Misadventure on a motorcycle-or-Beemer spends the night with Harley

I should have posted this a year ago. It happened during the winter I rode my motorcycle to Dover and back nearly every day, an 83-mile round trip. By the way, I rode to Dover today. I'll post about that ride on Monday, maybe. If Jack reminds me... I had a misadventure and two good experiences all rolled in to one. I guess you could call one of the good experiences good, anyway. First, the misadventure. I was tooling home on Route 1 in January when I heard a strange bang just as I was passing a truck. It sounded an awful lot like it came from my bike. Sure enough, my steering deteriorated almost immediately. I pulled over and found the rear tire was quite flat on the bottom. PTL for cell phones. I was on a rather desolate stretch of high-way but a call to my dear sweet wife led to a call from the fairly nearby Mike's Famous, which let to a ride for my bike in their fancy wood-paneled, covered trailer. I'm pretty sure it was the best accommodations my bike had ever experienced. Franchise rules prevented them from doing any work on my bike, but they were happy to order me a tire and let me take off the wheel myself so they could mount the tire. So far: one misadventure and one good example of biker camaraderie. They refused to charge for the pick-up and let me store the bike in their garage while we waited for the tire. This garage contained racks of shiny new Harleys, clear to the ceiling. They give you sunglasses against the chrome when they turn on the lights. I imagine the Beemer and Harleys exchanged smart remarks that night: Comments about road grime from the Harleys, and about work ethic and distant vistas from my BMW. When the new tire arrived, I popped off the wheel and they mounted the tire. No charge for my labor, either. Here's the sort-of good thing, depending on how you look at it. When the guy brought me the wheel, he remarked about the axle bearing seeming a bit loose, and I should have it checked. I couldn't feel anything and I have read that BMW bearings are nearly indestructible, but I took the wheel to Tom Cutter (of Rubber Chicken Racing Garage fame) up in Yardley, and sure enough, the bearing was just going bad. It cost me about as much as the tire job to get the bearing replaced plus two work-equivalent commutes, but I have a good new bearing and an undamaged wheel. Tom remarked that the guy at Mike's didn't have to tell me anything about the bearing, and it was almost unnoticeable, so he was kind and on the ball to boot. Good that he warned me, bad that he needed to. Good that the Mike's Famous people were so friendly and helpful. I guess the good guys win.