July 11 Day 11

Our plan for today, was to travel about 300 miles on the back roads, crossing Lolo Pass into Missoula Montana. Obviously those plans would need to change.

Rather than blogging last night, I spent the evening searching the internet for tire shops, and motorcycle shops in the area. The results were a little disappointing, one tire shop, and one bike shop. The odds are not with us!

I also posted a message on the GL1800 forums, a news group for Goldwing riders, to see if there were any locals that had some suggestions. Within minutes, a kind fellow named Paul responded. He indicated that he lives in Boise Idaho, about 110 miles away, and if I could get to him, he would give me a half used bike tire for free. He also indicated he could get me to a bike shop that would install the tire!!!

We still have another 3500 plus miles left in the trip, so I would rather find a new tire, but at least I have a fallback plan if needed. In any case, I still needed to get 110 miles and two hours down the road to Boise.

This morning I contacted the local tire store, they indicated they would need a couple of days to get me a tire. They did tell me to stop in and they might be able to patch the tire from the inside, which would at least get me to Boise. The hope is that Boise will have a larger number of shops, and better chances of finding a tire fast.

So, we head to the tire shop. After realizing the tire was on a motorcycle (I did tell them that on the phone), they decided they could not help me at all.

If you ever get a chance to stop in a Les Schwab tire store, just keep on passing by.

Here we are at the tire shop, where after disconnecting the trailer, the shop worker tells me he cannot help us!

Next stop, a little mom and pop bike repair shop just down the road. A wonderful couple run this shop from an out building behind their house. After looking at the location of the hole (in a shoulder block, pretty close to the sidewall), Dave (the shop owner) thought that an internal patch would likely not hold up.

Instead, he pumped a bottle of tire sealant into the tire to help slow the leak and off we went.

Before heading down the road, I called a bunch of shops in Boise, and was finally able to find a shop that was willing to hunt down a tire. The tire was located in a Salt Lake City warehouse but, for a fee, could be overnighted to Boise. Chris, who owns the shop indicated he could have the tire by 8:30 am tomorrow.

So, rather than risking 300 miles of back roads to Missoula, we chose the 110 miles of back roads to Boise, and to Chris's tire shop.

The ride was actually pretty scenic, as the road ran along a small river. The river was running pretty good, and made the ride a little more enjoyable. Although, I spent most of the time watching the tire pressure monitor.

We saw this rather strange RV along the road side?

We even encountered a number of folks rafting on the river.

The first 70 miles went smooth. However, during the last 40 miles, the tire pressure began to drop again. We finally limped into the hotel in Boise with a pretty low tire, but we made it.

Tomorrow we will pump up the tire one more time and travel about 12 miles to the tire shop. Hopefully things will go smoothly and we will be on the road toward Yellowstone by late morning (noon at the latest).

Our stats for today indicate that we covered 112 miles, bringing our trip total to 3488 miles. Below is a map of our route from today.

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