Turns out I slept like a rock in my room at the Sportsmens Motel in Port Angeles. I drowned the noisy traffic out with a fan even tho I couldn't leave the window open due to the noise.
I rode down the road a couple of miles and had breakfast at Precillas. It was part of an old bowling alley... Food was good tho!
Worried about my front tire, I called the only place in town, Port Angeles Powersports. They had a tire, but when I explained that I was traveling and would like to get back on the road asap and that I would remove and reinstall the wheel on the bike (a big part of the work) his reply was that he thought they should be able to get it done by the end of the day, probably.... I wasn't real happy with that answer. With a machine, changing a tire takes all of about 10 minutes max. Maybe 15 with a spin balancing, 20 if you're just plain slow. The answer he should have given me was "we should be able to have you on the road in an hour or so max and we thank you for paying $50 more for the tire than you can get it for, plus another $30-$40 for mount and balance". I took a good look at the tire and decided to go ride Hurricane Ridge and back and then see how my tire looked.
Hurricane Ridge costs $15 for a guy on a motorcycle to get it. My reaction was similar to my reaction at Glacier...huh??? But remembering the Going to the Sum road I paid the fee. Goiing to the Sun road it was not, but it was pretty damn awesome!! I got on the road early so traffic was minimal. Good thing cause the road up to the ridge was super twisty. You didn't even have to go very fast to enjoy the heck out of it! I took it extra easy tho on account of my front tire.
The view from the top was absolutely epic. This is a panorama shot. Looking out over the Olympic Mountains really did make you feel like you are on the top of the world.
That valley down there full of clouds was particularly cool.
Back down the hill I went and when I got to the bottom I took a look at my front tire and decided to take my chances see If I could gey home on it. Nearly all of my route was in areas where people would be driving by all the time and mostof it included cell phone reception...so getting stranded in the middle of nowhere was unlikely. I also cut some of the curvy extras out in hopes of making it last.
I headed West thru Forks and out to the coast. 101 going down this part of the coast is kind of crappy. The road has about 200 yards of dense forest between you and the ocean (plus the beach) so for the most part you really don't even know you're following the coast except for an occasional glimpse.
Almost at the end of the section that follows the beach there's a great little pullout where you can actually see down the beach a ways.
After this 101 heads inland again. I had no idea there were so many long straight stretches anywhere on hwy 101! Seemed to go on forever.
Ended up eating lunch in Aberdeen, WA. When I came out I looked at my front tire and much to my dismay I round it almost flat. Not knowing how long it took to get that way I figured I'd add air and see how long it took to go down again. I made it and 10 miles before I could feel it getting low so I pulled over at a 7-11 with an air pump and a shady picnic table and weighed my options.
First, I called Annie and ask her to hook the atv trailer to the truck, push the 6x6 off of it and head this way.
After. Moment or two I figured why not se if there were any bike shops in Aberdeen that had a tire. There are very few bike shops in Aberdeen period and none with a tire similar to mine. I did however find Alfies Motorcycle shop. The guy there had a used tire (the right size and style) that he said I could have, I just needed to pay to have it changed. When I got there the shop was one of those that looked like it had been there for 100 years. Crap everywhere. The guy behind the counter showed me the tire and I said where do you want me to work on the bike? (I had to remove and reinstal the wheel on the bike.) I ended up doing it right on the sidewalk in front of his store. He gave me a stool to sit on which makes it much easier and I whipped out my tool kit which I already knew had everything I needed to pull either the front or rear wheel. 10 minutes later I handed him the wheel. He changed the tire by hand and checked it for rough balance and I put the wheel back on the bike. All done in about 45 minutes without a tire changing machine and including a lot of time yacking about motorcycle hill-climbing. Apparently the guy (yes I forgot his name...) is pretty well known for that.
He asked for $30 and I gave him two $20's and bid him a'due.
Nice guy. I'll bet he's changed thousands of tires by hand like that.
So from there I took the less scenic route home and arrived at about 7:00 PM
So here's the stats from my trip via my GPS:
2521.9 miles total over seven days. 55 mph moving average (that's only while moving). 46 hours and 4 minutes riding (moving time).
The max speed was on the first day down on some long, straight roads with rock and barbed wire free ditches in Eastern Oregon. They say this thing will do about 155 mph, but I'm not planning on proving that out any time soon. I did feel comfortable pushing the bike a little though. It was smooth and comfortable at that speed and it had a lot more to give!
These are what 2500 miles of bugs and dirt look like. The dirt on the wheels is mainly from those sections of gravel and/or chip-sealed road I ran into. Bugs...I wiped the headlights off the first couple of days but gave up because I could see my glass cleaner that I primarily use to clean my helmet face shield and the upper part of the windshield was going to run out. It did, this morning. I added water to the bottle and made due.
Tires... In hindsight, since I have a brand new set of tires sitting here in my garage I should have just put them on before I left on this trip. Thing is, the tires that are on the bike had about 2800 miles on them. On my old bike I would usually get 5-6000 miles from a rear tire and more than twice that from a front time. Being that this was my first set of new tires on this bike I did not know how long they would last...however, these tires are of different construction than my old bike's tires and they are specifically supposed to last a little longer. Plus the majority of the folks on the FJR1300 forums I frequent said 6-8000 miles is normal for these tires on this bike. With all that in mind I figured leaving on a 2500 mile trip, plus 2800 miles already on the tires should leave me with a total of 5300 miles. That should have worked out just about right.
What I didn't count on was speed limits in Idaho and Montana and several days of riding curvy roads at much higher than Oregon and Washingntons 55 mph speed limits. That and being a slightly larger than average guy on a fairly heavy bike compounded and significantly accelerated the wear on the tires, especially the front tire.
In hindsight, I'll just throw the new ones on next time (I change my own tires in my garage.) and save the half used ones for a time when I'm short on cash or the time it takes to order a new set and have them shipped to me.
I sort of missed out on fully enjoying some of the best curvy roads due to having to baby the ailing front tire. Kind of defeats the purpose.
In the end I got home safely and had an awesome trip. I got to see and ride thru a bunch of the roads and places I've had on my list for many years. This is the longest ride I've ever done and definitely the longest by myself. I was concerned that I would be lonely or bored but In the end I wasn't. Spending some time visiting with my Aunt Carol and Uncle Charlie and thier kids helped with that of course.
Honestly I feel like I could hop back on the bike tomorrow morning and keep going....but not until change both tires, change the oil and filters, and wash off all the bugs and dirt and crap off of my bike. Then I'll be ready for the next adventure.