I used to have to do that boring drone, back in the '80s & early '90s when the national speed limit was reduced to 55 mph. I lived in western Massoftwoschitz, so the run to Albuquerque, or the Seattle area, both of which I ultimately moved to, was often a multi-day's long slog. In those days I found the time to simply avoid the 'interstate' highways and stick to the lovely, often lonely two-lane state highways where $19 motel rooms and diners choked with pickup trucks and full of farmers with cowbadoo on their boots were common. Nowadays you'll see $99 Motel 6 and Dollar General stores in these areas, but they're still worth the added travel time.
On this recent ride I did use I-90 and I-84 to get over the Cascades at Snoqualmie Pass and onto eastern Washington, then Idaho via Oregon. Once there I found two-laners down into Nevada from Twin Falls, Idaho. My first night was in Mountain Home, Idaho, where Mr Patel has a nice clean but dated joint with a decent semi-Mexican restaurant just a casual walk down the road.
It was raining in New Mexico for several days, so I lingered for an extra day in Nevada and then Utah, spending time around the Great Salt Lake and trekking to the hallowed Bonneville salt flats where speed is king. I stayed in the mining town of Price, UT the second night. Touristy Moab is always nice, with its towering red, wind-carved cliffs, abundant 4WD tracks, caravanning blue hairs, sightseers, bicyclists and hikers. The road to Monticello was under roadworks so I headed east towards Durango, Colorado. The mountains just north of town - over the Million Dollar Highway - were snow-covered and the freshness of the air was fair warning for what it was gunna feel like as I headed south. Entering New Mexico, the remnants of the past several days' rain saw heavy grey cloud cover all the way down highway 550 to Bernalillo.
Once in sunny Albuturkey I settled down for a week in the quaint adobe town of Corrales, down the hill from bustling Rio Rancho, across the Rio Grande from the Big Smoke (Abq). My long-time mate Tom has a vintage car and motorbike restoration business there. In any of his various garages one can roll up a door and spot two Isetta 300s, a Messerschmitt KR200 bubble car, a couple of FIAT 600s, two Vincents (one yet to be restored), a Honda CL175, various Vespas, a '66 Jaguar XKE, a '65 Volvo 122, various Mercedes coupes and sedans, a couple of older diesel Sprinters, a sweet, grey smoke R90S, an R1200GS, a couple of old & newer Ducati - in other words, toys to be enjoyed and played with for any petrol head. I did a basic service on the S1000XR. Day rides took me up to Taos to visit an old friend, and around the metro ABQ and Santa Fe areas.
Since I was nursing a cold brought back from OZ with me, I proceeded to eat as many of the various Hatch and other green and red chiles I could, daily, with every meal. It is New Mexico's annual chile season, and the scent of them being roasted over open flame, outdoors, wafted through the air and through my senses. It is a memory that lingers from my five years spent there in the 1990s. A few cans of Ex Novo Brewery's Mass Ascension IPA might have been crushed, too.
Departing last Monday, with an eye on a weather window sufficient to get me to Arizona, I got rolling at dawn, about 2C degrees, heated gear plugged in, and grips set to high. I-40 west was the escape route, with Kingman or Las Vegas my intended stop at day's end. Once approaching Grants NM, a low grey cloud system appeared over the surrounding mountains. This was forecast as 'light flurries'. I'd ridden through that sort of late autumn, early winter New Mexico weather before and it usually didn't stick, and though cold, stayed dry and
swirled harmlessly. This one had other ideas.
By the first petrol stop near Grants, it had become obvious that the road surface wasn't going to melt the snow, it had accumulated and was coming in fast, driven by a strong westerly. The temp gauge on my dash now read -2C. I stopped and went inside what used to be a Stuckey's diner but is now an anonymous gas station/convenience store. The hot cuppa warmed my fingers while the microwaved store-bought chimichanga settled into the expected mild heartburn, as I watched the weather, safe and dry through plate glass windows. An hour passed.
The sky began to noticeably lighten and brighten, the snowfall lessened, so I made the decision to roll. The road surface was wet and slightly icy in places, but entirely rideable, so I pressed on. A couple of miles ahead a semi had rolled and was lying in the median with a passenger car wedged beneath the 'tractor'. Traffic was light but slow. I continued. There are not very many exits or laybys along that route and even if you did get off the highway, you're quite exposed.
A few miles later all traffic came to a stop. Trucks and cars and caravans idled, and wasn't I the only single-track fool out there?! We waited an hour, the sun came out, helping to melt some of the 2" deep snow at the roadside, but the temp remained stubbornly below freezing. The road surface was icy, I was in the middle of it all, had no choice but to continue, so I did. Staying in the tracks of the large trucks ahead of me, theorising their considerable weight and mass would 'warm' the road surface as they passed over it, I rolled along at 30 or 40 mph, waiting to slip- slide away, but it never happened.
I rode for about 50 miles, up over the Continental Divide at 7,000' of altitude, past the 'town' of Thoreau, like that - you don't know you're climbing out there on what feels like a flat plain. The temp slowly warmed to above freezing. I never crashed, tho' the road surface, when I slid my boot across it from the saddle, was certainly slippery with ice. I covered the clutch lever with my gloved hand, never touching the brakes, and there's a new crease dead smack in the middle of the rider's seat from a certain involuntary clenching action.
After Winslow, Holbrook and Flagstaff the roads were dry and the sky cleared, tho' the winds made a plaything of my upper body, battering it from side to side, especially as I overtook large trucks. Fatigued and
hangry, I found a clean motel in Kingman AZ, a decent Route 66-themed diner provided sufficient tucker, and my thinman full of cheap whiskey helped warm my bones before bedtime. Just under 500 miles for the day.
The next day dawned bright and cold, so I made my way up state highway 93 through Las Vegas, the day warming nicely. I love to ride in Nevada, where the roads are smooth and wide, the speed limits set to reasonable, and one can flash past a state patrol car 15 mph over with nary a glance. Crossing one silver mountain range into a valley reveals another silver range beyond. It's never boring, there's always something to view. I fueled up in Tonopah then headed towards Reno, making Fallon my second stop of the return ride, about 500 miles of easy riding. The amount of dry, desiccated lake beds and valleys after a dry summer was disheartening but expected. The world needs more rain.
The third and final day saw the mountains along the California border glow red with a brilliant sunrise. I turned north towards Susanville (I hadn't been through that town in 42 years, when I was hitchhiking my way round the USA as a 19 & 20 year old). I didn't recognise anything until I went through the vibrant and interesting old part of town, such is the bland, corporate uniformity and commercial sprawl of much of America's highway stops and formerly interesting places. The road north out of town climbed and I settled into a fast pace through ponderosa forests, winding two lanes and long views to the distant mountains. Then came the burn areas. California has suffered recently, as have places in Europe and Australia, with widespread and devastating fires. The landscape looked more like a mars-scape, twisted and charred tree trunks and blackened stumps for miles.
Mt Lassen and Mt Shasta eventually hoved into view, all early snow-covered, like the white sails of large and masted sailing ships. From there I-5 was the run north through NorCal, Orygun and into Washington state. The rain lashed at me finally for a just a few miles coming over the Siskiyous, winding down into Ashland OR (home of the annual Shakespeare festival), Medford and up to Eugene, but then the skies cleared or stayed a bit cloudy. I pressed on through the heavily agricultural Willamette valley of Oregon, then Portland's rush hour traffic, onto the crumbling iron bridge over the mighty Columbia River to Vancouver. As darkness fell, I rolled up the interstate past the familiar towering pines towards the metro area of Olympia, Tacoma and Seattle. 880 miles and 14 hours from 7AM till 9PM was my longest riding day of this 12 day ride.
The XR did everything I asked of it and more. It is a decisive point and shoot sort of motorbike. When a gap appears in a lane, and you desire to be there, you just go with a slight twist. There's no lag, the free revving engine spins, the semi-active suspension smooths out ripples and irregularities, and the brakes slow or stop the bike without fuss. It is f*ck*ng fast when you ask it to be. One lonely Nevada highway saw an indicated 153 mph after an overtake of a long line of slower-moving cars and trucks - the GPS told another story - and I learnt later it was 'only' 147 mph whilst reviewing the day's ride on the Connected Ride app. The bike cruises all day at 75 to 80 mph without effort, its seemingly tightly wound engine humming and revving satisfactorily somewhere between 4,500 and 5,000 rpm. Not a drop of oil was used in 3,300 miles. No flat tyres were acquired, tho' I did manage to flatten off the rear Metzeler Roadtec 01 pretty good - a total of 8,200 miles on the odometre now. Many insects' lives ended tragically and hopefully they didn't feel anything as they careened towards my visor or the windscreen or the hot radiator guard - poor li'l buggies.
The weaknesses are that the fuel range, once you get over serious 'burning arse syndrome' that the limited movement riders' seat offers (this is the medium of three options - I can't imagine using the low version!), is that one can only get between 150 and 180 miles before you have to fuel, depending upon how much of a caning you've given the mare. The low fuel light comes on with exactly 37 miles to spare. In the end I got a low of 35 mpg and a high of 47 mpg (US gallon). I had both panniers weighted down, a small waterproof rollbag up on the rack, and a mini-tankbag in front of me. The Puig tinted windscreen allowed for two settings and only when facing a headwind or at extra-legal highway speeds did I feel the need to raise it.
It's good to be sleeping in my own bed, eating food I've prepared rather pre-packaged pablum, tho' I did enjoy some truly fine meals when not travelling over the road, and even though it's raining to beat the band in my back garden right now, I'm glad to be home.
Tickets To OZ in Hand/Amended to include North America Mon Jul 25, 2022 4:48 pm
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