22nd July 2016 - Kalispell MT - Kms to date: 6400

Kms today: 140

Kalispell???? that wasn't on our itinerary.

Because of the problems with Colin's bike we had ordered a rectifier through a Honda dealer in Kalispell which was 140kms away. The part was being shipped by express delivery on Saturday morning. Colin hoped that the problem with the bike was the rectifier as a lot of VFR 800s have had the same problem. We bump started Colin's bike as we left East Glacier Village to save the battery. He set off for Kalispell and I followed him waiting for his battery to die. The ride was mostly down hill which would allow Colin to freewheel as far as possible when his battery gave up. We thought we were going to make it all the way when 16kms out the bike died. We had done 120kms with the lights off and ABS disconnected to minimise power consumption. We stopped outside an RV Park and called a tow company. It was going to take the tow truck between 60 and 90 minutes to get to us so Colin walked across the road to a fruit stall and bought some apples, peaches plus cheese and that was lunch ... delicious!!

Alan enjoying his lunch under a tree in the RV park.

The tow truck turned up as promised but he thought we had a trike. He had never loaded a motorcycle on his flatbed truck so he called his boss who said he would come out and show him how to do it.

The bikes outside the RV park. Colin's is the red one.

Fifteen minutes later the man arrived and we were on our way to Leland's Honda in Kalispell. When we arrived  we were told they would look at Colin's bike the next day, Saturday. We booked into a Super 8 Motel just down the road for two nights. Not cheap at $180 a night but Jon Daggett who hired the bikes to us said he would pick up the $100 difference between that and our accommodation we planned to stay in in Great Falls. If the bike gets fixed on Saturday we intend to ride straight to Yellowstone about 650kms away and bypass Billings. This means we will not get the opportunity to ride the Beartooth highway between Billings and Yellowstone. Apart from that our trip will be back on track.