuki Intruder — while mom and dad brought her apartment furnishings in the enclosed trailer.
Unlike last year, the motorcycle didn’t make the trip successfully. About 60 miles in I noticed her running lights and headlights were flickering. That’s odd.
Another twenty miles and she started backfiring occasionally. It got worse the longer she rode. The last leg of the trip it started backfiring a lot. She reported a specific pattern or sequence of events: first it was bogging down a bit, the backfiring, then after the bang running smooth for a while. Then repeating the cycle.
We pulled to the side of the road, and I did a quick inspection. Exhaust was intact - I worried that the gasket was loose since that happened once before. I suspected fueling issues, and suggested she ride the five miles to the nearest town where we could do a deeper assessment in the safety of the convenience store parking lot rather than mere inches from highway traffic whizzing by at 60 mph.
She fired it back up, and we continued another mile. Running much rougher, backfiring way more, and finally giving up the ghost about 100 yards from the gravel parking lot of a nearby bar.
Her bike had no lights, no start, nothing. She had ridden 105 miles of the 120 mile trip back to college.
Fortunately we had the enclosed trailer, though it was full of her apartment furnishing. We left the bike, moved her in to her apartment and returned with empty trailer to gather up her bike and bring it home.
Next, we need to dig into that bike. Fueling issues? Charging issues?
On the positive side, I was able to visit the local Harbor Freight, buy a chock and a spare set of wrenches, and improvise a chock in the trailer in order to get her bike home.
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