I have NO IDEA what's WRONG with my Motorcycle | S1E56

Planet Ride Stories
20 followers
4 Video Views·Jun 18, 2025
After fueling up.. my bike will not start.. and then it gets worse..
My journey begins at North America's most northern drivable point.
The plan is to ride through Canada and America before crossing over to Europe.
From there I'll make my way across Asia and down to Australia.
New Zealand's southern most drivable point will mark the end of my journey.
I'm calling it the big spiral and this is act three across North America.
Good morning from Norwood, Colorado.
Today is going to be a good one because it's time to get into the Colorado mountains
and ride some big mountain passes.
If you can't tell I'm kind of excited.
So let's look at the map because you might be a little bit confused.
All right so here's my tiny Colorado map.
So in my last video I finished at Nucla and I just moved up the road to Norwood
to stay in a different hotel.
So the idea is to head up towards Telluride
but not go into Telluride and just go up here I think.
And you can see something that says Ophir there.
And so I want to do something called the Ophir pass.
So the Ophir pass is a really high mountain pass.
I believe it's up into the Alpine.
And yeah it's just going to be a massive climb with amazing views.
So maybe we should get going.
All right time to leave Norwood and head into the mountains.
So we're kind of transitioning from the desert to the big mountains of
Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
So yes I do like the mountains and I'm excited to head that way.
Hoping to see some really beautiful colors.
I've already seen some here.
But Colorado is a little bit famous for its fall colors.
What happened to my bike?
The lights are not coming on.
What the heck?
Oh there it goes.
Huh?
Oh there.
The lights come on as soon as I try to start it.
It doesn't turn over.
Should I try bump start it?
What's going on here?
Oh it just came on again.
Front light's on.
Okay I'm gonna try a bump start instead of using the starter.
That is concerning.
What happens if I hit the brake?
Just roll it down the hill.
Is this a hill?
Not really.
What do I do?
Okay I'm just gonna run it maybe.
Let's see if I can get on.
It's gonna be hard to do.
God.
Here's the hill.
Okay.
Okay let's see.
Oh I forgot to put it in.
Oh I hit the kill switch on.
Oh god.
Let's try again.
Oh this is unexpected.
If I had to guess it would be the battery.
Okay got it going.
Okay I think it's the battery then.
Oh I think it's the battery.
Bike, bicycle shop.
Oh okay it looks like there's literally a Harley dealer
on the other side of the pass.
Okay we'll have to make it over the pass then, huh?
Hopefully without stalling it.
Hopefully the Harley dealer has the type of battery I need.
Yeah I don't know about Harley.
Do they give you batteries?
Okay.
We'll try supporting.
Oh.
The bike was already idling and I pressed the starter
and it just shut itself off.
Oh that's so annoying.
Okay well at least I'm on a kind of a hill here.
Oh I was just pulling over to mess with the batteries and the GoPros.
And uh.
Now these lights don't even want to come on.
Oh my god.
I wonder if I can still push start it.
Okay let's see if we can get it to start.
Battling it like I've heard Flintstone.
Okay I got it.
Oh I think the battery's really dead isn't it?
Look at these cool guys in the West Valia near Mt. Bikes.
Yeah I gotta make it over the pass.
Everything's going crazy on the dash.
Oh no this is bad.
Oh no this is so bad.
Is there an electrical problem or something?
Look at that.
What's going on here?
I just need to go back to town.
I can't make it over the pass like this.
I just unplugged the.
Unplugged all my electronics.
Andy's been around.
It's still missing.
I can't get the battery but it still runs without the battery.
Let's pull over this massive truck behind me.
What happened to my bike?
Part of me is thinking like something got into electronics and.
Something has eaten wires or something.
But it got up here from Norwood.
This display is really faint right now.
It should run without a battery.
Okay I gotta go back down to that town.
Oh there's a motorcycle guy coming.
Okay.
Oh it didn't even.
Can I make it up the hill?
I have no idea.
I can't make it up the hill.
Come on let's go let's go let's go let's go.
Oh they're pretty.
They're pretty.
Oh god.
It's so weird that it's the battery.
Because it literally started off the battery this morning and now it's nearly gone.
Okay I just got a call from a local computer.
Oh I need to start again.
I'm just going to do some research on my phone.
Let's see what the heck is going on here.
All right so I think it's probably the battery.
I'm going to disconnect the headlight to see if I can get it to run a little better.
But I booked a hostel for tonight because
there's no place in town that will have a battery for me and I'm gonna have to order it in.
So okay this is not in the plan but it's all part of the adventure isn't it?
So yeah I'll take I'll disconnect the headlight now.
All right so there's no car parts stores in town.
There's no motorcycle stores.
There are two auto repair places but they're closed today.
Now I'm gonna see if I can get this limp this thing to the hostel.
The hostel's 15 minutes that way.
Honestly fairly disappointed here because I thought the bike should at least run without
without the battery but it does not.
So let's try and get this limp this home.
I disconnected the front headlight just to reduce draw of the electrical system.
Uh but the taillight is still on because it's kind of a cheesy thing.
But yeah this is so bad because at least it happened here.
If it happened on the way for him or whatever in some remote spot that would be a real problem.
Big hill here.
It's flat again.
Now it's uphill.
Yeah I did some research and apparently these bikes will not run will not run well
without a battery.
Oh just where's the hostel?
Yeah it's not starting at all.
Oh this is the keys though.
Oh it's so slow now.
There's no shoulder here either.
Okay yeah I think I have to walk.
It's not too far.
Oh hey.
My battery is toast.
Oh no.
And the bike doesn't run without a battery.
Yeah I can smell it.
Yeah yeah it was running really poorly.
So yeah.
Have you had issues with it charging badly or just the batteries cooked?
I think just the batteries cooked.
Yeah it started this morning and then went to the gas station up there and
didn't want to start and then a jump bump started it.
And uh it started.
It managed to start going up the hill and then started missing and yeah so.
I think they're somewhere in Telluride that have a battery.
I'll run you in town and.
I don't think there is.
Yeah so I'm just heading down to that hostel over there.
I'm gonna ship a battery to the hostel.
Yeah.
Thanks for stopping.
Yeah dude no worries.
Yeah.
Anyways uh yeah.
I'm kind of disappointed the bike doesn't run without a battery.
Like I've had plenty of cars in my day that ran without batteries but.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah bike alternators are not.
They don't generate quite the electricity a car one does.
Yeah.
But uh anyways.
I think it's just a little ways down the road so.
Yeah just a couple turns down to where I flipped around after I saw you.
I was like oh I can't stop here.
I was hoping it was gonna be something simple.
I'm like yeah let's get you figured out but.
Yeah.
Oh well.
Cool man.
Yeah I appreciate that.
Best of luck man.
Yeah thanks.
Sorry.
Oh he surprised me.
He waves at me.
I don't know what that does for me but.
Okay he waved.
Alright.
Maybe there's enough gradient to roll.
Okay it's about three kilometers to the hostel.
This is stupid.
This is dumb.
Why am I?
Oh god.
Okay we've got a bit of a hill here.
Let's see if we can get run again.
I think I'm before here.
I think we're here.
Still kind of running.
Now it stopped.
Okay.
Well this is gonna be where I'm staying for the next while I think.
Sweet.
Yeah.
You have a car to go with that as well?
I do yeah.
Okay and let's see here.
Okay that's red.
Okay that's already a good sign.
So I think my battery is actually toast.
So I don't think it will charge at all.
Yeah so I'll just try it.
So basically what I'm gonna do is like use your battery to start my bike.
And then we'll see what happens.
Oh it's just my battery.
Well a nice lady named Joanie helped jump start my bike and yeah it started just fine.
So it is probably the battery.
It could also be the stator but I'm thinking it's probably the battery.
But the fact that it died so abruptly is a little bit surprising.
But after looking online at this problem,
other people have had their batteries die kind of abruptly like that as well.
So yeah it just might be bad luck.
So now I got to figure out how to get a battery.
All right it's three days later and I got my battery in the mail.
So I'm gonna install it and hopefully it solves all my problems.
Because I don't want to wait for more parts.
Check if they're the right size.
Looks like it.
All right I got the battery in.
Let's see how it goes.
All right so we just turn the switch.
Oh the lights are on.
That's a very good sign.
It's blinking on the display but it's not blinking real life which is fine.
And then it's in neutral.
So I'll go to start it.
Oh yeah and I have a voltage display there and it says 14.7.
I don't know if you can see that though.
All right so very glad to have that problem solved.
So I did a little more research and I think it's quite common for motorcycles not to run
without a battery which is something I didn't know.
And I'm glad it happened here and not in a super remote area.
But there were some warning signs and some of those signs were
I go to key on the bike in the morning and I noticed my trip meter had gone back to zero.
And I assumed oh yeah I bet the battery's probably going bad.
But at that time I thought well if it goes bad I'll just bump start the bike and keep riding.
But yeah apparently that's not a thing you can do.
But anyways tomorrow we'll do what I had planned at the start of this video.
And we'll go over Ophir Pass which I'm keen to do because I've
been sitting at this hostel hotel for four days now.
So yeah glad it's done.
But anyways if you'd like to see more of me messing up and making mistakes
you might consider hitting the subscribe button.
Up to you.
But anyways thanks so much for watching this video and I hope to see you in the next one.
