How much can you take? At what point do you throw in the towel and end the bad mojo? Me? I don’t know, I just know I can’t take anymore, emotionally, physically, mentally and financially. I’m done, but I have to push on. Is that crazy?

As you recall, I spend months and months preparing, educating and toiling to repair my 2003 Heritage and I finally indeed, did fix it. I was quite happy with myself. Thrilled. I was riding again. And then, as if I never did anything, 2000 miles into my joy, it ended.

Five weeks ago, the bike started making this awful noise. Something sounded wrong with the engine and it got louder and louder. Long story short, on the lift and disassembled nearly to the point it was last time. I replaced the lifters and put it back together.

That wasn’t the problem.

Back on the lift she went and now Phase two is in progress. This time, she’s really getting taken apart to investigate the plethora of things that it could be. That being said, my riding days could be over for a long time to come.

During the initial rebuild, I kept hearing things like; “While you’re in there….”. Not that this is a case of “I told you so”, it is however a case of “we’ll see, so shut up”. While I get that everyone is trying to help, I find myself wading hip deep in a list of “could be’s”. It’s sort of like a game of darts. Without question, eventually you will hit the bulls-eye. But, before you do, you’ll be hitting every other number, putting some holes in the sheet-rock and in that picture of grandma vacationing in Lake George.

I sort of envy those guys who can drop a bucket of coin and have someone else do the work. You know those people. The guy that says “You know, it’s time for me to do a top end rebuild. I’ll drop the bike off at the shop and let them do it”. Four figure dollar amount later, he picks up his bike and rides off, but not before putting a deposit on a new bike for his little woman. Screw you man, just screw you.

Me… I’m excited just walking out of the dealership with a hot dog and a coke.

For me, this is frightening. It could be something that will cost me $20 or it will be something that will require the sale of a kidney. Since I do indeed cherish my body parts both internal and external, I am summoning, to the best of my ability a glimmer of hope that it is that $20 part. That being said, over the course of the next <enter number of weeks here>, I’ll be poking and prodding the huge chrome paperweight and at some point the “AH HA!!” moment will rear it’s ugly head.

A test of will indeed.