BMW K100RS Clutch Cable Failure--202 Miles From Home(!)Subscribe to this blog RSS Feed
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    1 of 7
    buffalo
    7 years ago
    Quoting YML's post from elsewhere here:

    Fortune favors the prepared mind. We found some beautiful country mountain roads in deep forests. It was warm but not oppressively hot. Route 675 out of Luray is gorgeous especially on the West side of I81. After about 250 miles, we decided to loop back and head up to Skyline Drive since we hadn't been in that road in years. We stopped for gas and shortly thereafter the ride got "interesting". "My new clutch cable just broke." I said over comms. From that point it was "no stopping". We opted to take a longer route to lessen the chance of stop and go traffic or lights. We miscalculated the distance. We were surprisingly fortunate. It was 200 miles non-stop without incident and without needing to downshift. Heading to my house was a non-starter because of lights and traffic but we did make it all the way to Duncan's front door and stalled the bike. It could so easily have gone otherwise leaving me stranded on the side of the road. 449.5 miles. 200 without use of the clutch. "interesting"
    2 of 7
    Ian
    7 years ago
    Amazing!  I must ask, what gear were you in?  You used the comms to discuss the route back for the next 200 miles?

    Well done!
    3 of 7
    Yermo
    7 years ago
    4th for the first part on route 211 where we decided to give us some time to explore options we should do a U-turn and head to route 81. I forgot there were some lights and some turns but we made it through.

    On 81 I stayed in 4th initially until we decided that I66 was a non-starter so we headed up to I70. I upshifted to 5th to save fuel. We rolled at a steady 60 trying to eek every bit of distance out of the fuel we had. Strangely, after 202 miles my fuel light hadn't even come on. Crazy gas mileage. 

    So yea, I did the section of I95 to Route 212 into the neighborhood in 5th.

    Yesterday, I pulled the clutch cable off a parts bike I have and over at Duncan's installed it on my bike. I just, as of a few moments ago, got the bike back home.
    4 of 7
    Ian
    7 years ago
    Wow - that you made it back without having to stop AND on the fuel already in the tank!

    When that happened to me I had to resort to rigging up a new clutch cable out of twine and spider webs. It was a helluva job and took forever; first I...
     
    5 of 7
    Yermo
    7 years ago
    6 of 7
    Motogp1
    7 years ago
    You must truly live in the boonies for there isn't no going more than 3 miles in my area without hitting a traffic light, stop sign, etc.  Perhaps I am just jealous! I would be interested to know what caused the new clutch cable to snap.  And to have a full tank of gas at time of failure is amazing.  The stars were definetly lined up for you that day!
    7 of 7
    Yermo
    7 years ago
    Figuring out what route to take was the biggest challenge. We live around DC so gridlock is commonplace and lights are plentiful. I chose to go to buffalo's house instead of mine because there were only two lights from the highway to his house where to get to mine would have been near impossible.  We also avoided using I66 in because it's almost always stopped where it merges with I495. As it turns out we were correct.

    However, that meant adding another 60 or so miles to our trip back. We headed north on I81 and then over I70 East and down I270. We were fortunate between gas and traffic and were able to make it all the way to the house without needing to stop.