Trouble in Carbondale

My luck finally ran out. Pulling into Carbondale, the BMW overheated again. This time I stopped to do a bit of troubleshooting and figured out the radiator fan had quit. After checking all the fuses I determined the only solution was to replace the fan - hard to get on a Sunday evening in western Colorado. Needless to say, I was very frustrated with my motorcycle. Good thing a steep cliff wasn't nearby, it might have ended up a pile of twisted german sheet metal and plastic at the rocky bottom of the gulch.

Not sure what to do, I knew I wanted to head to higher and cooler ground to figure it out. Aspen was nearby, so I ran the 30 miles and 2,000 feet higher where the weather was much nicer. But low and behold, trying to get through Aspen traffic the bike just kept overheating. Any wait at a stop light meant my engine overheat light would come on, necessitating me to shut it off and let the motor cool. As soon as traffic would clear I could get moving again and get some airflow over the radiator to cool the bike down, but this was just a temporary fix. Knowing that parts might be days away, I decided to point my bike home and see how far it got me. The first stretch was over Independence Pass, which was quite difficult because of the slow traffic. I bet my engine light came on 10 times while trying to get over this pass, each time necessitating a shutdown and cooloff. Very frustrating.

Once I got over the pass then I could keep the bike moving and cool air flowing over the radiator. Even in 100+ temps, as long as the bike was moving at least 35 mph I didn't have any further trouble. Riding until dark, I made it to eastern Colorado. The next morning I got up at daybreak to beat the heat, and had fun riding through the sparsly populated backroads of eastern Colorado and the Oklahoma Panhandle. Once the temps reached 100 degrees I jumped on the highway and blasted home. As I rolled through Seiling, Oklahoma the temperature on the bank sign in town displayed 109 degrees - too hot for riding!