We had a very relaxing stay in Roseburg along the river and awoke early on this day to continue our trip. Once more, we had no goal as far as our destination for the day. We decided early that we should take this ride much more slowly than our previous trips. Each of the other two times we've rode this ride, we did it in 2.5 days. We decided to take up to four days this time.
The skies were mostly blue and the temp around 60 degrees as we loaded up the bikes once more.
I have some really nice storage for my bike, but instead of using the saddle bags and a specially made leather box for carrying my goods, I elected to take my regular roll-around suitcase and its attachable bag instead. With my saddlebags, you have to lift up the back of the seat each time you put them on or take them off. Since we always strip the bikes down each night I was not looking forward to dealing with that each night. In the end, my plan worked well, including the awesome ability to pull my suitcase along on its wheels when we arrived and departed from the Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas. (vs. carrying them). So, you'll see photos of my bike....it looks strange without bags and with the suitcase strapped on...but at this point of my riding career I was not out to impress anyone other than myself.
Peter had his great zip off saddle bags (there's a zipper that releases the bags from the bike).
We both really enjoy this part of the ride thru Southern Oregon. It is normally very green in June and much more dry than all things north of there. You ride mostly in a valley, but go up over several big passes (elevation up to 3000 feet) as you head south to California. There are lots of winding roads going up and then back down each of these passes, and you can travel 70 - 80 mph very safely as the roads are exceptional interstate highway with great maintenance on them, and the traffic is relatively light.
As the day progressed we began to focus on Carson City Nevada as our place to stop for the night. You leave I-5 at Mt. Shasta and head mostly east on US 89 from Weed, CA to Susanville, CA. It's an awesome beautiful ride going thru the high country that runs to the south of the majestic Mt. Shasta. The road from I-5 to Susanville is approximately 140 miles. You are surrounded by nature's best, with mountains, valleys, streams, and lots of trees along the way. Often you have trees immediately surrounding the road on both sides for miles at a time. The downside is that you need to remain very focused and always on the lookout for movement from the sides of the road. A deer crossing in front of you going 70 mph has potential for making your ride much less pleasant. I usually take the lead on this part of the ride. I'm all about safety. I have a white helmet because studies show you are much more visible and much more likely to be seen by motorists. I also have special running lights added to my Honda VTX 1300 to add to my visibility with a total of three forward lights always on. Since this portion of the road is almost entirely two lanes, you have to wary of motorists making ill-advised moves coming from the other direction and watch for animals on the road.
This drive could not be more beautiful on a warm sunny summer day, and it was just that as we headed toward Susanville. We stopped a few times to enjoy the surrounding views and were always glad when we did.
My Honda has been a great bike and has taken me on two Las Vegas roundtrips and one to Los Angeles. I love how it handles and how it rides and looks. However, it has a total range of just about 200 miles due to gas consumption, before you are out of gas. We normally stop and get gassed up at Yreka, CA. as it is the first city in California coming from the north. Oregon has strict laws at their gas stations; ie: the attendant has to handle the transaction (even tho you are sitting on your bike right next to the credit card swiper). They have those devices on the end of the pump that catch escaping gas vapors. These are really hard to use on a bike. If you want to fill your tank completely up, you have to stand your bike up straight while filling (they normally lean on their kickstands), and you have to grab the vapor trap and push it up to simulate that it's being pushed up by how its inserted into the gas tank. This is the only way to get your tank totally full. For the 140 miles across Hwy 89 plus the ride from Yreka to the turn off...it's getting close to 175 miles from gas to gas in Susanville. I usually run out of my main tank at about 150 miles. So...both of us were on reserve as we rode into Susanville.
Susanville is a working class town with nothing special other than its great location to take notice of. We gassed up and then stopped at the Starbucks on the south end of town where you finally hit Hwy 395 south. Starbucks became a normal stop on our ride this time. A little cappucino in the afternoon really helped make the late afternoon ride better.
This ride is as pretty as it gets with every type of scenery you can imagine in the high mountain plateaus. I do highly recommend taking extra precaution for fuel consumption and for the many deer and other animals that may decide to cross the road in front of you at any time.
Drive safe, stay focused, do not consume any alcohol or other things that would cause you to be less than 100% on this stretch. You don't want to miss the beauty of have an accident.
We decided to make Carson City, NV our stop for this night. It would allow us to get south of the Reno traffic in the morning so that we can start our next days ride without that hassle. HWY 395 comes from Susanville and goes all the way down behind Yosemite National Park. However, you have to go right thru downtown Reno, NV, and it is always scary and crazy as the many visitors to Reno add their lack of knowledge of the area to the huge onslaught of normal traffic....all trying to find your way to the next place. I hate this part of the ride, and we decided to take it on at the end of our day so it was not in our minds for the next days ride. Carson City is about 30 minutes south of Reno and is much quieter, so it worked for the end of ride on day two. We stayed at an in-town old motel cause it was close to the restaurants and all. We wanted to be able to walk to dinner. BIG MISTAKE. Lousy air conditioning, bad pillows, and more caused us both to have a bad sleepless night. All of that factored into our ride on day three.
We stopped for about 30 minutes for roadwork along Hwy 89 (below photo)
No comments:
Post a Comment