New tire.

Tuesday September 16, 2025

Distance traveled: 304.4

Cumulative distance: 1666.6 (oh oh)

Temperature range: 11 - 23

Maximum speed: 108 kph

We arrived near Bathurst. There are no restaurants within walking distance and we have been on the bike enough today, so we elect to walk to a near-by grocery store, buy a couple of prepared meals, some cut up fruit and a bottle of wine. We are pretty bagged, as this picture will attest.

Jeff, from James Levesque and Fillies. He ended up taking my call yesterday basically because he is the only one who really speaks English. Even though he is in equipment sales like motorcycles, marine engines, snow mobiles, any calls whatsoever where the caller is blathering on in English Jeff handles. Jeff looked after me, found the tire I needed and got me scheduled in to have the tire changed.

This is Giles and me. Giles is the mechanic who swapped my tire out and gave Andelsak the gentle treatment deserving of a new bike

I was up B&E because I wanted to get over to the Honda dealer as early as possible. Even though my appointment was for the afternoon, since we had pushed through last night my hope was that if I showed up early, they would be able to do the changeover early, so I was there at 10 minutes to opening at 8:00. Already, there were several employees around waiting for the doors to open and a few of them checked out the bike. Jeff, when he showed, was really the only one who acknowledge me directly.

I got the bike in and they asked me if I was going to wait. I said only if it was going to be done right away, otherwise, I would go back to the motel and get organized. Jeff gave me a lift back.

Well, the hours ticked away. Giles said maybe 10:00 am, which came and went. Then 11. Then noon the call came and shortly thereafter, someone arrived right at the motel room door to pick me up. I paid my bill, got some photos and I was back to the motel in no time. I was a little frustrated because I was anxious to get going given it was going to be all of 4 1/2 hours of riding time and then breaks on top of listening to the person in the room above walking around from 4:45 to 6:30 am.

More than being frustrated, I was even more thankful. I could easily have been stranded or had to push on to the next dealer. I was a little nervous because the tire had lost 10 pounds of pressure in one day so it was an untenable solution. Jeff had told me that he once had a puncture and rode 8,000 km on it with a plug but that didn't appear to be an option.

At any rate, once I got back to the the motel, we loaded up and we were off at 12:35.

I'm going to stop because internet service is negligible here - even cell service is bad plus, we changed time zones so I have jet lag.