We left Regina at approx. 7 AM, temp was about mid 50’s and mostly sunny. Back on the TCH heading west to Calgary which is close to 500 miles away. Tom’s bike continues to have the intermittent lack of power problem again that have plaqued him from day 1. So far he has adjusted the float level, removed some weight by taking the tires off, drained the tank and removed the petcock in order to clean the screen which only found minor pieces of debris. Symptoms seem to point to lack of fuel but the problem occasionally persists. About 90 miles out this morning it starts again. Tom & Mark decide to pull over on the side of the road and shut it down when it''s doing it so that they can maybe see what’s happening in the carburetor. They take it apart and find that the o-ring on the vent tube had slid off and may have been blocking the jet. They are hopeful that this will cure the problem. We take back off and all seems good. A while later same issue but now it seems like it’s more of a misfire or skip. Tom has spare used spark plugs so at the next gas stop he puts them in. A policeman who’s also a biker sees us at the gas station and let’s us know there’s a Harley shop about 2 hours away when we’ll enter into Medicine Hat. This seems to clear things up and now the bike is running much better. We pull into the Harley shop and Tom gets plugs and a coil just in case. He puts in the new plugs and all is good. We have lunch and head for Calgary. About 80 miles from Calgary, Joe notices something hanging from Tom’s bike and we pull over. We find that the rubber boot that encases the drive chain to keep it oiled is torn and probably has been for a while. The lack of oil has caused the chain to stretch. Tom attempts to adjust the chain (left pic above) but there is not nearly enough adjustment. We continue on into Calgary at a slower pace hoping we can get there without incident. Of course the weather has warmed to the 80's and muggy so it's about 7:30 when we get to our hotel. Fortunately we booked a room 2 days ago because we knew that the Calgary Stampede is a huge draw and rooms were difficult to get. We ended up having to upscale a bit to the Sheraton. We have dinner and get the info on where the Harley dealer (2 of them) is for the morning and how to get to the Stampede which turns out the Sheraton has a shuttle that takes you to the train which makes it nice not to have to deal with taking the bikes there.
The next morning we are up early cause we're not used to the 2 hour time change and were done with breakfast by 7:20 and the Harley shop parts dept. doesn't open til 9am. As we're not sure where the shop is we leave around 8:15 even though it's supposedly only a couple miles away. Of course we have lost Tom (using Marks bike) before we leave the parking lot as he thought we left without him. After several wrong turns ourselves because the left turn on the map that we were suppose to take didn't exist we show up about 8:40. We look around but don't see Tom. A couple minutes later he shows up and of course he got lost as well. The Shop was barely 10 minutes from the hotel. We go inside and they have the chain but not the boot. The boot is in stock at the other dealer across town. Pete, Joe & I decide to go get the boot while Tom goes back and he and Mark can start tearing the bike apart to do the repair. We get back about 10:30 with the part and they start to put it back together. See pic above. Of course the new chain is 2 links to long so Tom has to go back to the dealer to get it cut as that's a tool we don't have with us. We have tickets to the Rodeo that starts at 1:30 and is a ways downtown so Pete, Joe & I take the shuttle and head to the Stampede. Tom & Mark say they'll catch up when they're done.
They show up to the rodeo about 2:30 and Toms bike is ready for the AM. The Stampede is similar to the "Big E" but on a bigger scale and has the largest rodeo with the biggest cash prizes. The rodeo takes place in the afternoon and they have an unbelievable Grandstand show at night that lasts over 4 hours non stop with an awesome fireworks that's the closest you'll ever be to shells going off. It was part Broadway/Cirque du Soliel/comedy/music/acrobats/ motorcycle stunt riders/chuck wagon races and fireworks. We got back to the hotel about 1 AM. tomorrow were going to Edmonton. Stay tuned
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