Just a Little Further

© Ken Bingenheimer / RumBum.com

Forty miles out of town and there’s some green fluid dripping. Oh, no! There’s no mistaking coolant, and on a day with temperatures in the 90s this could be seriously bad.

I had been up to Loveland to demo ride some BMW motorcycles, one of which, the R1200RT, I loved. Now headed home to Denver I stopped in Berthoud to visit their museum and see the current exhibit on Floyd Clymer, the renowned racer and publisher of motorcycle repair manuals. Floyd was a local boy who made good. Ready to leave, I was getting back on the bike, my ’99 Kawasaki Concours.

I’d caught just a whiff of the coolant earlier but didn’t think anything of it. I figured somebody else must be leaking fluid; it never occurred to me that it might be coming from my bike. Now that steady drip, drip, drip had my total attention.

What to do? Did I dare to ride it? And how could my Kawi be giving me trouble? It’s the bike that has always been 100 percent reliable, unlike my 30-year-old Honda that knows it’s 30 years old.

I decided to chance it, with my eye glued to the temperature gauge and ready to shut it off immediately if the needle started to enter the danger zone. With luck, running the bike at highway speeds would keep everything cool and the drip would abate. But if I got into the heart of Denver and hit a traffic jam there could be trouble. I’d have to play it by ear.

I pulled away and headed down the road and everything was fine. The needle stayed well on the cool side. I stayed in the right-hand lane, took it easy, and checked the gauge about every 30 seconds all the way to Denver. Coming through downtown on the highway the traffic flowed smoothly and things looked good.

Santa Fe Drive would be the next hazard. It’s a major road with only a few stoplights, but could I get through them all on the green? And what would that needle do if I did get stopped?

One by one I made it until I reached the last light I had to go through. It turned red. It seemed like it was red for a long time. And the needle started climbing. And climbing. “Oh, please let me just get to Joel’s shop. I’m only two miles away now.”

Finally the green and I was moving again. The needle didn’t drop but at least it stopped climbing. Joel was out front as I pulled in, turned the key, and got off.

“Joel, I’ve got a problem!”

No need for a big explanation; the drip told the whole story. A problem with an O-ring, Joel tells me. He’ll have it fixed today, and once again I got lucky. In four days I’m headed for Sturgis on that bike. If that O-ring had failed four days from now . . .