Adventure date: 2026-04-19
So yesterday I took the Kestrel out for a ride to visit a friend of mine who will be moving away. It was a beautiful day for a ride, sunny, 75 degrees, just perfect. I went outside to prep: removed the bike cover, ran through TCLOCS, and turned the bike around in the driveway so it would be ready to go once I geared up.
I went back inside, chose the mesh over pants and the Gore-Tex jacket with lots of vents, grabbed my little Beeline Moto II GPS, and punched my friend’s address into my app.
I went back outside, mounted the GPS onto the bike, and noticed the GPS wouldn’t turn on. I popped the GPS onto a battery in my coat pocket to charge and took screenshots on my phone of the most direct route. Eager to get on the road since I was running a little late, I noted the trip meter showed about 80 miles – plenty of range to get where I was headed.
Traffic was pretty slow all the way to the American Legion bridge, but once across, it was smooth sailing, with only brief stops to verify my route.
I arrived safely and parked at my friend’s home. She came out to greet me with adorable her 7-month-old, who was cheerful and delighted to bounce on a motorcycle seat! We spent a lovely afternoon catching up (yes, my arms are a little sore from lifting a cherub high in the air multiple times ,but it was totally worth it).
If you know me in person, you know navigating without a map in front of me is not my forte, and thankfully the GPS was fully recharged. I made it to the Dulles toll road to head westward and take a leisurely route home to Maryland.
At this point I suppose I should tell you that when I bought this bike, I was told it was a battery hog and to keep it on a charger. Last fall, after sitting a few weeks in the driveway, the battery was dead in spite of it being a new huge sturdy battery. So this summer’s projects include figuring out what is going on with that issue.
So when the bike sputtered and died, and I couldn’t restart it, my immediate thought was “oh no, it’s the battery again!!” I am slowly learning to work on a bike, but electrical is way over my skill level. I was able to pull off, and in a panic I called a couple of motorcycle friends and colleagues (my husband was out of town) for advice. I checked any wires I could, peeked at the spark plugs, and all looked “normal”. I tried restarting the bike. No go.
The trip meter showed 110 miles, which normally would mean it was time to look for gas with plenty of margin, but Tony suggested checking anyway since it would be the easiest answer. It was pretty darn low! Nevertheless, I flipped the petcocks to reserve, and like magic, she started!
I quickly shifted to neutral and started searching my phone for nearby gas stations. After few wrong turns I found a Safeway with a gas station. I didn’t even know Safeway had gas stations. I filled the tank – 4.6 gallons, so yes, the main tank was too dry. I took pics of the gas purchase info so I could enter it in my tracking app later, and took off for home.
Less than a mile later, she sputtered again, still miles from home. I immediately thought “it wasn’t the gas?!”, again thinking of the electrical issues. Then I realized that crap, I had forgotten to switch the petcocks back to the main tank. I flipped them, got the bike restarted, and headed home, pondering the whole way what could have gone wrong.
This was only my second ride of the year, so I didn’t have much to go on. However, as I was entering the gas purchase into my app, I noticed that instead of 112 miles that the trip meter was showing when I filled up, I had actually gone 156 miles! It was at that moment I remembered that I had decided to use the trip meter in conjunction with the app, which I had relied upon solely the previous summer, and that I had pushed the reset button “just a few miles” after the last fill up – before winterizing the bike – which meant that the meter was definitely incorrect.
That will teach me to ignore my habit of always checking my app, and I will be very sure to double check the trip meter.
In my reptile-brain panic, I also skipped my normal “count to 20 and reassess the problem” before calling for rescue, so my self-imposed penance is to bake cookies for them this week.
There are a lot of old habits I need to change after 12 years of riding modern bikes – but I wouldn’t trade this beautiful airhead for anything!