Chapter 2 "Bullet in the Treetop"
The I got into the tight twisties and started up N4 It's very tight but a lot of fun so I'm riding at maybe 80%. All of a sudden a fat tired sporty bike came flying by me and as a checked the Napoleans, I saw several others behind sped up a bit and another went by, and I was nearing 100%. The next corner was a tight decreasing radius 180 and as I entered the corner it kept tightening and I felt the footpeg touch down. I hung off to the inside, but the bike was drifting across toward the abyss, then the front tire washed out! There was the bike headed for the edge screeching across the road and me following it, mumbling S%#T!!
As the Beast got to the edge of the road it disappeared in a cloud of dust, I stopped sliding and sat there for a minute as all the guys in the other group stopped and came to see if I survived. They helped me up, since I was still in the road, and then kept telling me to go sit down. Obviously, to me anyway, I was standing up, why did I need to sit down?
I wanted to know where the Beast went as I couldn't see it standing where we were in the road in the road. We walked over to the edge and it as about four feet below us laying horizontally on some tree branches, just off the ground. If those trees and bushes hadn't been there it was about an 80' drop to the bottom of the gully. I started down the hill to get to the bike and the guys are hollering at me not to go down there. Well, I slid easily down to the bike because it was soft dirt and quite steep. I wanted to turn it off and get the key. Anyway I got it, then they drug me back up the hill.
Then the big question came as to how we're gonna get the Beast out the hole, and came to the conclusion that without a bit of help from a winch or something, the Beast was gonna die there, so we should try AAA.
I called them and found I didn't have motorcycle coverage so I would have to pay for it. I asked them if I just couldn't add it on now and they told me I'd have to call Monday to get it. Well, crap, I didn't need a bunch of hundred dollars towing bill, So we decide to got on up the hill and see if we could find a solution in Wrightwood.
Now remember in all this, I'm still way behind the Norton club guys. We were supposed to gather at a restaurant called Mile High, to get together to go to the restaurant we were going to in Wrightwood. I got on the back of a BMW 1200 something or other for the ride up the hill and as we rode by Mile High there was one Matchless still there and getting ready to leave, but everyone else gone, and we rode up to the lunching spot where some of the Norton Club was starting to leave although there were still several at the cafe.
On the ride up, I decided to just leave the bike in the hole overnight because it was essentially invisible from the road and it ain't likely there would be too many pedestrians going by. Even bicyclists would have a hard time spotting it.
Then I would update my AAA then come back and get it Monday AM.
Well, all goes well for about a night, then I call AAA and they'll upgrade it, but it won't be effective for a week. Bastardos!! Now I have to come up with a Plan 9 FOS. I called my son-in-law Mike and asked if He's like to take a little ride to the hinterlands and he was willing. I grabbed some rope and tiedowns and a ramp and we headed up to N-4 in the old pickup. ('96 Mazda 2300 with 28,000 miles on it). As we are going down the the mountain looking for the proper spot where the Beast was laying we finally got to some straightaways that I knew were well below where I'd departed the bike. Told ya it as hard to see!
So we went back up the hill which looked a bit more familiar to me going that way, I came around a corner that looked familiar, but still couldn't see the bike, but I stopped and we walked over to the edge and Voila!, there it was! Now the problem was still, how are we going to get the Beast outta there. the road is pretty narrow with about 3 feet of pavement past the white line and maybe three feet of dirt before it drops off rather severely. You do not want to drop the wheel off the edge in a gutless 2-wheel drive truck! The spot we are in the road is on a short straight of may be 50 yds between the corners which the one coming up the hill that I crashed on is pretty slow and blind and in the lane opposite us. The downhill curve (our lane) is faster but also blind. So we are trying to figure out how to do this and stay on the edge of the road. We figured to try to pull it parallel to the road going up the hill and see if it would come up. That didn't work well, so we figured maybe if we pulled it parallel to the road going the other way it might be better. The first pull on it broke the rope so we had to retie it with two loop carrying the load. The second rotated the bike so the nose was point up the hill and retied the rope to the front downtube just below the can to be able to pull the bike straight up
Then a couple riding a Harley up the hill stopped and offered us some help and another guy stopped a BMW, too.
So we stationed the couple on each corner and the other guy was helping with the bike, so now I could straddle the road and pull the Beast straight out of the hole. That worked! All we had to do now was load it in the pickup and go home. We did.
I looked at the odometer...2500.0
Tune in tomorrow, Same Bullet time, Same Bullet Channel for the next exciting episode, "The Wounded Bullet"
That's Mike climbing out of the hole
Bare
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