Towing a bike

How many of you have ever towed another bike?

In the Garage forum, Doc made a joke about towing a bike up to 70 MPH then dumping the clutch to try and free the dragging plates.

I laughed when I read that because I was involved in something stupid like that many years ago. We were 17 years old at the time. My friend Gary was having trouble starting his Honda, and he asked me to tow him with a rope.

He was using a tow rope from a ski boat, and we were on a country road that ran past his parent's farm & was mostly dirt & gravel. The plan was that I would tie the rope on & he would hold the tow rope handle until he thought we were going fast enough, then let go of the rope and drop his bike into gear.

Well, we tried it to about 10 MPH & it didn't work, so we repositioned ourselves and did it faster. And faster. And faster. On the last attempt we'd got up to about 30 MPH, and at each attempt his bike showed even less willingness to start than the previous ones.

Finally we're totally exasperated, and he looks down and gets a bright idea. He looks in the tank and tells me, "I'm out of gas!"

Well no wonder, right?!? ::)

By this time we've towed him miles down the road and so he says, "Ride me back to the shed and we'll get the gas can." We leave his bike by the roadside and I do.

We get about 300 yards from his driveway and my bike runs out of gas. :(" title="" border="0"/> So we start pushing it towards the barn. When we get there I'm starting to get pretty ticked at him, but he goes into the shed and comes out with this 5 gallon Jeep can, probably left over from WW-II. He screws in the nozzle, I remove my cap, he up-ends the can and procedes to pour 2 ounces of gas, 6 ounces of water, and a half a pound of rust and dirt into my gas tank!

After calling him every kind of jerk for that stunt I start taking my tank off to dump it all out while he goes to find a hose and siphon some gas out of his dad's pickup truck. As he plunks the old can on the ground, he hits the rusty bottom on a rock and as he's siphoning gas into the can it's running right back out a hole in the bottom. I yell at him, and he looks down at what he's doing. His dad hears us and comes cursing out of the barn; which is evidently where he hid his bottle of joy juice, because he's stumbling and blustering and ready to smack poor Gary across the head.

They toss the gas can aside, his dad sends him back to the barn for the "good" gas can, and decides to drive us into town for more gas (and as we later found out another bottle of Jim Beam.) We get within a mile or so from town and the pickup runs out of gas. Gary's dad is seriously pi$$ed at this point, and he chases us off to the gas station on foot, while he sits in the pickup. Eventually we get gas, fill the truck, go back to town for more gas (and JB) and finally back to the barn to fill my bike.

By this time Gary's dad is passed out in the truck, and we decide to sneak a couple swiggs off of his JB, then go recover Gary's bike. Actually the bike I was riding was Gary's bike too, and he'd just "loaned" it to me so I would clean the carb for him. (I got to do it twice thanks to the rusty gas.) Anyhow, it was a Suzuki 125 (I think) or something tiny like that, and I was not a small kid being 175 lbs at the time, but Gary is more like 225 lbs, plus he's holding this 5 gallon gas can that's got 3 gallons of gas sloshing around in it.

So I'm hiking him back to fuel his bike, he's trying to hold that big can on his lap and keep his big kiester on that little seat, and I'm practically sitting on the gas tank, and we're half drunk, and wobbling all over the road about 20 MPH which was as fast as I dared ride considering the situation. As we near his bike, riding on the wrong side of the road, his mom comes around the curve in their Ford Galaxie station wagon, sees us, swerves across the road, and runs right over the top of Gary's Honda. As I recall, the yelling went on for a long, long time.

That was the one and only time I've ever towed a motorcycle before or since.

[ponch]

While this isn't towing, one time I got a flat with my KZ1000 and I called my friend Paul at work and told him to bring the old van school bus to pick me and bike up. It was an old dodge with touchy brakes. Anyway, we had nothing to tie the bike down with so I sat on the bike. We came to a red light and he hit the brakes a little hard and I slid towards the front of the bus, which had no seats in it anymore. Well, the faster I slid, the harder he hit the brakes, for some reason thinking he could stop the bike with his brakes. I nearly went through the windshield and busted the engine cowl. Man it was stupid.

[audiogooroo]

Can't say that I've ever towed a bike...but I LOVE these stories! :)

[chainsaw]

CaddmannQ, you tell a great story. The picture going threw my mind was hilarious. Needed a good laugh today.

[misunderstood]

Originally Posted by "CHAINSAW"

CaddmannQ, you tell a great story. The picture going threw my mind was hilarious. Needed a good laugh today.

Ditto

[racinchef]

Some how that sounds typical of when I was growing up; limited resources and intelligence.

[mmartin]

Back in the mid 70's my brother and I both had built Harley choppers. Some days you could turn the key on ,3 trist of the throttle, a little choke, kick it over about 3 times and you were riding. But at least once a week one of us would pull the other with his bike to get it started, you could kick your brains out before they would start. It's a Harley thing.

I've always heard that the best place to live if you own a Harley is on top of a hill. ;)

[Yellow Jacket]

The stories you guys tell here are far better than anything you will ever read in any of the bike mags! I'm just loving it. :)

BTW, thanks guys. I get a kick out of reliving this stuff. It's really amazing how much stupid stuff I've survived over the many (many!) years, and the strangest thing is that I don't think about any of it until somebody says something to trigger an old memory. Like Doc writing "Tow it up to 70 MPH and dump the clutch."

LOL

[Cajunrider]

Hey Cadd, My dad used to describe that as "Young, dum, and full of c&m".

Damn, Terrebonne! You just went and triggered another one of those old memories.

[rksaw]

After reading the thread about recognizing Nomads (they're easy to spot and look better than anything else) and then reading this, I must admit, I am just about rolling on the floor! If I have another bad day, I know where to get a pick-me-up.
Rich

[jmorrow]

Great story CQ.

:) you guys make my day too.