Retreat

Today my retreat from Eagle Plains was mostly uneventful. There was a dense cloud cover with some mist in the valleys but fortunately no rain. The road was mostly dry so my gravel experience of two days ago was helpful. The cloud and consequence poor light rendered the scenery less of a post card and more of a bland grey mush. But as I have learned to do from other adventures I took the time to stop regularly to take a mental picture my surroundings. There is a good chance I will never be back to this place.

I recorded a few images of a very dirty motorcycle just for my own interest.

Near Tombstone Mountain I had an incident with the bike that got my heart rate up, but thankfully only for a few minutes.

If you notice in picture 1 below there is a fender style piece covering the back wheel of the bike (not my bike I needed to find an example to make the explanation work). I assume its purpose is to prevent water and mud spraying on the vehicle following behind me. Well that fender thing is attached by an arm that connects near the axle of the rear wheel. Climbing up to the summit near Tombstone I hit an exceptionally large pot hole. The force broke the arm holding the fender, and the fender itself got stuck between the tire and the suspension making a terrible noise. My initial thought was transmission or suspension failure. So you can imagine my relief when I found that I could easily pull the broken fender away from the tire and fix the noise. Regarding the fender, I guess I will live without it until I get home.

The first picture in this sequence is of another bike so that you can see what the broken piece is supposed to do.