Road Report

After what seems like a month of 12- to 16-hour days, I got a break yesterday.  It was Sunday, and I couldn't wake up.  Finally, well after church started, I crawled out to my bike and took the long way around to get gas at the "no ethanol in our premium" station, checked the post office box (which contained material for a possible product review later this week), and rolled back down to the house.  By the time I had a couple more cups of coffee, my wife had gotten up.  We had slices of tomatoes from the garden on our sandwiches, and the Boss agreed to try going for a ride -- "if you go slow".

She hasn't ridden since last summer, so her trepidations were not without some psychological basis.  I agreed to stay below the speed limit, and we set off with the Enterprise's digital readout telling me my average MPG was at 42.7.  That's not bad, but I do tend to keep the Victory's RPMs between 2000 and 3000, except occasionally when launching from a stop.  I mean, you have to blow the cobwebs out now and then.

One of the guys that works at the dealership claimed he was running 12.7s at a nearby drag strip on a similar Vision sans trunk.  You sure don't need lots of room to pull off of our county blacktop's grade-crossing onto the four-lane.  But I took it easy with the Boss up, and traffic on the four-lane was pretty light anyway.

The limit is 65, meaning that most traffic is running between 65 and 75.  I stayed between 60 and 65 mostly in sixth gear with the tach showing a little under 2500.  I took us about forty-five or fifty minutes to get over to the town where my wife's maternal grandparents lived.  Our first break was to pull into the cemetery where they are buried, find some shade and break out the sodas we had chilling in a little collapsible cooler in the Vision's trunk.  The pipes run under the hard side bags and stuff in there tends to get a little warmer.  Life is so rough, right?

We checked the graves and talked about getting a tombstone for her uncle -- again.  Then, after a finding the wife a bathroom, we headed north on a two-lane.  There I kept the speed between forty-five and fifty-five, mostly in fourth, kicking it up to fifth on some of the longer straights and down to third in some of the tighter twisties.  That big ol' V-twin has plenty of bottom.  Only a couple of cars came up behind me.  One with Texas plates passed me twice, the second time after I saw it pulled off on a gravel road, possibly lost and checking the GPS or a map.  Phone service gets rather intermittent in spots out there. 

The route was very scenic, typical of this part of the Plateau, and the Boss commented several times afterward how much she enjoyed that part of the ride.  We took a turn over some county blacktops which rock, roll, and swing with the landscape.  There is no better way to experience these little roadways than on two wheels, unless it would be on horseback, and horses really like the dirt roads better.  On this part, too, there were virtually no other vehicles out.  No one came up behind us, and I think we met one pickup which was pulling a cattle trailer.

We stopped off at a relative's house where I drank a lot of coffee.  It wasn't all that hot for July here -- mid-to-upper 80s.  Still, a lot of heat comes off the engine and the air conditioning felt pretty good for a little while.  From there we swung up another state two-lane, topped off the tank with alcohol-free fuel and made a quick 20-mile run down the four-lane to where our county road hits.  In another five minutes or so, we pulled into the garage. 

It was about 125 miles total and the low speed had upped my average from 42.7 to 43.1 mpg.  So my wife was happy, and I may get to ride more this summer than last.  She was also impressed that we had ridden for a couple of hours for less than ten dollars in fuel.