klugness

Introduction

In December 2016 I decided to ride my 2012 Honda Rebel 250cc motorcycle from Atlanta to Key West and back. I'd never been to Key West before and was eager to go. So what if it was winter!

Planning the Trip from Atlanta to Key West

Candy Red 2012 Honda Rebel motorcycle parked in front of road sign entering Broxton, Georgia in December 2016

I planned the trip to take place between Christmas and New Year's. Sure, it was winter in Atlanta, but I figured I had the proper gear to handle daytime temperatures as low as the mid 40s, and fortunately the temperatures would be increasing as I rode further and further south. By the time I got to Key West I expected to enjoy temperatures in the 60s and 70s. Woo hoo!

I'd successfully ridden in the vicinity of New Year's Eve previously (in 2013) when I did a day trip to Little River Canyon in Alabama.

When riding for pleasure, I try to avoid the interstate highways as the riding tends to be boring, and large trucks make me twitchy. Highway riding can be especially challenging on the Rebel 250 because the top speed is 70-75ish—or probably less if you're going uphill, carrying a passenger, facing a headwind, or weigh 300 pounds. (Fortunately, I'm about 100 pounds short of that.) With an engine size of only 234cc (which rounds to 250 for branding purposes), the Honda Rebel CMX250C is the quintessential "beginner bike" that's often used in Basic Rider Training classes.

So...given my aversion to long trips on the superslab, I'd mapped out a meandering route to Key West on back roads a far cry from I-75 (the most direct route). My route included a long stretch of U.S. 441 headed south from Dublin, Georgia. I selected that route because it would take me through Broxton, the small south Georgia town where my maternal grandmother grew up.

I'd be bunking down for the night at a hotel near Jacksonville, Florida, then following a similar meandering path through Florida beginning the next day. It was a long and time-consuming route, as the 156 mile stretch from Miami to Key West alone would take over four hours!

Leaving Atlanta, En Route to Key West

I'd geared up with several pairs of thermal underwear, my riding jacket and riding pants, and a balaclava on the head under the helmet. I looked like the Michelin Man. I didn't wear a heated jacket because I didn't have one—I'd been warned that a full-powered heated jacket would overtax the small bike's alternator, drain the battery, and leave me stranded out in the sticks with a dead battery. Then, as night fell I would be stalked by alligators and jackals. (Whoops: I may have gotten carried away about that last part. I suppose it's unlikely I'd be stalked by both alligators and jackals, and nobody actually warned me about either.)

I got on the road that morning, and by lunchtime I was eating at a Zaxby's in Dublin, Georgia, having mostly avoided the interstates. (No I-75 for me on this trip, though I did do a little bit of I-16.) I headed south on U.S. 441 and stopped off in Broxton to see my grandma's old house. I snapped a photo of the bike next to the Broxton sign as I entered the small south Georgia town. Alas, no one was playing kick the can at the old house as there had been on previous visits when I was a young lad.

In about an hour I reached Homerville, and after that there wasn't much to see except a pretty deserted two-lane road with similar scenery on both sides of the road. The 28 mile stretch from Homerville to Fargo seemed to take three hours to complete, and the wind was picking up. Once I passed Fargo (yes, there's a Fargo in Georgia—ha!) I knew I only had a 45 minute ride to reach my hotel on I-10, west of Jacksonville.

Arrival at Hotel in Jacksonville

I rolled into the hotel parking lot at about 4:30 and was relieved that I'd made it there with about an hour to spare before sundown. I checked into my hotel room, and then rode the bike to a nearby Burger King to get myself a Whopper as my reward for a long day's ride. I also stopped at a convenience store to buy a tall boy Bud Light to wash the Whopper down with. I wondered what had gotten into me when I awkwardly knocked the brewski off the counter when I tried to pick it up. Whoops!

Back at the hotel, I put on some warm flannel pajamas and sat down for my gourmet dinner. I noticed the sun was going down and the temperature had dropped into the high 30s. I was glad to be in a warm hotel room.

Something's Not Right

I began to feel ill shortly after I'd eaten my Whopper. I didn't throw up, but I felt terrible. I had a headache and felt very nauseous, and it felt like my stomach was stubbornly refusing to digest my food. I bundled up in bed but couldn't get comfortable or get to sleep until about 2 a.m.

Scenic view of Little River Canyon in Alabama from a successful trip on December 31, 2013 (i.e., well before the ill-fated trip to Key West). Image is being photobombed by Klugmeister's white Scorpion motorcycle helmet

After some thought, I reached the conclusion that I was suffering from mild hypothermia. I hadn't exhibited most of the symptoms of mild hypothermia, such as shivering, slow breathing, and weak pulse. However, clumsiness is also one of the symptoms of mild hypothermia, and I'd certainly been uncharacteristically clumsy when I knocked over the can of beer as I tried to pick it up off the convenience store counter. That seemed like something from an episode of The Simpsons.

Speaking of clumsy...hmm, let's see (index finger on lips)...ok, if I was too clumsy to pick up a beer off the counter, then it follows that...RUH ROH! I certainly shouldn't have been operating a motorized two-wheeled vehicle! Thank God the ride didn't end with me having a motorcycle accident!

In hindsight, it also didn't help that I'd drunk a cold beer to go with the meal, as I later learned that alcohol hinders the rewarming process. Clearly, I should have asked for a hot beverage instead of a cold beer! (Internet says to avoid caffeinated drinks when suffering from mild hypothermia, so I changed "hot coffee" to "hot beverage".)

Afterwards I wondered whether maybe I should have taken a warm bath, but the internet says no.

Anyway, I didn't need the internet to tell me I felt terrible. I already knew that.

Deciding What to Do Next

Before I dozed off around 2 a.m., I thought about what to do next. On the one hand, the rest of the trip should be less harrowing since the temperatures would be higher as I headed further south. In theory, there was no reason why I couldn't make it to the balmy environs of Key West, but...then I looked at the five day forecast and realized that it was the return trip that would be a problem. The weather in Georgia was forecasted to be similarly cold and possibly rainy, which is a very, very bad combination. I'd already avoided catastrophe once, so I didn't want to be a complete moron and take additional risk by challenging the cold weather bear to a second wrestling match in the rain.

So...alas, I admitted defeat at the hands of the mighty and uncaring weather forces. I would pull the plug on the trip to Key West.

Once the temperature warmed up the next day, I rode the bike to the parking garage at the Jacksonville airport and caught a flight back to Atlanta. (I felt so defeated that I didn't even want to ride the bike home.) The trip home was uneventful except when the airport security personnel asked me if I had any liquids in my backpack. "No," I replied.

Sadly, however, I had to eat my words when I saw the security guy pull a quart of motor oil from my backpack. Doh! I'd forgotten that I brought motor oil with me in case I needed it for the 1,700 mile round trip to Key West. Ugh, I was so embarrassed over forgetting that the oil was still in my backpack! Well...I suppose the trip was a disaster in many ways, but at least I survived it.

Anyway, I made it home safely and waited until the weather was warmer before going back to Jacksonville to retrieve the bike. Two weeks later the weather cooperated, so I flew back to Jacksonville, retrieved the bike from the parking garage, and rode the bike back home with no issues other than my fuel economy was about 60 mpg—noticeably lower than my usual 70 mpg. Hmm. (According to Honda's specs, the fuel economy for the 2012 Honda Rebel 250 is 84 mpg, but I typically got 70 mpg under my normal riding conditions. I only achieved 84 mpg when I was riding on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a scenic road with few traffic lights and a 25 mph speed limit.) I noted the fuel economy shortfall but wasn't sure what it meant.

The Death of Klugmeister's Red Motorcycle

Not long after I returned to Atlanta the bike broke down on I-20 when I was riding home from my parents' lake house east of Atlanta. The bike began losing power (so that it couldn't keep up with highway speeds), so I pulled over and called for a tow service. The tow truck driver stood me up, so I reluctantly left the bike on the shoulder of I-20 West overnight and fretted that my beloved red bike may be stolen during the night. However, the bike was intact when I went back the next day—hallelujah! My loyal red friend had survived the night. So I had the bike towed to a bike shop to get diagnosed and repaired.

Photo of doomed 2012 Honda Rebel after the ill-fated December 2016 wannabe ride to Key West but before the bike's tragic demise in early 2017.

Alas, the bike shop called me with the prognosis, which wasn't good. The engine had "seized" due to insufficient oil in the crankcase. In other words, the engine was toast. I thought I'd done a good job of getting the Honda Rebel 250 serviced every 4,000 miles per the owner's manual, but I'd screwed up all the good care by not making sure it had adequate oil in the bike for this trip.

I believe the internal engine damage occurred when I ran it with very low oil during the wannabe Key West trip, but the engine didn't seize until a few weeks later (ironically, after the oil level had been corrected). I know very little about engines but that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

I must admit it's odd that I was proactive enough to bring a quart of oil with me for the long journey to Key West, then forgot to check the oil level before I rode the bike home from Jacksonville. Doh! Well...in hindsight, the oil level was probably already way too low before I left Atlanta.

My reaction to the death of my candy red 2012 Honda Rebel was a bit counterintuitive. Conventional wisdom would state that the market value of the bike was very modest, so it was no big loss and certainly no need to shed any tears. Admittedly, by the conventional logic, the Rebel 250 had only cost me about $4K brand new (i.e., a very modest price), and I'd put a ton of miles on it (34,000) during my 4 1/2 years of ownership. I'd guess I could have sold it for somewhere in the range of $1,000 to $1,500 if the engine hadn't seized.

But to me the value of the bike wasn't based on how much I could sell it for; the value was based on me being able to ride it, which I'd clearly done a lot of, and hoped to do much more of in the future. The future riding experiences alone were—to borrow a tagline from the Mastercard ad campaign—priceless.

I supposed the high value I placed on the inexpensive bike didn't make logical sense, but the li'l red bike was like a trusted sidekick to me. I almost felt like if I walked out the front door and whistled, the bike would start itself up and pull up next to me, ready for a riding adventure.

The Aftermath

I was unsure what to do with the bike now that the engine was ruint. Since Honda had by then discontinued the classic Rebel model (the last model year was 2016) I worried that parts would be increasingly hard to get. I'm no good at wrenching so the chances that I could fix it up and label it a vintage classic were low.

This image of "a doctor trying to resuscitate a red 250cc street motorcycle" was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page.

So...I donated the Rebel to charity, and got a $750 tax deduction for it. I was very surprised that the charity was able to sell it for $750 given the engine was toast, but maybe the bike became more valuable as a source of parts now that the model was being discontinued? I recently ran a search for a Honda Rebel CMX250 speedometer, and selling that alone would account for a decent chunk of the $750!

It's interesting that many years later I tried to donate my next bike to the same charity, but the charity had by then grown cautious about accepting motorcycles for donation because sometimes the market value of the donated bike isn't even enough to cover the towing cost. Presumably the charity had learned a hard lesson due to accepting motorcycle donations only to find out the bike was pretty worthless. Naturally, I can understand why they wouldn't want to accept a bike for donation if it's not worth at least as much as what it costs them to tow it. They'd be doing the person a favor by towing the worthless bike away for free!

Note Honda continued to produce an entry level Rebel in 2017 and later, but it was no longer the classic design (chrome exhaust, spoke wheels, teardrop tank). The new Rebel design was stepped up from 250cc (well, really just 234cc) to 300cc and 500cc versions. An 1100cc version was introduced in 2021.

The new design included improvements to bring the design into the modern age:

• Carburetor replaced with fuel injection,
• Air-cooled replaced with liquid-cooled, and
• Availability of anti-lock braking system

The new design also reflected more of a "blacked out" styling. I can only assume the new design increased the popularity of the model as it's now available in three different engine sizes!

Conclusion

Recently, as I began writing up this blog post approximately eight years after the untimely demise of my red motorcycle, I waxed nostalgic about my loyal companion. Would it be great to own a used 250 Rebel, or was I just looking back at the past through candy-red colored glasses?

For fun, I searched for used 250 Rebels on Cycle Trader and found that there wasn't much inventory out there. (If I were a youngster, I'd probably have looked on Facebook Marketplace for Rebels for sale by individuals, but I'm old and have never joined Facebook.) Even when I expanded the search from local to national scope, I found that there just weren't many classic 250 Rebels for sale on Cycle Trader—only around 10!

Further, the bikes for sale (generally by dealers) were listed for prices in the range of $2,000 to $3,000, which was higher than I expected. Perhaps limited inventory leads to higher prices, even for an inexpensive bike like the 250 Rebel? If the bike someday becomes some type of collector's item, maybe I'll regret that I didn't hang onto my candy red Honda Rebel CMX250C? The closest beginner bike that's still available would probably be the Yamaha V Star 250. Hmm.

Failing to hold onto the coolio red bike reminds me in some ways of the time period during the 1980s that I served as a DJ at my college radio station. Every Friday from 5:00 to 7:00 I DJ'd the station's weekly blues program, complete with blind this, reverend that, and your baby putting you down for another man when it's nine degrees below zero. You'd think somewhere along the way I would have made a tape of my show so I'd have something to show for it. But I didn't—and now I wish I did have something to show for it!

Well, at least I saved a few photos of the candy red 2012 Honda Rebel CMX250C.

I've been asked recently why I never named the red motorcycle. So...I've decided to posthumously name the red motorcycle "Redbird."

Rest in peace, Redbird.