My Pig Gots Gas

Being a beginning rider and without any friends to ride with yet I am bound to make some mistakes.

Well I made one this past Monday. After meeting with my wife for a nice Mexican lunch I started riding back to work. I had begun to merge onto one of the faster drags in the city limits and my bike began to surge. "that’s odd"

Soon after the surges it began to sputter and I was losing power. A quick look at the odometer indicated 196Miles. I thought I could get a little over 200 but I did tear down the carb ran it at idle for long periods and had some terrible starting problems the past week on this tank of gas. I quickly tried to reach for the reserve and adjust it from memory. I was to late and completely stalled. The bike refused to start as I coasted to a stop. I tried a couple more 5 second cranks without success. "Could the problem I was having still be there?"

My paranoia set in and I pictured myself on the side of the road with a Sloooow cranking dying battery. I called my wife with a description of where I was and asked her to bring the tools. After getting off the phone I figured I would give it a couple more tries. It probably was just out of gas as my quick peek in the tank confirmed. A couple more cranks and the bike roared to life and idled calmly. "Guess it was the gas"

Now I read some people indicate you can get significant miles on reserve but did not take any chances and headed for the gas station about 6 miles up the road. All seemed well except for the last 3\4 of a mile. The KLR began to sputter and wanted to stall if I gave it significant gas. I used my momentum and idle to keep me moving forward. It crawled along in first gear without stalling a good 1\2 mile until I reached a pump. Filling it up confirmed my theory that it was just running out of gas and not that phantom stalling I was sure to have resolved.

I rode home and to work this morning without incident. I guess this noob will have to pay more attention to my gas levels.