Suzanne's Blog: Day 8 - Estes Park, CO and the flat tire

Today's plan was to take the motorcycles, Dad and Ellen on their Goldwing and Margo and I on my V-Star, up through Estes Park to Rocky Mountain National Park and ride up Trail Ridge Road to the Alpine Visitor's Center. This is a ride that my dad and I did once before, and we have also been there by car. The Alpine Visitor's Center is up above the tree line at over 11,000 feet elevation and you can see the whole valley below. It's a breathtaking view, well worth the ride, and it's a challenging ride, with no shoulder on much of the road and steep drop offs on one side of the road as it winds higher and higher. We entered RMNP at the Fall River entrance and started working our way up, past Sheep Lake, where there were a few bighorn sheep hanging out, the Alluvial Fan, Hidden Valley, and Many Parks Curve. But prior to reaching Rainbow Curve, right around 10,000 feet elevation, my back tire started to fishtail. I wasn't sure at first what was happening but there was nowhere to pull over so I had to just stick with it until we could reach a pull off. It seemed to take forever to find a pull off and my heart was pounding! We finally got off the road and saw the flat, and I managed to call my dad on the CB to let him know we had stopped. The irony of the situation was that I had just asked dad the night before about what to do if you get a flat and he had shown me his plug kit and told me about carrying a small compressor. Unfortunately, the tire was trashed and there was no way we were going to be able to repair it so we needed to find a tow truck, but there was no cell signal where we were. Dad took Ellen down to wait just outside the park, but they still had no cell signal, so he came back up for me and I went down into Estes Park to the visitor's center there to call AAA. It took 15-20 minutes on the phone to find out that my AAA coverage did not include my motorcycle so I would be paying out of pocket for the towing. Ugh! But Bob's Towing and Repair, if you're ever in need in Estes Park, is the place to go. They picked me up at the visitor's center, took me back up to where Margo was waiting with the bike, and got it strapped on the trailer before the afternoon thunderstorms rolled in. Then they drove us all the way back to Loveland and dropped the bike at a repair shop that opens at 9am tomorrow. Hopefully the shop, a Yamaha dealer, will have the right tire in stock so we can have it fixed tomorrow, since we're supposed to leave Tuesday for our trip through the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.