latest trip to The Big Orange

It's been since April I was talking with a co-worker on a business travel week to SoCal...  I was chatting up about thinking I need a new bike, but you know the rule.  "You have to sell one if you want to buy a one."  But I can't sell a bike that has fewer miles than 45-50k...

'89 Katana ~47k
'82 GL1100 ~109k

'98 VTR? ~32k

So the co-worker says...  "We need to set some goals for you!" "50k by the end of the summer, you've got 3 months."

So I started commuting on the bike, and thinking bike trips for the year.  You remember the new Givi addition:

http://tuckerandkaryn.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-little-project-ive-been-working-on.html

I started working on a bike trip to Madison for IMWI, we could have ridden to the black hills for labor day, then over to twin cities, flew someplace to work, then back and take the bikes to Madison (1246mi), and home (964mi).  With of course some odds and ends riding for ~2500mi.

Didn't happen, but you saw the AK trip instead.

So I started working on a trip to the Irvine office instead...  ~1k mi each way.  Sperry wasn't able to meet me in Vegas on Saturday, and Karyn wasn't able to ride part way out with me...  I ended up planning Saturday night in Lake Arrowhead camping with Sperry and the kids.

 A fill up in Vail.

One great tank of gas!

I spent the first night in Grand Junction like I have done before.  After checking into the hotel I got back to the bike and it was dead...
Some time debugging decided the ignition was shorting the battery to ground (not good), I took the battery up to the room, and crashed out.

Up at 6 with my plan to be on the road at 6:30, I was debugging some more, and determined the issue was most likely the regulator rectifier (RR) by using the DMM I brought and the computer in the lobby (schematics, chats and all).  Not being able to remove this part without major dis-assembly of the bike, I waited the remaining 30 minutes for the shops to open and called in.  Anthony picked me up, and the rolled me in the shop immediately.

Sure enough the RR was bad, charging the battery at 18V (not good) fried the battery.  I probably could have made this work with a new battery, swapping the charge on and off as I needed charge.  Thinking through this...  You know you need a charge when the battery is dead; when the battery is dead the bike isn't running to charge the battery...


They managed to salvage a part, but in worst case, I could have begged borrowed or stolen the RR from Anthony's bike and been on my way...  (I would have tried to pay first.)  I was back on the road at 1:30.  (a quick stop for gas and to re-install my electronics...  Apparently my chatterbox charger had also fried... I had a backup...)

With all this riga'mer'roll I was a bit tired, so I stopped on an off ramp somewhere past Green river and took a nap.  On the bike... until...  a wind gust blew me over...  (lost a turn signal, some scratches, my backup chatterbox charger, and a bent brake lever)

I hit Vegas at 9:30, so I crashed out again not making it to meet up with Sperry and the kids.

I got up early to head to the campsite. I got to add one picture to my album that wasn't there the last time I took this ride!

When I got there, I'm not sure who was more needy.. Sperry or the kids...  Everyone was in High Gear!

A few hours of hanging out, 12 trips to the potty, we headed into town to try for a quick swim.

We found Swings, but no place to swim...

We parted ways about 1:30.  I headed to Irvine...  But after about 30 minutes of riding in San Bernadino, I decided I should be on an interstate, and stopped to check my navigation...  Another battery dead?  yep, but enough to let me figure out how to catch one of those interstates...  SoCal... interstates everywhere... except for where I was...

I finally hit the 10 west.  I kept seeing these sign:

(no I didn't take this from the bike.)

So... what the heck, I'll head into LA!  THE LA.  Sunday afternoon, there wasn't much going on...  A few loops around town and back to the highway... 

Eventually I hit the hotel, and called it good for the day.

INSERT BUSY WORK WEEK HERE.  A new charger for the chatterbox, new turn signals, installation of those, and the usual stuff...


Friday night, I headed out to Thousand Oaks.  Ventura County. (I'm sure there are more names for this place...  They are apparently NOT LA.)  I got some dinner with Sperry, Laura, Cambria and Agean.

We got in a bit of  mountain biking in the next day, Sperry took me out on his old bike for a tour of Dos Vientos.

Then off for lunch with the kids!

And for me a 3 pm departure to Las Vegas.  I think I missed a turn somewhere and took an extra 20-30 miles when trying to get out of LA.  When I got there, I thought I would try the irish pub for dinner.  I parked, pulled out my ear plugs, got in to my seat, and put the plugs back in...  The sliders were great, and the live music was something like this:

Back up and at 'em early.  I was ready to be back home.  Shot through the same old places.  Probably not surprising that my fuel tank was in sync with the trip out.  After I passed this sign:

my gas light came on, if you've driven this road, you know that from this point it is 35 miles to fuel in Utah.   Too many miles for me to try that with the fuel light on!  Of course, you could guess this sign is .5 miles past the last exit in NV, and 7 miles from the next turn around.  This fill up, gets me an extra 14.5 miles!

The weather was beautiful in Utah!  Someplace on I-70.

One question came up when talking to my friends about the trip.  "Isn't there a spot in Utah where it is 300 miles between gas stops?"  With my fuel range anywhere from 120-175 miles, you bet I know the answer to that!  on I-70/I-15, the longest distance is 107 miles... between green river, UT and Salina, UT.  Both trips... same gas station on each end...

I caught up with a KTM 950 someplace around Silverthorne.  More specifically, 2 miles east of the on-ramp to the tunnel, riding 2 up, they were moving pretty well, so I paired up all the way to 6th ave (Denver).

I rolled into the house at 7:15, it was already dark.  Karyn fixed me up some nice supper, and when I looked at the odometer in the morning...  36996 miles...


It was a great trip!  I would have rather taken this route:

That adds over 1000 miles, and with the things to see, probably a couple days...