I’ll update this later so check back to this post, but we had a long day, dealing with some mechanical issues.. will try and update tonight

Well, I’m finally getting the chance to update. Day 2 started early from St. George at 7:30 am and it was cool. We decided to bypass Zion National Park and take another way to Knab UT which skirts the northern side of the Grand Canyon and it was quite nice. From there we headed towards Page AZ just pass the dam for the Lake Powel area.

Since we are taking back roads, we always are slowing down, hitting stop signs or traffic lights in the towns and eventually speed back up as we head towards the next town, which out here can be 60-90 miles.

As we reach cruising speeds and pass several other cars, at about the 10 mile mark I don’t see rick in my rear view mirrors. I slow down, still nada – time to pull over. I wait as sometimes he stops to fiddle with a gps or take a jacket off etc., but I know I waited too long this time, so I do a U-turn and head back. about a mile later I see him on the side of the road looking at his bike. His bike just stop running just running the poof – just groaned and slowed way down and stopped.

Lights worked, he could turn the engine, just would not run. Well two armature mechanics are saying either no spark or no gas. Plenty of gas left in the tank, we could hear the fuel pump run, but it didn’t quite sound the usually sound you would hear, but it was running.

Since he had replaced the fuel pump just before the trip, that was the suspect. Rick carries a gallon of gas and one idea was that a hose off the fuel pump fell off and couldn’t get gas, so we decided to add more gas and see if it would work. Nada.

No way to work on it on the side of the road as there was barely a shoulder. So out comes the AAA card and we are thinking to tow it to the nearest Harley dealer, which is Grand Canyon Harley (Flagstaff) about 125 miles away, or 2 1/2 hrs. We wait for AAA to get back to us on the phone….

We wait and the call comes and the AAA operator informs us that the local Page driver is the only one available in the area and doesn’t want to leave from there and go that far to Flagstaff. He does offer to haul it to a local motorcycle mechanic, Limey’s. Rick decides let try him and if that doesn’t work, then we will tow it to Flagstaff. The tow truck driver arrives, we load it up on the flat bed, and back to Page we go to Limey’s.

Limey I would guess is an old time biker himself. His wife and he run the shop, along with the cat that chases the rodents away. After talking with Rick, the first test was to debug the fuel pump. He could hear it run too, but he heard splashing sounds. He tested the pressure on the gas line and there was none. Ok, the pumps coming out.

Sure enough, one of the hoses was loose from the fitting, so it could not pressurize the line. They fitted it back on, made sure it was secure, and put it back in the tank and the bike came back to life! “How much?” an elated Rick asked. Limey said, we, 3/4 hr, let make it x. Rick said too cheap and game him 3x and we were back on the road.

We would have been delayed at least a day in Flagstaff, but this was only about 3 hours delay, which we made it to were we wanted to get without much effort.

Phase 2 day 2 video