Batteries and shift linkages

The good news is Envy's electrics got a clean bill of health. Her battery was just bad. Thankfully Fay Myers had a Yuasa maintenance free battery in stock. Unfortunately it took forever to get the new battery charged. I finally hit the road back to Brian's place at about 5:30. I stopped at a FedEx store and shipped home a bunch of stuff I could really live without to save weight. I also got to experience Denver rush hour. Not fun on a heavily loaded bike.
As I was puttering along on I25 I saw a couple on a bike pulled over on the shoulder. Since I had everything I would need to fix my bike, I moved over as fast as I could to see if I could help. This maneuver reinforced my opinion that Denver has worse drivers than LA. It turns out the shift linkage on the guy's Harley had separated. It's the worst idea for a shift linkage I've seen. Would it be that much more expensive to use proper Heim joints? He had tried to wedge it on with chewing gum wrapper. That didn't work as it fell apart when I barely touched it. I grabbed a zip tie from my saddlebag and did a figure eight around the linkage and he was good to go. As we were getting on our bikes a police car pulled over. But, you would think the cop would help us pull back onto the highway, right? Wrong. Must have been too busy with a donut. But at least I had a deposit in the karma bank.
I'm back at Brian's place now. Tomorrow I want to make it into Nebraska and camp at the Mormon Island recreation area. It's about six hours away and I'm probably going to stop every half hour to make sure things a good. For some reason I'm really paranoid about bike problems now. I wonder why.

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