Sunday, November 13, 2011

DAY 5, LESSON IN PATIENCE!!!

 Day 5-

Today I woke up well rested and very centered and happy. I got on the bike and started making great time I road for about 2 hrs and found a great little bus that was selling Huervo and steak CHEAP!!. I had breakfast and got gas, and head up into the mountains. I was flying up this mountain about 9k away from town took a nice big right hand turn straightened the bike up and then all hell broke loose… Well actually just the back broke free started sliding all over as if I was on ice… Got it under control and slowed down looked down and had my first of many FLATS…back tire!! I had never changed one solo so I was very happy that my dear friend Tree had sat down a did a tutorial with me about a week ago with an old rim and tire.

I pushed the bike across the road to a flatish dirt patch off of the highway 1. I kicked the bike onto the center stand and threw my bags on the handle bars thus bringing the back tire off of the ground. I had to kick my wrench to break the bolt free then was able to slip the axle off. The Disc brake setup came of easily then I rolled the tire forward and was able to roll the chain off.  I place the tire on the ground and got to work with the tire irons, when I got the tube out there wasn’t small hole to patch up.. it had blown a hole bigger then a poolball out, I had ran over a huge staple that was still in the tire. All said and done it took me over an hour to get a new tube on and get it back on the bike. Hardest part was getting the tire off the rim and raplacing  the Disc setup back on. I then put air back in but figured out that I had bought the wrong size CO2 but was able to put small cardboard at the bottom to make it fit. Although after I got about 20psi the pump broke. So I started to put the luggage back on, as I was getting ready a BMW GS1200 past me heading South. At this point I had gained a lot of knowledge of my bike but had lost about 2hrs total of riding time.

I was making good headway when I came upon a sign saying no servcices 240k I had already road 140k so I didn’t think I would make it with out more gas or having to use my back up. So I saw a man selling gas by the jugs, I got 4 liters and was on my way. I passed a tire place saw there was other bikers so stopped to see if they had tubes, they did not. I was asked by one of the bikers who was on a nice Ducati if I had a correct wrench for his axtle he too had a flat, I did not.

I kept going nowhere to stop, that’s when I realized I was not going to make it before dark, started to get a little worried. I pulled into town about 5 minutes till dark I passed a gast station in looking for hotel. Found it and it was closed, the next one was another 40k up the way. I luckily saw that BMW again and waved him down. He was looking for a hotel too, we decided to ride together through the dark and find a place to sleep. About 5k out of town I ran out of gas (bonehead move) was too worried about finding a place to stay. I put my reserve gas in the tank from my rack and headed on my way with my new friend. Got to the next town grabbed gas and tried to find a hotel but they were all $70 plus bucks. We headed out of town to the next town Guerrero Negro. We finally found a place for 30bucks so we split it and got our gear off the bikes and went and had dinner. I know it is bad to ride at night in Mexico but sometimes you have no choice.. Due to flat tire I was put in a bind.

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