Denver

On paper, Denver’s population is not huge, but as we approached the city, we realised that it certainly has the big city feel. The downtown area has many tall steel and glass buildings, there is a huge plaza housing the State Capitol and other public buildings, and there are numerous tram and bus lines. Having lived in London for most of my life, I am accustomed to these things, but it still felt strange after having spent so many months passing through nothing but small towns and wilderness. We stopped at a park that we’d marked on our map; Cheeseman Park was near enough downtown for us to cycle in each day, but far enough out to avoid parking restrictions. We were in good company, so I felt at home.

We spent our first day cycling around the downtown area, getting to know the city, and visiting tourist attractions like the State Capitol and the Denver Art Museum. Keeping the bikes on the roof of the cab means that they are awkward and time consuming to get up and down, and consequently we do not use them as much as we’d like. Nevertheless, when we do get them down, we use them a lot and find them indispensable in cities where things are too spread out to easily walk. Another task on my list of improvement to make to Jim when we return the UK, is to add a removable/swing up bike rack to the front bumper, so that the bikes can be used more easily.

Back at the truck, it became apparent that Cheeseman Park, was a great choice of parking location; we rapidly made friends in the area, and over the 10 days that we spent in Denver we met a lot of great people. During our stay we watched Nine Inch Nails and Sound Garden play at the awesome Red Rocks Amphitheatre, went paddle boarding down some rapids in Boulder Creek, ate more delicious doughnuts at Voodoo Doughnuts, drank lots of excellent craft beer in numerous great bars, spent several hours deciding what we’d spend our money on if we were rich at the huge REI outdoor equipment store, and were invited to lunch at the house of a couple local to Cheeseman Park. In particular Thor (living just around the corner) made our stay a lot more fun that it might otherwise have been, and he really made us feel like we belonged in the area.

Unfortunately it became apparent to us when looking at our bank accounts in a Denver coffee shop, that our finances would not sustain much more travelling. I had not done a huge amount of financial planning before we left, and it was only rough guesswork that made me believe that we’d be on the road for 12-18 months. As it happens, if we hadn’t needed 3 new tyres, and an overhaul of the rear offside brakes, we may well have fallen inside my initial predictions, but with these additional costs 10-12 is looking more likely. The state of our finances forced us to agree that taking the long way back to the east coast, by driving up the west coast and across Canada, was no longer feasible, and so we planned a shorter return leg, in both distance and time. After leaving Colorado, our intended new route will take us east across the plains via Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois to Chicago, and then on to the east coast, visiting Boston, New York and Washington before shipping the truck home either from Baltimore or New York. Despite the precarious state of our bank accounts, we couldn’t face the prospect of leaving Colorado without a visit to Rocky Mountain National Park, and so we both agreed that it would be our last stop before turning east and hitting the interstate.

Before leaving Denver we took Jim down to Jay at Couch Offroad for a service, and to have the snapped exhaust manifold stud removed and replaced. Getting the truck serviced at a time when our bank accounts look decidedly unwell, is on the face of it strange decision; but with a big truck like Jim, the cost of repairs can be high, and it is better to keep him running well and identify problems before they manifest, than to stump up for costly repairs. The interval between services is defined based on several factors, but the key factor is the oil change interval, which seems mostly to depend on the grade oil used, and the quantity of sulphur in the fuel, both programmable using the diagnostic computer. Mercedes, in typically fastidious fashion, classify all major brands of oil into one of several grades, depending on the quality and suitability for different engine types. With the highest quality of oil used at the previous service (MB 228.5), Jim’s dashboard computer was telling me that he didn’t need a service for another 25,000 miles (having covered less than 15,000 since the last service); despite this, I knew that a service was due. The last 15,000 miles Jim has driven have been fairly extreme, with long mountain drives in tropical climates, long stretches on dusty roads, and dubious fuel quality in remote Mexican petrol stations. In addition, I had skipped the last service as Jim moved almost nowhere in the year that I was working hard on the conversion, and so it had been nearly 3 years since the previous service.

Mercedes have never sold their heavy commercial vehicles in America, and so in general it is harder to find a garage to work on them here than most other countries. Fortunately Freightliner use many Mercedes engines in their trucks (including the OM906LA used in Jim) and so in general Freightliner garages are a safe bet for simple jobs like a service. Fortunately for my wallet, and for the quality of the work, I found Couch Offroad. The only heavy truck Mercedes have ever officially imported into America is the Unimog, their dedicated off-road machine, and Jay is a Unimog expert, working almost exclusively on them. This means that he is familiar with all the nuances of heavy German engineering, not found on US domestic trucks, making him a perfect person to service Jim. Ironically, in a country almost devoid of mechanics experienced with Mercedes trucks, there is another company in Colorado that also work almost exclusively on Unimogs; Rob Pickering of Terry Lee Enterprises in La Junta. Rob was recommended to us by Franz an Ingrid, the owners of the awesome Unimog that we met in Teotihuacan, but unfortunately La Junta was too far off of our route to be justified.

In four hours, Jay and his team had removed the snapped exhaust bolt, and given the truck a full service, including changing the oil, oil filter, fuel filter, air drier cartridge, pollen filter, power steering fluid and power steering filter. They also gave the truck a thorough check over and grease. Finding Mercedes top grade of oil appears more difficult in America than in the UK, and so I had to settle for 228.3 grade oil; fully synthetic, but not in Mercedes’ top specification band. I had bought a complete set of service parts with me from the UK (although no fluids), meaning that I didn’t need to wait for parts or pay for expensive delivery, but unbeknown to me, Mercedes had provided me with an incorrect air filter. Thankfully Jay was able to source a new filter and have it delivered to the shop within 48 hours. Using the diagnostic computer that we bought with us on our travels, I programmed the service into the on-board computer, without this the truck would not know that a service had been carried out, and the dashboard would prematurely remind me that a service was due.
Jay treated us extremely well whilst at his shop, showing us around his awesome collection of trucks, letting us spend a night in his yard, and even taking us out for dinner. If any other overlanders travelling in a Mercedes find their vehicle in need of some work in Colorado, I can heartily recommend paying Jay at Couch Offroad a visit.

With the truck serviced, and running noticeably better, we headed north out of Denver to visit Earthroamer, another company specialising on large offroad vehicles.