31.08.2010 Transport

Pic - Part of the Beartooth - descent into Red Lodge

Today was a pretty uneventful day. It was pretty much a transport day to get from Beartooth to the start of the Rockies. Somehow I managed to miss the showers that were about. Yet another day where I didn't get lost - this might become a habit!

The day started off pretty cool, but not as cold as yesterday. The first 50 miles were through very undulating hills with some great sweepers. I was out of the mountains and travelling through farmland now. Although not as spectacular as the previous few days, it was quite relaxing. After this I hit the interstate for the next 100 miles which is like driving up the Hume - boring as. At least the speed limit here is 75 mph (120 kmh), but the traffic was doing 80, so who am I to argue. I was rudely awoken from a bit of a daze by a Dodge Ram that passed me like I was standing still. I'm still not used to faster traffic passing me on the left side, so I didn't expect it. One interesting sight was an RV towing an SUV with an ATV on it. How's that for some acronyms. Back home I'm used to seeing some touring buses towing something like a Suzuki Vitara, or something similar. But over here, these huge Winnebago's are towing full sized SUV's - things the size of Territory's or Prado's. No point doing things by halves I suppose.

View Larger Map

I dropped in to see the Museum of the Rockies which is part of the University of Montana at Bozeman. Montana has one of the largest deposits of dinosaur fossils and have a pretty good display of them.

When I left the museum, I didn't put my earplugs back in because I wanted to grab some lunch just down the road. That's when I started to hear a noise whenever I used the back brakes, and it's a noise I'm used to hearing/feeling, but mainly on the dirt bike. That's the sound of metal on metal. Somehow I had no rear brake pads left. I dropped into the local Yamaha dealer, but they had no pads in stock, so I rode 70 miles to Helena (where I am now), but they too had none in stock. Tomorrow I'll check with another dealer about 150 miles away in Missoula to see if they've got any. Otherwise the guys from the rental company will FedEx some to me at the next place I'm staying at - 244 miles away at Whitefish - where I'm staying for two nights. Travelling on the highway without rear brakes is not too much of an issue - I've just got to remember not to use them as it will start to destroy the rear rotor. However, when travelling through the twisties, it's much nicer to be able to use the rear. I really hope I can get some tomorrow as I'm about to head into the Rockies tomorrow and don't want to be stressed about the bike.

I'll leave things off here for now... Cheers.