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The title of this post is Stuck in First Gear! The story goes back a few years, 2018. I’m a little surprised I didn’t write about it at the time. I’m sure I told a story to several people for a good laugh. Perhaps I wrote it on Facebook. Anyway I’m gonna write it now.
With lots of work planned for our land in Arkansas we decided it would be good to have a side-by-side. For the uninitiated the side-by-side is an ATV with two seats. My wife Brenda as usual did much Internet research to find that a Honda pioneer was a good choice. It’s about as safe as any of these machines get. Looking locally in Shreveport we found a year-end model that was packed with everything you could possibly want including a roof luggage area and a winch. It was also on sale for $1000 off the regular price.
Our first foray in this machine was to a local ATV resort called Muddy Bottoms. We were a bit shocked at the entrance fee of $65 apiece. But we had loaded up and traveled 45 minutes so we decided to splurge and enter. It’s an amazing place! It has the usual the store and lots of trails. It also has at least 100 spots for RVs and campers. There’s an area where you could work on your machine or perhaps get someone else to. There’s a huge, shower for lack of a better description. There you can drive through and get a shower as well as wash your ATV.
We found a place to park under a shady tree and unloaded Susie. That’s the name we chose to call it. Brenda wanted to drive first. After I took her picture I climbed in shotgun. Off we went down the road around the lake passing lots of other people enjoying the day.Who knew there were so many styles and sizes of these machines. People were friendly waved as we went bye.
Then Brenda decided that the road was to team and took a sharp turn down a muddy track. Next thing I knew we were stuck in the mud. She tried to trick of going forward and backwards and forward and backwards to no avail. She was about ready to unwind the winch. However I wanted to have a go and we traded places. To my pleasure and somewhat to her surprise I did manage to get it out. From then on I was continually admonishing her to avoid areas that look like the water was too deep in the mud too thick.
We rode around for an hour or more and finally got tired. Then Brenda headed for the ATV shower. I was not really game for this but there wasn’t really much choice as she headed through the spray. After four or six passes she finally had enough. We headed back to the trailer, packed up Susie and headed home. it was an expensive but fun adventure. However at that price we probably are going there again.
Fast forward to our next trip to Arkansas. After using Susie for work around the place we decided to take a joyride down Sunny land Road. Then the trouble started. We couldn’t get it out of first gear.
I was discouraged we had three or four more days ahead of us and our brand new side-by-side was broken already. Later that day when we got back to Crown Point in horseshoe Bend I was eager to get on the phone and see if I can find a place in the area where I might get it fixed.
It was too late in the day everyone was closed. I found three places on the Internet that might be possible. One was 45 minutes away in Mountain Home. Another was an hour away in Batesville. The third was two hours away in Henderson. The next morning I was on the phone as soon as the Internet said these places were open. Mountainhome was out of business. Batesville no longer worked on Hondas. Henderson seem to be a possibility. The mechanic was not in I need to call later.
After an hour or so I called again and explain my problem. The mechanic said that he could work on it but not until Monday. I explained that was not going to be good enough as we were going home Sunday.
About a half hour later as we were about to head to the land the mechanic called me back. He said that he had thought of something and he asked if we had been wearing our seatbelts. You guessed it the answer was no. Well he said many of these machines have a safety feature if the seatbelt is not connected you can’t get it out of first gear.
Sure enough as soon as I got in Susie clicked on my seatbelt cranked it up and took it for a ride up the street it smoothly went through all the gears. Which goes to prove once again it pays to be safe and read the instructions.