Minnesota - Duluth

Last night when I went outside to give the bike a bit of a clean, I noticed a small pool of oil near the rear tyre. Closer inspection revealed some oil leaking out of the right-rear shock absorber. What was intended to be a later start the next day with a short ride after a sleep in, meant that we would instead have an early start in the morning to get to the nearest Harley Davidson dealership by opening time.

We were up at 7:00am, ate breakfast and then headed north on Highway 53. We were outside the doors of the Lake Chippewa Harley Dealership right on opening time at 8:30am. The guys there were fantastic. The shock absorber had blown a seal (no surprise given some of the rough roads we have been on, especially the goat track caused by road construction through Zion National Park in Utah!). This of course got me on to my current 'hobby horse' about road works. The Service Manager said that Wiconson is also not renowned for 'smooth' roads. He said there are two seasons - winter , followed by road construction and mosquitoes! He was right about the bugs. We walked down the road from the motel to a 'mom & pop' diner last night and nearly got eaten alive! The same thing waiting at lights this morning when we left Eau Claire.

Fortunately the Service Dept. had the right part in stock and we were back on the road again within the hour (& all costs covered by warranty - all good). Apparantly the dealership had noticed that some of the 2009 and 2010 model Harleys have been blowing out shocks - so have started keeping them in stock.

We stopped for a coffee at Rice Lake and then headed through to our stop for the day - Duluth, Minnesota. Duluth is Minnesota's 3rd largest city and has a very busy port on Lake Superior (the world's largest lake). It was quite a buzz riding over the Aerial Lift Bridge that links the mainland to the mouth of the Duluth harbour (with a 385 foot, 115 metre span).

As our motel room wasn't ready, we decided to go for a ride through the city and link up with the famous Highway 61. For those of you who are music fans - Duluth is the birthplace of Bob Dylan (they have a street named after him). Highway 61 is a scenic route that follows the north shore of Lake Superior from Duluth all the way to the Canadian border. The highway was also used in the title of Dylan's landmark album 'Highway 61 Revisited'. Tracee & I cruised about 20 miles up 61 and stopped at the town of Two Harbours' for an icecream sundae (love icecream in the USA), and then headed back to Duluth for the evening.