We did a ride to Savanna, IL to Poopy's over the Memorial Day weekend and my bike coughed out on me half way there. I could only go about 3-5 miles before it died again. Sometimes I could get it started again and sometimes I would be on the side of the road. We ended up leaving it a friends house and I rode on the back of Rich's for the rest of the weekend. We spent the night in Savannah. We had a good time, and it's nice to ride on the back once in a while, but I did miss my bike.

It seemed like it wasn't getting gas. We ruled out bad gas because we all gassed up at the same place. After we got home, we hooked up the bike trailer to the truck and went to retrieve it. Rich thought something might be clogged and cleaned out a couple things. He said it didn't seem to be dirty enough to cause a problem. He took it for a ride and it seemed OK. On the way home it started acting up again. Then he started thinking maybe a spark problem. He put a spark indicator on it and took it for a ride hoping it would do it again and he could see if it was getting spark. It ran great. The next day he took it out for 3 hours with a friend and it ran great. Who knows. Hopefully it will be OK for our river ride next week.

It looks like we will not be doing much riding this summer anyway. Rich is having problems with his hand, wrist, and arm. He has numbness in his fingers and pain that keeps him awake and makes it real hard to ride or work. The DR. thinks it's carpal tunnel. Of course he didn't mention to the DR that he has a knot on the back of his hand the size an olive and one between his index finger and the next finger. You don't see them except when he makes a fist, then you can see the one on the back of his hand. He also twisted his wrist when he was drilling into some steel last summer. The drill bit stopped and the drill twisted his wrist. He had trouble with that for about 6 months and never had it checked out. I finally have him talked into asking for an x-ray or MRI to see what the knots are and to see if there was any damage when he sprained his wrist. Hopefully it's not anything serious.

I had 4 tendons on my left hand repaired, a torn cartilage repaired in my wrist joint and carpal tunnel surgery all at once. I didn't ride for most of that summer. The DR told me I may not ride again because of the loss of strength. Rich put a hydraulic gear box on my clutch and we headed to California. His problem is in his right hand, I don't know if there is anything he can do to help with the gas, other than a throttle rocker. What ever it is, we're in it together and I won't ride without him other than to work once in a while. After the road construction is done!