In the fall of 2007 the “Four Amigos” were reunited again with two additional members: Murphy and Larry. My friend Lloyd and his brother Murphy moved to Colorado for work. This only meant one thing: Road trip. Steve and I planned a visit to our friends in Colorado. He came from Austin and he joined me in the DFW. We had lunch and took to our yearly adventure.

About 200 hundred miles into the ride, I felt something hitting my boot but I didn’t pay attention. Then come to realized that a bolt had come out of the bike. It was the bolt that holds one riser to the triple tree! If I drove straight it was not a big deal but every time I drove slow and had to make a turn the handlebar started swinging on one pivot.

We past a hardware store were I stopped to see if I could find a replacement bolt. Unfortunately, the ones I found were not a direct replacement but somehow fit in the hole. This cause a bigger problem since the vibration of the bike stripped the thread inside the riser.

I managed to get to Albuquerque and I really didn’t know what to do. While having lunch, I called my friend Brok and he suggested to get JB weld and to weld the bolt inside the risers for safety. I agreed and went to the local hardware store where I did the surgery. The fixed worked out well enough to continue the trip but I was careful to make sure the bolt was there at every stop.

The whole landscape changed after we got to New Mexico and we received as fresh air. Nice mountains which we lack here in Texas. We road the twisties of hwy 550 which led us to the city of Durango in Colorado.