Friday, August 27, 2010

Getting On The Road

If you start with a bike like this there are some things you need to do to use it for a trip.
(Click pics for full size)



Harley makes a quick detach seat back and package tray. Oddly enough, the dealer had this in stock - nothing else, ever, you order before you need.



You can then create a mess like this.

Now the truly odd thing about the last picture taken outside High Desert Harley Davidson is the other bike owned by the pretty lady - it is the black and lime version of mine which pulled in as I was finishing loading after the 20K mile service. You will probably never see one of these except at a bike show and rarely then - there were 2500 made in one year only. A fair number will have been bagged and garaged as investments but even without that this is a tiny number and just being in the same place at the same time as one is really unlikely. We were both stunned and spent a few minutes "competing" with how much we love our bikes.


I got away from High Desert HD at about 1:30PM and headed north on ID 55 to US96. Temps were climbing toward an expected 103F which wasn't too bad as long as I was moving at around 60 mph. It was a nice ride until I ran into a storm front that was packing 40-50 mph winds filled with smoke and dust.
This crap took most of the fun right out of this ride. You will note the entire lack of a thing like a windshield. The winds were coming from the range of the right side, head on, and left. The cross winds were enough to get most bikes parked and as stable as this one is it required attention. At one point a head wind was sufficient to make the front end very light on the road, like losing traction... Yes, I slowed down.

I am in Sandpoint,ID about 40 miles from my junction with US 2 which I'll take east. I checked in about midnight (too late and too tired to think about camping) and the miles logged from Baker City show as 559 miles. I fell asleep within minutes of getting into the room. I woke back up awhile ago and showered and posted this, now I'm going back to sleep...

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