I almost always check tire air pressure before leaving for the morning, but I decided overnight that if it was raining in the morning, I wouldn't bother since Day 1 was only 180 miles.
Up early, it wasn't raining and things were starting to dry out. So while waiting for the hotel breakfast to be put out, I checked oil and tire pressure.
Front was perfect, back said 8.5 psi. That can't be right? Recheck front - good. Recheck back - 8.5 psi. This is not good.
Rotating the rear wheel, I saw the end of a big gnarly screw in the tread. I rode over to the gas station and popped the bike back up on the center stand. I've had good luck with Stop&Go plugger over the years, and quickly put a plug in after extracting the screw. I grabbed a cup of water with some shampoo in it and checked for bubbles.
As I feared, the gnarly screw had gone in at such an angle that it wasn't completely sealed by the plug. The leak was slow, so after finding out where various Honda dealerships were, we headed out.
We also had a hitchhiker along for the ride. This little grasshopper decided that the Goldwing was the way to travel. He came along all the way to Bloomington.
We made it to World of Powersports - Bloomington as they were getting ready to open. The people there were super friendly, and they said they could try to patch the tire. I hate losing a tire with 50% of its life left, but more than that, I didn't want to worry about a tire with so many more miles to go on the trip. They had a Bridgestone G704 in stock, so on the bike it went while we went across the street for a good breakfast. By the time we had eaten, the bike was ready to go; we were on the road again within a hour of the store opening.
Back on the road with peace of mind, we headed west, getting off of the interstate near Galesburg, Illinois and crossing the Mississippi river at Burlington, Iowa.
Once into Iowa, we stayed on 2-lane roads most of the day, but most of the major roads aren't 2-lane in this part of of Iowa. This is Midwestern motorcycle touring at its finest. There were a few cars, but we mostly had the road to ourselves.
We took a brief detour to the town that I lived in until I was about one year old. We had gone through the town somewhere around 2002, and even got a tour from a woman who remembered my mom ("I used to kill chickens with her," Wilma says). We drove through briefly this time and took a few pictures. I was shocked that there was a winery just outside of the town. The area is pretty conservative even now, but I'm sure a booze factory would not have been tolerated when I was born.
It was another hour or so on the bike to get to my cousin Lynne's house. I had seen her briefly at my Dad's funeral last year, and thought it would be nice to visit since we were in the area. We stopped by, arriving a little earlier than we had planned, even with the tire mishap. We talked for a while, catching up and seeing some old family pictures. The afternoon ended with a wonderful dinner of steak and fresh salads, mostly with home grown ingredients.
After the nice visit, we headed west again, to get another 100 miles down the road, ending up in the Atlantic Ocean for the night - or maybe it was just Atlantic, Iowa. The evening was cool with almost no wind; the sunset was very pretty. By the time we got to the hotel, it was very dark and we were ready to turn in for the night.
We've gotten lucky over the years with minimal mishaps on the road. The tire was a bit unfortunate, but it is part of the wonderful world of motorcycle touring. And World of Powersports - Bloomington gets the hero of the day award for being so friendly and getting us back on the road so quickly!
No comments:
Post a Comment