The Road to Denver: Day 3 / Denver: Day 1

So I'm a few days behind on this one...the ride on Friday from Goodland to Denver was very nice. Much cooler temps than Thursday for sure. It was a shorter ride than the other two days as well. About four hours. It doesn't seem as though an uneventful riding day was in the stars though. We got to Sarah's house about 12:30. The bike had been making some rattling noises over the past two days, so I decided to take it in to the shop. About five miles down the road, all the teeth ripped off me drive belt, sending showers of rubber and kevlar at Mark, who was riding behind me. So, we stopped on an off ramp of I-76 and started making calls.





At a rest stop with a view of the mountains.




On I-76 after the belt broke.

The first call was to AAA, who promptly told me that they could send a tow truck, but motorcycle towing isn't covered on my plan (which is why I got AAA to begin with). So I had them send a tow truck. While I was waiting, I called around to try to find a dealer with the part I needed. After several calls, I decided to call Sarah and let her know what was going on. She (and her friend Matt) came to the rescue by bringing a small flatbed trailer to tow my bike, which would save me the couple hundred dollars of a tow. I cancelled the AAA tow and waited again. I began calling again to try to find the replacement belt I needed. I finally got a hold of a dealer who got the bright idea to check the national database. As it turns out, there were only three dealers in the country that had the part I needed, and it is a $400 part. So, I had it overnighted to a dealer in Boulder. Meanwhile, Sarah's friend arrived and towed the bike to Sarah's house, where he left the bike and trailer for us to use the next day. Whew! That was a much longer day than I anticipated. By the time we got back to Sarah's it was almost dinner time.

Friday night, we all went and had dinner with my aunt Bev, who lives in Boulder. It was nice to catch up, and the dinner was very good. Then we went to the Pearl Street Mall, which is an outdoor mall with play areas for kids and a lot of street performers. We had a good time watching the various acts on the street, but were driven away a little early by a rain storm.




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Location:Colorado