I wish “Dead Battery” was a place. It isn’t.
So, I decided to take a personal day and join Tomm and Ernie for a ride up by Clearlake.
I changed my oil and cleaned the air filter on Saturday, tires are toast but would do just fine for this.
Tomm met me at my house, we paired the Senas and we rode up to Winters to meet Ernie together.
No issues.
Breakfast, Gas at Cache Creek, then up the road just past where Hwy 16 meets Hwy 20. That’s where we first hit dirt.
The dirt road starts out pretty flat and winds around a few fence lines.
We came across a nice rattler sunning himself. Tomm helped coax him to get off the road.
Maybe 10 or so miles into the flat dirt we start heading up (vertically) towards Indian Valley Reservoir. It’s still a jeep trail but much slower and plenty of switchbacks.
I look down and my dashboard is going crazy! I have a red light on and the my water temp indicator is flashing.
I’m at the back with Tomm trying to get some video of Ernie. Because of that sound is off for the Senas. I turn my bike off and pull to the side immediately. I honk, flash my lights at Tomm but they are gone around the corner already. I push the bike into a shady spot to cool.
The bike’s cooling overheats and water goes out the overflow tubes. 10 minutes later the two of them figure out I have a problem and return.
We let the bike cool, then refill the tank with water (we had plenty) and decide to head back to the road. It didn’t seem that the fans (I have an auxiliary fan) were working.
I coasted down the switchbacks and the bike was holding at 4 bars on the temp gauge. Once I got to the flat sections amazingly it stayed at 4 bars probably because the wind was enough to keep it cool.
We stopped for a beer and lunch close to Winters, then hit the freeway to slab it on home.
Just as soon as we hit the freeway at speed I saw something orange fly by.
I quickly determined it was my phone out of it’s cradle.
We pulled to a stop, rode back against the flow of traffic on the shoulder. It might have been a tenth of mile to where Tomm started seeing the first pieces of my phone.
The case was crushed – probably by one of the Semi Trucks that had run it over.
The screen itself looked fine, the sim card was still there, the battery had flown out and been run over as well. The only thing we couldn’t find was the back case.
I pieced it all back together and amazingly the phone powered back up and worked!
Incredibly, it’s still working! I may not need a new one after all. 🙂
Back on the road, Tomm and I kept up at freeway speed until I split off at my exit. On the way home I stopped for gas. Filled it up at Costco and guess what?
Dead Battery!
WTF? Nowhere along our ride had the battery given me any indication that it was having issues, nor the charging system. I ended up getting a start from AAA. I was a less than a mile from home.
I’ve posted about the issue on ADV and will write that up separately.
Long story short: Not sure what happened, but I have a new battery on the way and looking at the cause(s).
- The NORCAL BDR (part 3) - October 29, 2024
- The NORCAL BDR (part 2) - October 21, 2024
- The NORCAL BDR (part 1) - October 14, 2024