Day -1: San Jose to Los Angeles (437 miles)

April 11: Picking up the bike

Arrived in San Jose at Liz and Sanlı’s last night! After Ayla made us some French toast for breakfast, Liz drove me up to Napa to pick up the Futura (but not before stopping to visit some horses on the way).

Dinner at Bistro Jeanty to celebrate!

April 12: Preparing the bike, and a few hiccups

I put my assistant to work right away taking the fairings off to get ready for an oil change.

While I was draining the oil, I wanted to try repairing the instrument cluster, which didn’t light up. I suspected this capacitor was the culprit…

so I searched high and low for a place that sold discrete electronic components. Sadly, Radio Shack is long gone, as are the old Bay Area staples like Fry’s Electronics. But I found a small shop, Anchor Electronics … and I was like a kid in a candy store. It’s a good thing I didn’t have any room on my already-overpacked bike, because I wanted to buy everything in the store.

They had the capacitor I needed, and I soldered it to the instrument cluster circuit board, but this didn’t end up solving the issue. So I swapped in the cluster I had brought from my other Futura, which would have to do for the trip. The only downside was that the odometer would now be incorrect (the mileage is stored in the dashboard, not on the ECU — so I would be adding on to the 80,240 miles from the other bike’s clock), but that was worth the tradeoff of having a functioning speedometer, fuel gauge, etc.

With the instrument cluster in place, I went to finish the oil change before loading up the bike. That’s when I discovered that the filter I had bought wasn’t the right size! As it turns out, Aprilia had sent a TSB to their dealers in 2008 instructing them to upgrade the oil filter to a larger size, and along with it, install a larger oil filter cover, which would no longer accommodate the original filter. There’s no mention of this on RevZilla or any other site selling motorcycle parts (in fact, the larger filter shows as not a fit for the Futura), and the larger filter is so uncommon that Cycle Gear and other major retailers don’t carry it. Luckily, I was able to order it from Amazon with next-day delivery. But there was rain forecast for that night, and the bike was disassembled outdoors, so I ran out on one of my many Harbor Freight pilgrimages of this trip to pick up a pop-up canopy to keep the machine dry until the filter arrived.

April 13: Breathe

The plan had been to have the bike loaded and road-ready by the end of the day yesterday, so today was supposed to be a day of relaxation and spending time with friends before hitting the road early tomorrow morning. Instead, the bike was still in pieces, and poor Liz’s house was strewn with all of my belongings and tools as I was scrambling to get ready.

I had signed up for a meditation retreat in San Mateo hosted by Cassie Schindler (who had taught the MBSR course I took a decade ago at Yahoo!), and I had so much on my plate that I almost bailed on it. I ended up deciding to go, and I’m glad I did; I needed a reset and a reminder that the setbacks are all part of the adventure. After all, where’s the fun when everything goes exactly to plan?

After the retreat, I had a few hours to finish the oil change, load up the bike, and pack & ship home a box with spare parts, before Elaine came over for dinner. Easy, right?

Well, the oil change went well enough. I put in the new filter, filled it with oil, and started up the bike to get it to operating temperature to verify the oil level and make sure there were no leaks. There was a little bit of smoke coming off the bike as it warmed up, which wasn’t unusual (there’s always at least a few drops of oil that ends up dripping onto the exhaust) — but I saw some smoke coming from an unexpected place too. That’s when I found this melted electrical connector between the rectifier and the stator:

An easy fix, luckily: just had to cut out the connector and solder the wires in place directly.

Phew! All set, now let’s just give the bike a once-over, checking lights, signals, chain, and tire pressure…

Drat! It’s Saturday night, Elaine’s about to come over for dinner, and I won’t be able to find a place to get a new tire tomorrow. I’ll just have to plug it in the morning, hope it lasts me until I get to LA, and then deal with buying a new tire there.

April 14 AM: Hitting the road… eventually

OK, so just a quick run to AutoZone to pick up some tire plugs, then off to Walgreens to drop off this FedEx package to ship home to myself, then quickly load up the bike, and I should still be able to get to LA by early afternoon as long as I skip the scenic route (Pacific Coast Highway) and take the 5 instead. Off to run some errands (with Ayla for moral support)!

Well, Walgreens failed to deliver — I thought I’d quickly show them the shipping label on my phone, they’d print it, and take the package. It turns out they can only accept FedEx packages if it was generated from the mobile app. No big deal; the clock’s a-ticking but this will only add a few minutes. I set up the shipment again, showed them the QR code, they scanned it — and their system wouldn’t let them accept the package. Maybe because it was too big/heavy? I’d end up having to just leave it with Liz & Sanlı and add taking the box to a FedEx shipping center to the growing list of favors I’d begged of them.

Back at home base. Got the tire plugs and patched the tire: easy.

I inflated the tire and confirmed that it was holding pressure. Great! Sprayed it down to make sure there were no bubbles around the new plug… and instead, found bubbles coming out from another previously-existing plug that I hadn’t noticed before!

Ugh. Now I really need a new tire. Still, this will have to work until I make it down to LA. At this point, Clo’s about to land and I was planning on going with her to buy her bike in Laguna Hills this afternoon/evening before dark.

Finally, I got the bike loaded up and ready to hit the road! Well, almost. The bracket that the left side case mounts to was slightly bent and I wasn’t able to get it to slide into place — long story short, after some finagling with a heat gun and loosening a few bolts, I was able to get it to snap into place. And now I’m ready to hit the road!

Boy, am I thirsty! Time to take a sip from my trusty Camelbak…

Aww crud. 🤦

April 14 PM: On the road!

2:15PM: I’m finally on my way to LA, many hours later than planned! Got a couple of stops to make first: return a few things to Harbor Freight, and AutoZone, and pick up a replacement Camelbak bite valve. I’m checking the tire pressure at each stop to make sure that the leaky plug isn’t getting worse, and it’s not. Unbelievably, though, I somehow manage to pick up another screw on my way! I don’t even bother plugging this one, though, since it’s not losing any air (yet).

I also got a call from Clo on the way. It turns out the guy she’s buying the bike from (the Boomer, as we start calling him) won’t take Zelle or Venmo or anything other than the “green, foldin’ kind” of money, and of course it being Sunday, there’s no way for her to withdraw that much money from her account. At first, he tells her (knowing that she just flew across the country to buy this bike and ride it home!) that he’s not available during the week. Is it because he’s out of town? No… it’s because he works during the week, and after he gets home from work, he sleeps. Well, Clo must have given him an earful because he eventually acquiesced and agreed to deign to meet with us on Monday evening at 8:30, but only if we’re there at 8:30 on the dot. So… we’ll pick up the bike tomorrow evening instead, and just push back our departure from LA by a day.

Meanwhile, I made a couple of food stops on the way, first at the old standard, Casa de Fruta, where I had some delightful tacos, and then at the Indian food truck in the middle of the Central Valley that I’d often seen advertised from the 5 but never dared to try. It turned out to be some of the best Indian food I’ve had!

At long last, arrived at the hotel just before midnight, unloaded my gear, at met up with Clo. What a day! I’m sure the wrinkles are out now, though, and the rest of the trip will be smooth sailing! 🤣