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Two months ago my girlfriend of five years and I decided that we should no longer be together. A week later, I had caught her and one of my closest friends making out down town. It was not exactly a high point in my life, nor were the following weeks when they decided to start seeing each other. So I decided to fix up my motorcycle and take an introspective and fulfilling road trip for my 30th birthday. A friend of mine, who also rides, accepted my invitation to join, and we set out on our way Friday, September 13th. No plan other than a few friends we could crash at in Oakland and in Portland, otherwise it was shooting from the hip and finding camp sites.
I won't bore you with details of the first few days, though amazing, they're not the point of the story. The real story begins 11 miles south of Eugene, on HWY 58, in Pleasant Hill. Out of no where, my motorcycle starts misfiring, and within a matter of seconds, floods and dies. We manage to get it to sputter into the parking lot of the Texaco gas station, where it then refuses to start most of the time, and when it does, a twist of the throttle causes the engine to die immediately. I encountered this problem before, but it happened over the course of months, not seconds. The outcome was still the same, so I had a hunch it was the ignition coil, which is not an easy part to come by for a 34 year old motorcycle.
Because I don't have the coin purse or AAA to facilitate a tow truck, I turned to reddit.com/r/eugene and craigslist.org/eugene (which turns out I put the wrong phone number in craigslist).
While we waited for a response, we decided to kill some time and fill our stomachs. We walk a mile and a half back up the road to a pizza place we saw. While we were drowning our sorrows in a calzone for two, this truck pulls up and this couple in their early 30's come out. Adam and Kelly, I come to find out, were curious if we were the guys that were broken down at the Texaco station, which obviously we were. They explain that they know a guy just a few miles down the road that fixes old import bikes for a living and works out of his home. This sounds like a very promising lead, and we take them up on their offer. They leave and their father returns to give me a ride over there, while my buddy follows on his functional motorcycle.
We go to the guys shop/house and he's nowhere to be seen, so our next course of action is to hang out with Adam, Kelly, and their father on the front porch of their trailer for an hour or so waiting for their friend to return home. You might be wondering "why wouldn't they just call his cell phone?" well as their father explained "Never needed it, he's always home." They are the nicest people, Kelly sits out on the porch with us and makes conversation nearly the whole time. Eventually we decide to walk over and check if he's there. Good news is he's there, bad news is he doesn't have the part. He, and Adam's dad, both suggested we try CyclePsycho in Eugene. This is where a reddit.com/r/eugene user comes to my rescue.
He meets us at the Texaco station shortly thereafter and armed with his Pontiac Vibe and a rusted converted truck bed trailer, chained to the hitch, we load up the motorcycle and have a very cautious drive into Eugene. He was a super sweet guy, which I'm sure is why he helped me in the first place. He was also super witty and funny, if he reads this, he'll appreciate the mention of his wit.
So we head to the salvage place, which is only open on Tues/Wednesday, so we have to stay the night in Eugene. Since we don't know what we're doing, we decide to stick with the original plan of heading to Ninkasi brewery. We get there and it's already a party, there's live music, a great food truck, and of course fantastic beers. We ask the bartender if there's any hostels near by, and it turns out there's one only a block away. I call and get us the last two beds for the night and we promptly head over to drop all of our gear off. Afterwards, we head back to the brewery and start one of the best nights of the trip.
We meet this very sweet girl who plays the penny whistle and we decide to go back to the hostel, after a few pints of course, and use the jam room. My buddy plays the piano, I play the guitar, and with the penny whistle leading, we have a pretty good jam going. More of the hostel guests and staff start joining in, rotating instruments, and singing a long. The personal highlight for me was being able to see a family of six kids, all under the age of fourteen, singing the words to Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall. Their parent's had pulled them all out of school to travel and it was so appropriate to hear them all sing "We don't need your education! We don't need your thought control!" So epic.
That same night I end up meeting this lovely girl, who is also staying there, and have this amazing night getting to know each other. When the common areas close at 11pm, we moved on to the Barcade (nearby Bar/Arcade), where we had more drinks, conversation, and even more drinks. After this we end up back at the hostel where I end up staying up with this girl till 530am, when I return to my room. It was such a brilliant night, full of memories and experiences, but I'll keep these last details for myself.
The next morning I have a walk in the rain, with an umbrella, to a local cafe for a scone and a latte. I also call the salvage yard, and they do in fact have the part I'm looking for! However, they are sure to mention that they aren't a mechanic shop and don't work on motorcycles. I don't pay this much mind as I'm more focused on them having the part. We check out of the hostel at 11am and I take a cab ride over their. To my surprise and appreciation, Dave, the owner/operator, hears that I'm broken down almost a thousand miles from home and takes my bike and puts it right on the lift. He spends at least an hour and a half trouble shooting the issue with me. We check out the ignition coil, which is where I thought the problem was, and it appears to be working fine, though eventually after working through the electrical map of the bike, he finds that one of the wires leading to the coil had become brittle and broken. He solders a new bit of wire, wraps it in some heat protecting, and the bike fires right up. In fact, it's never run better. While he's doing this, I ask if they have some engine guards and highway pegs for my bike, which they totally do, and we put those one while it's on the lift. When all is said and done, and I ask him what I owe him, he says "It's five bucks for the engine guard, twenty five bucks for the pegs, and since we don't work on bikes, I can't charge you for labor. So, thirty bucks all totaled." Needless to say I'm so appreciating of his generosity and thank him a few hundred times thereafter. If there's any riders out there looking for parts or new bikes, please check out CyclePsycho and like them on facebook!
We make it to Portland that afternoon and make Rogue Brewery the first stop, for some tasters and food. With a full stomach and not that much sleep, the next thing we decide to do is go take a nap at a park, which ends up being an hour and a half. When we wake up, it's time to go meet by a buddy who lives with his wife and daughter in Tigard. It was his birthday the day before so we go back into the city to Deschuttes brewery, which was oh so delicious.
The next day we meet up with another pair of friends who live in the north east Alberta neighborhood. We go to a slew of breweries, and after several, take their canoe out on the Willamette river, which was beautiful! We stop at this beautiful island and have some deli sandwiches and the last of the beers, before rowing back down river. We go to a few more breweries and eventually get some amazing ice cream somewhere, before returning to their house to play music and have some sing alongs.
The following morning, which is a Thursday, we decide to head back into Eugene and spend my birthday night (since I turn 30 at midnight) at the hostel we were at that Monday. It was a smart choice because we had an amazing time. We essentially did very similar things, but with a few exceptions. First, we met back up with the sweet penny whistle player and she took us to her church, where she sang us a song that she sings in the choir. The church was dark, intimate, and her voice was angelic as the Latin echoed throughout the space. At midnight, the hostel kids had rummaged to make something in the kitchen and emerged with whip cream and strawberries with candles in the berries, it was so amazingly sweet, words fail me to express how much I appreciated it. I end up staying up till sunrise with the girl I had met the first time I was there, and have another amazing time talking and enjoy each other's presence in her room. Sharing my time with her was easily the best birthday present a guy could have asked for. The next morning, her and I take the motorcycle to a local breakfast spot, which worked out great for us both because it was a mostly vegetarian restaurant. We sat outside on a beautiful clear day and ate occasional bites as our conversation passed a few hours in an instant.
We eventually have to check out of the hostel and continue on the road. The rest of the journey is met by rain for the next few days before clearing up in the bay area, which was a beautiful homecoming, as we took HWY 1 all the way back to San Luis Obispo. The cloudless skies and 70 degree weather was welcomed and appreciated.
I won't bore you with details of the first few days, though amazing, they're not the point of the story. The real story begins 11 miles south of Eugene, on HWY 58, in Pleasant Hill. Out of no where, my motorcycle starts misfiring, and within a matter of seconds, floods and dies. We manage to get it to sputter into the parking lot of the Texaco gas station, where it then refuses to start most of the time, and when it does, a twist of the throttle causes the engine to die immediately. I encountered this problem before, but it happened over the course of months, not seconds. The outcome was still the same, so I had a hunch it was the ignition coil, which is not an easy part to come by for a 34 year old motorcycle.
Because I don't have the coin purse or AAA to facilitate a tow truck, I turned to reddit.com/r/eugene and craigslist.org/eugene (which turns out I put the wrong phone number in craigslist).
While we waited for a response, we decided to kill some time and fill our stomachs. We walk a mile and a half back up the road to a pizza place we saw. While we were drowning our sorrows in a calzone for two, this truck pulls up and this couple in their early 30's come out. Adam and Kelly, I come to find out, were curious if we were the guys that were broken down at the Texaco station, which obviously we were. They explain that they know a guy just a few miles down the road that fixes old import bikes for a living and works out of his home. This sounds like a very promising lead, and we take them up on their offer. They leave and their father returns to give me a ride over there, while my buddy follows on his functional motorcycle.
We go to the guys shop/house and he's nowhere to be seen, so our next course of action is to hang out with Adam, Kelly, and their father on the front porch of their trailer for an hour or so waiting for their friend to return home. You might be wondering "why wouldn't they just call his cell phone?" well as their father explained "Never needed it, he's always home." They are the nicest people, Kelly sits out on the porch with us and makes conversation nearly the whole time. Eventually we decide to walk over and check if he's there. Good news is he's there, bad news is he doesn't have the part. He, and Adam's dad, both suggested we try CyclePsycho in Eugene. This is where a reddit.com/r/eugene user comes to my rescue.
He meets us at the Texaco station shortly thereafter and armed with his Pontiac Vibe and a rusted converted truck bed trailer, chained to the hitch, we load up the motorcycle and have a very cautious drive into Eugene. He was a super sweet guy, which I'm sure is why he helped me in the first place. He was also super witty and funny, if he reads this, he'll appreciate the mention of his wit.
So we head to the salvage place, which is only open on Tues/Wednesday, so we have to stay the night in Eugene. Since we don't know what we're doing, we decide to stick with the original plan of heading to Ninkasi brewery. We get there and it's already a party, there's live music, a great food truck, and of course fantastic beers. We ask the bartender if there's any hostels near by, and it turns out there's one only a block away. I call and get us the last two beds for the night and we promptly head over to drop all of our gear off. Afterwards, we head back to the brewery and start one of the best nights of the trip.
We meet this very sweet girl who plays the penny whistle and we decide to go back to the hostel, after a few pints of course, and use the jam room. My buddy plays the piano, I play the guitar, and with the penny whistle leading, we have a pretty good jam going. More of the hostel guests and staff start joining in, rotating instruments, and singing a long. The personal highlight for me was being able to see a family of six kids, all under the age of fourteen, singing the words to Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall. Their parent's had pulled them all out of school to travel and it was so appropriate to hear them all sing "We don't need your education! We don't need your thought control!" So epic.
That same night I end up meeting this lovely girl, who is also staying there, and have this amazing night getting to know each other. When the common areas close at 11pm, we moved on to the Barcade (nearby Bar/Arcade), where we had more drinks, conversation, and even more drinks. After this we end up back at the hostel where I end up staying up with this girl till 530am, when I return to my room. It was such a brilliant night, full of memories and experiences, but I'll keep these last details for myself.
The next morning I have a walk in the rain, with an umbrella, to a local cafe for a scone and a latte. I also call the salvage yard, and they do in fact have the part I'm looking for! However, they are sure to mention that they aren't a mechanic shop and don't work on motorcycles. I don't pay this much mind as I'm more focused on them having the part. We check out of the hostel at 11am and I take a cab ride over their. To my surprise and appreciation, Dave, the owner/operator, hears that I'm broken down almost a thousand miles from home and takes my bike and puts it right on the lift. He spends at least an hour and a half trouble shooting the issue with me. We check out the ignition coil, which is where I thought the problem was, and it appears to be working fine, though eventually after working through the electrical map of the bike, he finds that one of the wires leading to the coil had become brittle and broken. He solders a new bit of wire, wraps it in some heat protecting, and the bike fires right up. In fact, it's never run better. While he's doing this, I ask if they have some engine guards and highway pegs for my bike, which they totally do, and we put those one while it's on the lift. When all is said and done, and I ask him what I owe him, he says "It's five bucks for the engine guard, twenty five bucks for the pegs, and since we don't work on bikes, I can't charge you for labor. So, thirty bucks all totaled." Needless to say I'm so appreciating of his generosity and thank him a few hundred times thereafter. If there's any riders out there looking for parts or new bikes, please check out CyclePsycho and like them on facebook!
We make it to Portland that afternoon and make Rogue Brewery the first stop, for some tasters and food. With a full stomach and not that much sleep, the next thing we decide to do is go take a nap at a park, which ends up being an hour and a half. When we wake up, it's time to go meet by a buddy who lives with his wife and daughter in Tigard. It was his birthday the day before so we go back into the city to Deschuttes brewery, which was oh so delicious.
The next day we meet up with another pair of friends who live in the north east Alberta neighborhood. We go to a slew of breweries, and after several, take their canoe out on the Willamette river, which was beautiful! We stop at this beautiful island and have some deli sandwiches and the last of the beers, before rowing back down river. We go to a few more breweries and eventually get some amazing ice cream somewhere, before returning to their house to play music and have some sing alongs.
The following morning, which is a Thursday, we decide to head back into Eugene and spend my birthday night (since I turn 30 at midnight) at the hostel we were at that Monday. It was a smart choice because we had an amazing time. We essentially did very similar things, but with a few exceptions. First, we met back up with the sweet penny whistle player and she took us to her church, where she sang us a song that she sings in the choir. The church was dark, intimate, and her voice was angelic as the Latin echoed throughout the space. At midnight, the hostel kids had rummaged to make something in the kitchen and emerged with whip cream and strawberries with candles in the berries, it was so amazingly sweet, words fail me to express how much I appreciated it. I end up staying up till sunrise with the girl I had met the first time I was there, and have another amazing time talking and enjoy each other's presence in her room. Sharing my time with her was easily the best birthday present a guy could have asked for. The next morning, her and I take the motorcycle to a local breakfast spot, which worked out great for us both because it was a mostly vegetarian restaurant. We sat outside on a beautiful clear day and ate occasional bites as our conversation passed a few hours in an instant.
We eventually have to check out of the hostel and continue on the road. The rest of the journey is met by rain for the next few days before clearing up in the bay area, which was a beautiful homecoming, as we took HWY 1 all the way back to San Luis Obispo. The cloudless skies and 70 degree weather was welcomed and appreciated.
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