honky tonkin'

September 4, 2018 — Colorado

This morning I took the bike to Apex Sports to have it looked over. I got breakfast at Kong's Chef Diner again while I waited. When my turn was up, the mechanic Jeff checked the fuel pressure, and it read low. We drained the tank, pulled out the pump and filter. When I hit the starter, fuel squirted all out of the seam in the fuel filter. That shouldn't be happening. I almost had not brought a spare filter but something made me do it. We swapped it in, put everything back, and started her up. The pressure looked good, and the idle sounded good. Yeehaw.

Jeff also did a much sturdier job with my side stand spring bolt. I think this fix will be the last, and I won't feel compelled to lean the bike on trees for the remainder of the trip.

I was heading southwest to rejoin the TAT by 2pm. I took US-50, a very nice road that runs along the Arkansas River to Cotopaxi and then headed north into the Pike-San Isabel National Forest. The skies were dark, and I knew I was heading into rain, but it didn't look bad, and I needed to put in some dirt miles before the sun set. The pavement turned to packed dirt, and the elevation increased. It started raining and became much cooler, so I took it slow, unsure how the Colorado terrain would be when wet. There were some slippery spots, but it felt fairly consistent. I passed through aspen groves, plenty of ranches, and huge mountains meadows. The road followed a canyon down and into Salida where I stopped for the night.