All The Fairing’s Came Off

 

I got to ride on Rosa Parks Drive in Lincoln Nebraska. I think its pretty cool that they named a major street after her. She was after all a major human, the mother of the civil rights movement and a hero of mine, for standing up against oppression.

It might probably would have been enough to travel to Lincoln just to ride on Rosa Parks Drive, but our mission in Lincoln was much more involved, and required yet another stop at a motor company outpost.

Inside The Lincoln Motor Company Outpost

Earlier in this trip on a blistery 37-degree day I realized that my heated grips no longer heated. The outpost way back in Yellowstone diagnosed the issues as the switch on the left-hand grip. They would have fixed the problem right there except they did not have the part to do the job. Neither did any other outpost in Montana, Colorado, and Wyoming.

There has been no valid explanation as to why no shop has the parts, but I suppose Covid, or floods in Peru have something to do with having no parts. But Lincoln has a set of grips.

My issues are not as great as my traveling compadre, as her new machine has a GPS unit that seems to be on its own road trip, following routes that we are not on, and fading in and out of consciousness. But the Lincoln shop seems to know that modern motorbikes have some serious electronics.

Years ago when I was traveling across the country on a new Electra Glide Classic, that I had picked up in Tacoma, and stopping in almost every outpost between the coast and here, the shop in Lincoln was the only shop that took the time to find the issue with the pin hole in the fuel shutoff valve, so expectation of this shop was high.

We would have been on time for our 9:00 am appointment except the girl at check out didn’t know how to split the bill, so check out took longer than it should, and my GPS placed the dealer on the left side of the road but it is really on the right, so a turn around was necessary, but we were welcomed by the service writer who knew we were coming and new about our issues, so it wasn’t long until we were drinking the coffee brewed in a bunn, and  drinking the free bottles of water, with the outposts logo on the bottle.

After a while we decided to cross the major road the outpost is on and go up and watch the trains.

One Busy Road

Empty coal trains were parked by the fuel racks, facing one direction and full coal trains crept through the yard, going the other direction

Pumpkin Trains

An interesting mix of power. Both EMD and GE locomotives were at work in the yard. Even one very faded original unpatched Santa Fa War Bonnet, was at work behind a EMD shuffling cuts of cars around the yard.

Back at the shop the technicians had both fairings off and discovered that my grips needed replacement, and my friend’s infotainment devise needed to be replaced.

Calling shops north of here on The Great River Road, we first got the “Oh We are Swamped” spiel, but after careful negotiation and having the service manager here talk to the shop in the Twin Cities, arraignments were made to have the radio shipped there and we will meet up with it in a week or so.

 Once again the shop has solved the problems, instead of pushing them down the road. My grips apparently work, but it is hard to tell when its 32.2c outside.

 

Thanks for reading