Weekend Well Spent

Just as an fyi .... maybe the Forum could make good use of a "Ride Reports" Section ... just a thought

Left Tulsa at around 5 pm Friday headed for Lincoln, Nebraska. Completely uneventful ride apart from two small things.

First ... somewhere on HWY 75 there is a STOP sign. As I approached, the whole front end of the bike started vibrating, felt like it was falling off so I stopped. Then I heard another car doing it and I laughed when I realised it was embedded speed bumps that were not clearly visible in the growing gloom. I checked the bike anyway.

http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/twigg2324/April%20Fools%20Rall/DSCN0364.jpg

Arrived in Lincoln at around midnight, found Motel and got a good nights sleep. I'm not going to describe the Rally I was on, a Rally Report will come later and I didn't finish.

The other issue I was having was that the windshield is still too tall to comfortably see over ... it needs to lose another inch, and that adds an amount of strain to night riding that I can manage without given the number of hours I ride in the dark. On the plus side, the HID Projector is utterly awesome!

Next morning, 8.00 am had me heading out, next stop Cheyenne, WY, about 480 miles.

http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/twigg2324/April%20Fools%20Rall/DSCN0365.jpg

That is a replica of the Liberty Bell, which I guess saves the good citizens of Wyoming a trip to Philly.

From there the rest of the day was spent heading South. Leaving Wyoming and heading down I 25 all the way through Colorado. Never seen the Rockies before and I got to see them all day, just sitting quietly on my right still covered in snow.

Left the Interstate to go visit the Federal Maximum Security Penitentiary in Florence. That got me off the busy highway and onto 38 miles of awesome twisties through the mountains. The VR handled it all with it's usual competence. Never felt concerned, never put a tyre wrong, didn't hesitate. It just ran and ran and ran.

http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/twigg2324/April%20Fools%20Rall/DSCN0366.jpg

Leaving the jail I had another 30 miles, or so, back to the Interstate on different roads, a different landscape. Narrow road but wide open, empty and very fast. That was a lot of fun, and would have been even better had I not been in quite so much pain!

When I set out the night before it became clear that I hadn't fully recovered from the 1500 miles two weeks earlier. My back was aching, and my butt was worse. By now I was in agony so I stopped in Pueblo, CO and dragged the laptop out on a garage forecourt to look at routing options. There weren't any, I had to carry on.

I went as far as Trinidad, CO, and found a Motel 8 for the night. It was midnight and I had covered 800 miles for the day.

At this point I was 550 miles from home. I chatted with the Rally Master and figured that if I could get away by 2.30 am I could still get back to Tulsa by 2 pm Central, and qualify as a Finisher.

Set the clock for two hours sleep. Woke up, couldn't move, my back was in complete spasm and I couldn't even sit up. So I did what everyone else would have done. I turned off the alarm clock and got four more hours sleep

Left around 7 am MT feeling much better. I was still in a considerable amount of pain, but now I was "off the clock", so I could relax and take my time getting home. Home seemed a long way away.

Rode through some incredible scenery out of Colorado and into New Mexico ... Just fabulous. There was no traffic, just me and the bike and the road. Then I saw the deer poop on the Interstate!!!

Not only do deer get onto the main highway through Colorado, they have time to stop and poop while they do it.

Part of my plan was a visit to the Capulin Volcano. I wanted to save miles but the volcano is only three miles off the direct route, and I was damn well not coming this far and missing it.

http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/twigg2324/April%20Fools%20Rall/DSCN0367.jpg

http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/twigg2324/April%20Fools%20Rall/DSCN0372.jpg

That was the highlight ... The road up is, shall we say, interesting. Stick it in second, get to 20 mph and cruise to the top. Easy.

After that I drove into the Oklahoma Panhandle and stuck it at 65 mph, hit the cruise control and did the next 400 miles.

Yeah, I stooped, a lot. Just a few minutes at a time for McDonalds coffee, or just to walk around and try to relive the sore butt and the burning pain across my shoulders.

Here is the tale: (This does not show the 400 mile ride from Home to Lincoln)

http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/twigg2324/April%20Fools%20Rall/DSCN0388.jpg

The Speed and Elevation Graphs show other interesting stuff. For a start, you can see where my average speed dropped significantly from a 70+ average to about 10 mph less when I took myself off the clock to cruise home.

http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/twigg2324/April%20Fools%20Rall/SpeedandElevation.jpg

Gas mileage figures are equally telling. On the ride across Nebraska and down Colorado I was hitting the speed limit most of the way (around 75 mph). From there to home I slowed to about 65 mph. The gas mileage was mid twenties on the first half, and mid to high thirties when I slowed (and lost elevation). My home is at 600 feet, the high point was eight thousand feet.

Route:

http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/twigg2324/April%20Fools%20Rall/RallyRoute.jpg

Home ... Tired, hurting, happy

http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i418/twigg2324/April%20Fools%20Rall/DSCN0389.jpg

Postscript:

I have an older Saddlemen Road Sofa on the bike, and the VentureLine Back Rest.

They are good for about five hundred miles which, in the field of motorcycle seats, is very good. However, they are not good enough for multiple one thousand mile days, they don't even come close.

The answer is a Russell Day-Long, but I can't afford one. I am working with the LD Riders on a solution, and I'll let you know when I have it cracked. I will fix this because in July I need to be fit to ride about 4500 miles in 100 hours, and I can't do that on my current set-up.

On the other hand, I rode through six States and 1700 miles in 48 hours. Apart from the discomfort, it was a truly fabulous trip.

There are more pics in the album

Steve,

Thanks for the writeup.

Great idea on the Ride Report section.

RR

Sounds like for the most part you enjoyed it. Getting old sucks. I have had a shoulder I slept on wrong or something 2 weeks ago and it still has the muscles all knotted up.

I use to live in soutwest OK in Altus. Roade quite abit down in theat area and Texas. We use to make a run the first weekend in Jan up to OKC called the Candy A$$ run. Some years bitter cold, this year I think you all could have done it in t-shirts. lol

i just want to know what you did after lunch?? lol more miles than my butt could handle in 48 hrs.

i just want to know what you did after lunch?? lol more miles than my butt could handle in 48 hrs.

You do it by not really thinking about the total miles.

It's 50 to the next stop, then 100 to the next, and 25 next .... that kind of thing.

Before you know it, 500 miles went by and it's lunchtime

This ride was a bit different because the distances between scheduled stops was higher, and I was suffering.

There are parts of a ride like this that are just an ordeal ... but that is nicly balanced by other bits that reach the level of sublime.

Riding east across the New Mexico desert, with the sun setting in your mirrors is just awesome.

Here is what I wrote about that:

We come from the Earth, and it is the Earth to which we all will return. As I ride across this place I have the bright, orange-red sun sinking behind the mountains to the West of me. I can see it in my mirrors but the effect in front is truly stunning. The whole desert is lit up red, the mesas casting shadows on a landscape that keeps changing color. It is orange, yellow now with hints of blue. Those rock formations are sharply defined and they appear almost ready to rise and claim back all that is their own. This ribbon of highway seems to flow through a kaleidoscope, iridescent and fluid.

Why do I do it? Well there is the answer, right there, this is why I do it.

When my kids ask me "What did you do today, Dad?" I could tell them that I watched Desperate Something on TV, or did yardwork .... or I could tell them that I rode my motorcycle across the Rio Grande, at sunset.

thanks for the story and the insight, ride safe.

Thanks for the report and pics, looks interesting.

I too would like to see more ride threads/pic.

yammer 2k1

I have thought a couple of times about documenting my summer trip. But I never seem to stop anywhere long enough to explore, take pics and I'm terrible about writing. Last year I took a "real" digital camera with me to the Dragon. I had all the good intentions of doing some pics etc. I brought home 3 or 4. LOL I forget to take the dang things. So most of the time I end up with cell phone pics.

I understand forgetting to take pictures. We just got off a one week cruise on the California coast. We stopped in Santa Barbara, San Francisco, San Diego, and Ensenada. I just counted my pictures! 7!!! Postcards would make more sense.

I have thought a couple of times about documenting my summer trip. But I never seem to stop anywhere long enough to explore, take pics and I'm terrible about writing. Last year I took a "real" digital camera with me to the Dragon. I had all the good intentions of doing some pics etc. I brought home 3 or 4. LOL I forget to take the dang things. So most of the time I end up with cell phone pics.

One of the disadvantages of Rallying is that it can all be a bit to tantalising.

You go to wonderful, often out of the way places that you might never find on your own, then have no time to stop and explore. Sometimes you don't even get off the bike!

I am building up quite a stock of places to go back to, at a more leisurely pace, with Mrs Twigg on the back (or better still, on her own bike).

I need a GoPro ... desperately

I really enjoy reading of your rides. You have a nice flair for writing.

My account would read more like.....

I rode across the desert. It was hot and dry...the sun was setting....it was a reddish glow'.....very pretty.

I went to bed and got up next day.

then I rode some more

end of story.

Your writing style makes it MUCH more interesting!

Thank you

Unlike my previous 30 hour Rally, which I won, this one was a disaster and I didn't finish.

A lot of people read those reports and I owe them an account of failure, not just triumph. In the next few days I'll do a full write-up, and post a link.

I promised you all a full Ride Report.

Find it here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/05/1080799/-Endurance-n-the-ability-to-endure-an-unpleasant-or-difficult-task-without-giving-way