Its starting to feel like fall here in santa cruz today, almost felt like sleeves were necessary on a ride. Yup, thats the sign of winter here. Though it could just be that after a warm summer weekend in Downieville last weekend the cool sea breeze was a shock. Downieville on a summer weekend is bliss. Long bike rides on some of the most fun trails imaginable, crystal clear mountain rivers to jump in afterward, and of course Wayno and the crew at Yuba Expeditions who make everyone feel welcome. They even let me win at curmudgeon, an insane rule-filled game that involves a pool table, whiteboard, only two balls, and a thousand beers.

But the fall also brings Interbike season, which brings me to the point, which is the bus. For the uninitiated, a number of years ago, for no logical reason, I bought an old 1949 passenger coach on Ebay. It was originally owned and operated by Union Pacific Railroad for passenger service in Southern California. How do I know this? Because it still has the original destination signs that scroll the cities of Orange County and LA.

But in exchange for a free awning, I said I’d bring it to some events for SCB, the first of which was Sea Otter, where we had it in the pits


And from there, we said, hey, lets take this shit to vegas too! They won’t screw with us there for bringing enough beer for a couple hundred people for four days. And the first demo day happened. And it was glorious
.
Since then, the bus has been a staple of both events, albeit relegated to campground partying at Laguna Seca). There’s been some ups and downs mechanically, to say the least, with the old girl over the years.
There was the trip with Josh to Arizona in 2005 when the transmission blew a gear out of the casing in Sedona, and then the incredibly sad time she had to go to Salinas to languish in bad company at the Diesel Doctors shop

The time that a guy almost rammed me from behind but decided instead to hit a tree beside me and put a huge dent in the side near Boonville, California

but nothing like what happened this spring. Some water made its way into the air intake system while she sat for a few months over the winter. And I was too stupid and lazy to check before firing her up. Turns out, water actually is incompressible. So you run water through a supercharger, jam it into the cylinder, and it just stops the engine. With some force.

Luckily, several years ago I ran across a guy named Ted Campbell. Ted is a one man show, who operates a shop called Coach Maintenance (catchy name, huh?). Its on I5 about an hour north of Sacramento. When I first met Ted and told him I had a UP bus, he asked “what number?”. And proceeded to tell me more about my bus than anyone ever could. He’d driven it in the 70s as it was decommissioned and used at American Bus Lines. He knew the 23. Ted is a guy someone should make a movie about. He lives in his shop, and his yard has, shit, an assload of busses in it, ranging from the 20s to the 60s.

So when this happened, that is, the engine is now useless and won’t turn over, I called Ted. He’s not the last hope, he’s the only hope. And Ted told me “I have a special feeling for 23″, and agreed to help me out.
But the bus was in Santa Cruz. And so Ted busted out the “lowboy”.




I went up to see Ted last weekend, and friends, it was a close one. Another couple of millimeters, and that rod would have cracked the block. And that might have been the end. A fully rebuilt Detroit Diesel 6-71 (thats a 2 stroke straight six diesel for those paying attention) still costs a pretty penny even if “that’s the engine that won WWII”. And God knows I’m not gonna stimulate the economy that much. But I drove it out of there, and she not only ran, but Ted fixed some of the other not exactly minor issues I was having, like not enough fuel getting to the rack, and the fact I couldn’t really shift, had trouble starting, with reverse, and turning off…
I’m going up to see Ted again this weekend, we’re gonna dial in some shit that never worked at all, and get her running like it was 1949 again. You hear what I’m saying? The bus is back!

More to follow as we get down to business. Well, my job at Interbike is to make sure there’s enough beer and charred meat, so at least I’ll cover those endeavors. Shit ain’t easy.