Thor Throws a Hammer

I've had better days.  I had just changed my oil and wanted to test out my bike.  The day ended in misery.

I was previously using Castrol oil, but after reading so much about Shell Rotella-T, I decided to give it a try.  After changing the oil and filter, I took him for a ride.

My test ride started off slow.  I first ran some local errands visiting Walmart and the post office.  I noticed that the shifting was extremely stiff and stubborn.  The bike was having great difficulty shifting from neutral to first gear.  Finding neutral was a major task in itself, so eventually, I just resigned to keeping the bike in first, when at a stop.

Next, once the motor was sufficiently warmed up and the oil circulated, I decided to take Thor on the freeway.  Once I was on the freeway and felt he was running pretty well, I found some open space in front of me and opened up the throttle.  I hit 110 very quickly, but right away, the power cut out and I knew something was seriously wrong!  At this point, I was just concerned with getting to the emergency lane before anything bad happened.  I was thinking that maybe the engine seized, so I pulled in the clutch and started coasting across the three lanes.  I was so far ahead of all the cars, it wasn't too much of an issue, plus as I looked over my shoulder during changing lanes, I noticed TONS of whitish smoke pluming from my exhaust!!  Not good!

I made it to the side of the freeway and got off the bike.  I tried to start up the bike, but he didn't want to start- the engine turned, but the battery didn't have enough umph to keep turning the motor.  I examined the situation.  It looked like there was oil spilling down the rear cylinder.  I looked in the oil fill window and there were lots of little bubbles- the oil appeared to be boiling.  Smoke was still floating out of the tailpipe.

Just as I was contemplating walking the bike off the freeway- the offramp was only about 100 yards away.  Just about then, a CHP squadcar pulled over to see how I was doing.  I told him that the bike won't go.  He told me that AAA should reimburse my tow- they did for him and his bike once.  I allowed him to call me a tow.