Quick ups and downs update

I have been enjoying the roads around the Longmont/Boulder area of Colorado for the past 3 days. The riding here is so amazing I decided to take a few days to myself to camp in the mountains and relax a little.

This is what I was greeted with after my first night of camping. I guess it got pretty cold overnight. I know I woke up very cold. I geared up and got on the bike as fast as I could, mostly so I could enjoy all the benefits of my heated gear. I had no agenda for the day. Intending to keep it that way I rode around as aimlessly as possible looking for the most interesting roads in the area. I am confident that I found them, and in doing so I gained back more confidence in my riding skills. This was much needed as the crash early in my trip left me a little lacking in that area.

After getting re-acquainted with my bike in it's slimmed down state I stopped to play on the rocks.













It was nice to ride my bike unencumbered by the extra 185 pounds that have taken residence on its backside. The day never really warmed up beyond 65 in the higher elevations. This coupled with the dry climate left me using my heated gear most of the day. I am glad I didn't lose it with my other gear. I stopped to take pictures more often on this day than any other so far. I had, at this point, decided to make a conscious effort to be in the moment and stop obsessing over the missing gear.
Have I mentioned that the Rockies are amazing?

When I stopped in the town of Nederland, Co for a much needed coffee break I met a couple from New Zealand who were touring the US. To the left you will see Marco and Ursula. They will be in the US until November. They have been here for 3 months already. We, well they really, talked about how great the couch surfing website is for motorcycle travel. I hadn't even thought of that before our conversation. I think I would rather camp or stay alone in order to keep up with this blog and the ride report on ADVrider.com.



I left the coffee shop feeling very positive about the rest of my trip. I needed to replace the stamps that I lost with my luggage so I sped off to the post office. This is where things took a turn for the weird.

When I arrived I was so confused about the things I was hearing I thought I had lost it for real this time. It was the largest post office I had ever seen and the size and layout combined to produce strange echoes. In combination with the echo effect I thought I heard birds chirping inside somewhere.

When I got to the desk there was a line of one, and someone was following me to the unattended counter. When the attendant (obviously alone) came to the desk, and departed to retrieve the current customers items the woman behind me said "you can get my ducklings while you're back there!" I knew I should leave at that moment. There had to be another post office somewhere in Colorado where I wouldn't have to deal with lunatics. Instead of leaving I asked "ducklings, did you ask for ducklings?"  She did! Apparently you can receive ducks by mail.


Now, I am relatively easy to impress. There are plenty of things I haven't seen. I am sure a $500 bill would keep me occupied for a shockingly long time. I'm sure you can understand that I was simply floored by the ducklings! They were in a cool little box with air holes and a live animals sign was taped to the sided. The babies were going apeshit over being trapped in there. I would too I guess. Bree is the keeper of the ducklings. Apparently her other ducks were consumed by the family dog. That made me just sad enough that the appearance of a box of ducklings left me 92% happy. Not so bad for a visit to the post office.









So far, this trip has been an up and down experience. This comes as a surprise to me. I wasn't under the impression that this would be a challenge free experience. Of course I realize living on the road will always be more challenging than being steadily anchored. This realization does nothing to diminish the shock I feel at the steady stream of odd occurrences that have come my way. From losing my top-case with a majority of my belongings to receiving an email that it was found and a.) not turned in to the authorities and b.) probably not ever going to be returned to it's rightful owner and c.) eventually receiving threatening emails from the "person" who now has my things. In addition to the threats in the email there is a suggestion of returning some, but not all, of my belongings. The person in question also tries to help me by categorizing my items in order of importance. I'll decide what those things are worth thanks very much. There are some strange folks out there....Kansas I'm looking in your direction.

After my amazing day of Rocky mountain exploration I returned to my campsite slightly after dark. I decided to start a fire and organize my things in order to leave camp more easily the following morning. Upon attempting to gain access to my side cases I was rewarded with a frightening *snap* instead of the satisfying feeling of opening a lock. This, to me, is more than minor inconvenience. I now am unable to gain access to my hatchet, matches, lantern, and other necessities. If you're quick you realize this also leaves me unable to return my tent and other heavy camping items to their temporary homes. At this point I just shut down completely. I started a fire very quickly with my lighter (good thing I didn't lock all of my incendiaries in the cases!) and some paper, and coals from the day before. I then sat there and contemplated my options. I could have brought a spare key, you'll notice that this isn't an option since I didn't do it. The spare key thought dominated my thoughts until logic finally prevailed by sending me the idea to call Katie or go to the motorcycle shop where I replaced my topcase. Good enough for one night. After figuring out what to do I enjoyed an Avery "Kaiser", a beer from their dictator series (or something). This beer was a strong, 10.2% abv, octoberfest style beer. I won't go into detail on why I liked it - I just did. It was great!

From that point the night was short. I went to sleep hoping for slightly warmer weather than the night before. I got my wish but I was mostly unable to sleep. No big deal. The lack of sleep just meant I would be able to get an earlier start.

I rolled out of my tent at ten of six to start preparations to leave. Not having access to my cases meant having to pack my dry-bag extra full. This created an almost dangerous overcrowding of my riding area. I was pushed so far forward by all the extra bulk that I decided to stand for most of my ride to Fort Collins, CO where I would hopefully fix my lock problem.


Here is Jim, ever the helper, drilling out my lock cylinders so that we may modify my cases to accept new ones. It is a long story with a happy ending because I can now use my cases again.



When I called Beemers and more Motorcycle Works and inquired about GIVI lock hardware the owner said - "we have some things, I'm sure if you come in  we'll work it out." Working it out required some modification of my cases. Ordinarily, one can order matching lock cylinder/key combos from Givi. This is convenient for everyone not currently engaged in a trip. Luckily for me Jim is clever. He had at his disposal set of no matching lock cylinders and a key to match each one. All that was required was opening my current cases to replace the cylinders. Jim ended up going the extra mile for me. Here's how.

Step one - Gain access to cases with broken Key (no picture).

Jim smoothed out the mating surfaces of my broken key. He then inserted the broken tip into the left case lock cylinder. Once that was complete he made sure it was seated with a fine pick. He then used the upper, red handled section of the key in it's almost intended way by placing it in the cylinder behind the broken off piece. This worked like a charm for this one case. the other one had to be drilled.

Step two - Decision time.

Do we use two unmatched lock cylinders? This will be simple to install but leave the end user with a small, but easily dealt with problem - too many keys. The second option is modifying the lock cylinder that hasn't been destroyed to accept a different key and then install the lock cylinder that is made for this dey in the other side case. While seemingly convoluted this was the best option. It was easily achieved by Jim in about 30 minutes from beginning to end. Now I can use my cases and only have to thing about 2 keys, the top case key and the side case key. Very nice.

Leaving the shop for the second time in a week I felt a renewed sense of confidence in my fellow man.
I also felt a new optimism about my trip. This was sure to last. No?

No. Today I have acquired my third netbook of the trip due to my second one having a critical failure of the charger. Before today I was unaware that such a simple device could fail. When I couldn't find a charger at either Best Buy or Batteries Plus I decided to return to the former and exchange my second netbook for yet another one, complete with charger. It is so silly to have to do that but I am lucky it worked. I have also been lucky to meet so many helpful and interesting people on my trip. I am definitely grateful for that. All of these meetings were caused by problems. So far the only problem that is unresolved is the initial lost luggage problem. The police have been relatively helpful right up to the point of the county where my case is most likely located. I can't get any action there. Oh well.




What this all boils down to in the end is that I will be at Boulder Beer Company tomorrow! There will be more Beer related content as a result.

Thanks for reading.