Day 64. Fallon, Nevada.
Got up early today to embark on our longest motorcycling day so far.. The plan was to cover 350 miles to Lake Tahoe along Route 50 (America's Loneliest Highway!). There are very few towns and facilities and we needed to plan the fuel stops carefully, especially given the fuel economy of Jane's bike recently.
The first 200 miles went to plan and were covered fairly quickly, so we decided to break the journey at Sand Mountain Recreation Area. Unfortunately the stop turned out to be a little longer than planned as Mark's bike suffered a puncture on the entrance road. Neither of us had phone reception and there was no internet access so we couldn't call for help.
Our attempt at a repair with a canister of sealant failed so we were stuck. Luckily a very helpful chap and his family came along (Tyler, Miriam and Cody - thanks guys!), and we were able to get the tyre mended using the repair kit from his dune buggy.
All was well and we were back on the road fairly quickly. Unfortunately the repair didn't make it back to the next big town (the hole was just too big) and we were again stranded at the side of the highway. Again there was no phone reception and there was the added complication of no hard shoulder and a 70mph running lane next to the bike. This caused more problems after a few minutes as one of the large camper vans failed to move over and the wind from it knocked the bike over. It was a hard task to right the bike (still don't know how we did it) but we managed it and moved it to more level ground.
After that it was tow truck time. Jane headed off to Fallon, 20 miles away, and negotiated over 40 minutes with the insurance company for a tow truck (using the petrol station phone). Meanwhile the weather had closed in and Mark was using the bike to shelter from the wind and rain! Whilst waiting 7 or 8 very nice people stopped to offer assistance. In the end Jane returned with the tow truck and we managed to get the now broken bike to the Motel 6.
We still don't know how we're going to get this fixed tomorrow so that we can continue but I'm sure we'll figure something out! All in all not the day we had planned but we were blown away by the attitude and helpfulness of all the people we met today.