Wandering with Tedder and Tamara

Knowing that we would be headed up to Cancun late in the day to pick up Mom and repair the bike, we slept in and hung out in our room for most of the morning. The hotel owners (Gabriel and Dunja) teased us a little for getting up so late. We went downstairs, used the laptop to work on some finances, and played with the tiny kittens.

We finally got on the road for Cancun about 2pm. It took us a long time to get to Cancun and to find the motorcycle shop- not surprisingly, we had to hire a taxi to help find it. He overcharged (50P, just under $5), but at least we found the shop.

Joaquin, the owner of the shop, doesn't speak English, so it took quite a bit of pidgin Spanish and miming to say “I'm going to leave the bike here, go get the tires, chain, and sprocket, then come back here in an hour”. He said he'd call his friend who speaks English when we came back.

When we came back, his friend showed up on a nice sportbike. Later we learned there was a road race scheduled in Cancun a week from now. It's the first ever, and they will shut down the streets to make a circuit. It made me think about changing our plans to stay around and race in it.

The first task was changing the (stripped) countershaft sprocket. Joaquin was sure the sprockets were different because the teeth were sheared off. The damaged sprocket looked to be a smaller diameter. In reality they were the same, but it was amazing to see the difference.

Next up was changing the tires. It is all done by hand, using the sidestand of another bike for a bead breaker. That cracked me up! The guys were quite talented at changing the tires- I was impressed. Obviously, they aren't balanced, but I don't have much choice in the matter.

Finally Joaquin and I changed the rear sprocket and chain. The rear sprocket has two fewer teeth than stock- 45 instead of 47. I'm not sure where the mixup happened, if I specified the wrong number of teeth, if AFAM did, or what, but I'll live with it. I would have preferred to go the other way- more RPMs at a given speed, not less- but it is certainly okay.

I managed to get my Motion Pro chain tool set with Mom on the flight (involving Pete & Jo bringing it down from Seattle, then Steve & Jocie delivering it to my uncle, who gave it to Mom). I pulled that out to rivet the chain and Joaquin was quite excited. They can't buy a chain tool in Mexico, no matter the cost. He asked how much to buy it from me- I told him he could have it in exchange for the work on the bike. He was very pleased with that, even gathering the other workers to show it off. I know I got the bad end of the deal (the chain tool was worth more than he would have charged), but that is okay.

While she was waiting for the work to be done on the bike, Tamara met a nice fellow from El Salvador. She'll share the story later.