Day 490
Phil the Legend
Anita came up trumps and messaged to say that we were still welcome and to come by whenever we wanted, brilliant! First though we had another problem to fix. The threaded insert for the bottle cage into Tom’s frame was broken away. The cage often gets knocked when we park up the bikes, so it’s had a hard life. We found a welding company online and headed off to see if they could help. First though we treated ourselves to breakfast at Denny's. Never been in one before and we rather liked it. Sort of an old-fashioned American diner, but a chain. Our server, Bibi was so lovely and the food pretty decent, with rather large portion sizes and endless coffee refills, so we took our time. I suggested maybe if the welder couldn’t help, we could look for a motorbike shop. Tom spotted one on route so we decided to go there first.
We pulled up outside a house with what in the UK we would call a large garage at the rear, but here I’d guess it’s called a shop. We were at Bell Mountain Power Sports, run by Phil Brillinger. Could he help? He looked over the issue, offered us a beer and said “sure, it’s smaller than I usually work with but I’m pretty certain I can fix it” and fix it he did. Two hours of solid work and Tom now has a working bottle cage and a hole-free bike. Essential as we are heading to the Mexican desert in the Baja! Phil chatted away with us about our trip, the motorcycle trips he has done and his future plans. We finished our beer, thrilled that he had done such a professional job and had happily done it straight away for us. What a gent. He then refused any payment, wished us all the best for a safe and fun journey and asked us to keep in touch. What an awesome guy. Just the kindness we as fast becoming used too in the USA.
