This actually happened to me.
I was nineteen years old and I had just scored a burgundy Yamaha 650 Special and took it for a ride out to the Sonoma Coast. I went out through Sebastopol and came back in through the Russian River. A few miles before Fulton, the bike started sputtering. I pulled in a the store in Fulton and got a soda. I was trying to act like nothing was wrong lest I appear uncool, but I needed a minute to figure it out.
And I really had not too much mechanical experience at the time.
Finally I broke down. Two badass lookin’ dudes in an El Camino were parked next to me. There was a Harley sticker in the back window. ”You guys know anything about bikes?”
“What’s wrong with it?” the guy asked, sounding bored and irritated.
I explained the situation. He reached over and turned the petcock to Reserve. ”My bike don’t run without gas neither.”
Boy did I feel stupid and embarrassed.
True…I know when the “low fuel” light hits, I’ve got exactly 1 gallon of fuel left. No fun running out of fuel.
Bet that’s happened to many of us, agreed, you do feel stupid!
I’ve also had the filter in the tap go faulty so that when you switch to reserve there’s no more.
Not good!
and ya gotta love when the carb is due for rebuilding and the float needle goes bad…gotta get that petcock “just” right so you’re not draining more on the ground than you’re burning…
I put a sticker that said “Turn the gas on DUMMY” on my dirt bike because I did that too many times in a hurry to head out to ride. A float chamber of fuel only gets you a short distance.
Stopped to help someone. He had run out of gas and then had switched the petcock to “OFF”instead of reserve. He couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t start.
Shortly after I bought my FZR600 many moons ago, I was out for a ride when it started sputtering. I reached down and twisted the knob to the down position, and promptly ran out of gas anyway. I chalked it up to a clogged reserve pickup tube and just tried to deal with it for oh, a couple years, during which time I ran out of gas once or twice. One day while I was detailing the bike, I was crouched down at eye level with the petcock, and that’s when I realized “DOWN = ON, UP = RESERVE”!!! LOL, oops!
So three less-than-wise men break down on the road before Christmas?
What are the chances that 3 Harleys will break down at the same time??
70% ??? (LOL) zukiman
I see the old “turn the petcock to the right position” trick. LMAO How many of us have left a club, kick started the bike in one or two kicks, made it down the road about a block only to run out of gas as we were too cool to check the gas valve? Raising hand here.
I had no idea I’d struck such a nerve. In fact, I thought this was one of my weaker strips until I noted the response, both here and abroad.
My first Harley was a ’73 Sportster, and the petcock on it was a sort of two piece gadgetation that I could never figure out how it worked. One part was for on/off, and the other was for main and reserve. I don’t recall it being marked, but the thing makes perfect sense to me now.
One night I’d stayed too long hanging out with my uncle in the town of Paradise. I thought I’d had plenty of gas already, but the thing had about a 1.8 gallon tank, so plenty was relative. I rode up the Feather River Canyon and was headed for Tahoe, but ran out of gas halfway to Quincy. Next to the only phone booth in the canyon, actually, in pre-cell phone California. Uncle showed up after a while with some gas and off I went.
I have a couple other run out of gas stories, too, along the lines of faulty parts or faulty brains…
Just goes to show you never kno how it’ll turn out. Personally I think I’ve run out of gas for every reason listed here and a few more.
Over the years, both on my Shovel and on my Vulcan, I’ve learned to just stop every hunnerd miles or so and fill ‘er up…gives a guy a chance to stretch, drink something, air out the derriere to help avoid baboon ass (monkey butt powder helps too)…that precaution has helped me avoid pushing bikes due to lack-o-gas…