Shake rattle and roll.

Between NYC and DC, maybe on the New Jersey Turnpike, I noticed that my bike was not sounding the same. Instead of a smooth rumble it had a loud crackling to it.

When I got to DC and onto the city streets I got out of my rain gear and switched from my full helmet to my shorty and the loudness of my bike became REALLY apparent. Something was wrong.

Unfortunately I am not the mechanic my father is, so I had no idea what was up. So I called him up of course. When I got off the bike to hold the phone up to the bike so my dad could hear the sound the problem was obvious. I had flames shooting directly out of my engine block! The nuts holding the exhaust pipe had rattled off and the pipe was no longer connected. Against my father’s advice I continued riding the bike the rest of the night and the next morning until I could pick up some nuts and Loctite to secure the pipe back on.

I need to reemphasize that the bike was so embarrassingly loud that when I pulled into my friend’s neighborhood in Alexandria, VA at 3:00am I cut the engine and rolled down his street and then walked my bike to park it.