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| I covered a lot of ground over 8 days :) |
I just returned home after 8 days riding around portions of 7 states (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Montana and Wyoming). 3 days to get to Grand Junction, 3 days for the rally and 2 days to get home. Lots of great experiences over those 8 days and I'll try to capture the best without rambling on too long.
The Ride Out
3 days and a nice visit with Eric and Jodi before I made it safely to Grand Junction, CO for the How the West Was Won rally. I had a great ride with many curvy roads, lots of mountain passes and very little interstate riding. I had planned to ride WA-410 around Mt Rainier - one of my favorite roads - but made a wrong turn somewhere and wound up riding through the park instead. That was a nice little treat since there was very little traffic that early and I had the roads mostly to myself.
The two highlights of the trip (excepting the visit with the McCauleys) were US-12 between Lewiston and Missoula, and US-93 from Missoula to Salmon. If you haven't ridden those roads, give it a go. I have been on US-12 before but there has always been road construction. Not the case this time. Smooth sailing with very little traffic and no orange cones. It probably helped that I rode through on a weekday - I am sure it is busier on weekends. This was my first ride on US-93 south of Missoula, and what a treat. Again, very little traffic and no construction cones. And what a blast! If you need to even out the wear on your tires from too much interstate riding, this is the road to use :)
I was able to work in several memorial visits in Montana, Wyoming and Utah (7 in all). That helps keep me off the interstate. I rode through smoke all the way in to Idaho, and then again as I approached Missoula. Fires in western Montana made my Missoula visit kind of a bummer. The fire burned down to the road in many areas and I was struck by the efforts that must have been required to save the many houses and buildings along the highway. I was told there were mandatory evacuations in the area a few days before I arrived.
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| My exit from the park. |
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| Not as much smoke up at this altitude. |
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| A stop along US-12 and the Lochsa River. |
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| Smoky morning in Missoula. |
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| There should be a lot more mountains should be visible. |
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| My favorite stop - Kemmerer, WY. |
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| No road trip is complete without orange cones and flaggers... |
The Rally
Next up is the rally. I had two routes planned. One went over high passes in Colorado and Wyoming and would have covered about 1350 miles. It was high on the "Wow" scale but I began to second guess the amount of time to schedule for an ascent up Pikes Peak and Mt Evans, especially on a weekend, after talking to some very helpful fellow rally riders from Colorado. My "backup" route covered more mileage but was on easier roads to make good time. I ditched the passes and focused on my backup plan Friday evening.
This rally presented many challenges for planning. Some bonus locations gave positive points (Heaven), some gave negative points (Hell), and each rider had to balance the number of Heaven and Hell bonus stops or suffer a penalty. Additionally, combinations of Heaven and Hell bonus stops would provide a "Combo" point bonus. And there was also a theme involving spelling words to earn a wildcard to replace a Heaven or Hell bonus. Lots of variables, difficult to plan. And if you ran into problems on the ride there might not be a good way to recover. Definitely more challenging than last year.
Here's the route I planned and rode:
Lots of great riding on this route, but I have to say my favorite parts were headed up towards Teton National Park and the trip through the Rockies on I-70. Weather was very nice, too.
Riding 1450 miles in 32 hours (including 4 hours of sleep) is challenging. There were several bonus locations that required a visit during daylight hours only. Some roads had some dirt riding required to get the required picture. Weather is always a factor and this trip was no different. While I was lucky and didn't really see too much in the way of thunderstorms, there were a few on my path north into Wyoming that made me pull over and check the weather app on my phone. A 30 minute stop at a gas station was all that was required to wait out the strongest storm cell. Additionally, riding this far in such a short time requires night riding, and night riding in this part of the country means animal activity. I have very good lights on my bike and that helps, but the only solution that has worked out for me is to slow down, sometimes well below the speed limit. I did see a few deer and several "open-range" cows, but nothing that surprised me and all of it easily avoidable.
My first day of rally time went well without many problems, and I made it to my planned stop in Rawlins a half hour early and ready for sleep. Jackson, WY was the only real frustrating part of the ride, but I expected it to be slow and just tried to get through town as efficiently as possible. Given more time I might have found a loop around Jackson, but it all worked out in the end.
The Rally Master threw us a small curve ball at the rider meeting - 25 points per church visit during daylight hours, and 50 points per cemetery visit after dark. I was able to plan several cemetery stops from Rawlins to Cheyenne before the sun came up.
My second day of riding was also mostly uneventful. I was up very early on a schedule to visit a church in Cheyenne along with several cemeteries before sunrise. I waited on breakfast to make sure I could get to the couple of cemeteries in Cheyenne before sunrise. The ride from Rawlins to Cheyenne is all interstate and traffic was just a bunch of trucks and me. I made all my stops and finally took a break to eat some real food and grab some coffee. It had been cool all morning and I was ready to warm up a bit.
The rest of the trip back to Grand Junction was all interstate riding and uneventful with great weather and expected traffic. The trip through the Rockies was awesome! Starting at 5200 feet in Denver, the interstate eventually climbs to over 11,000 feet as you pass through the Eisenhower tunnels. I was amused by the chain-up areas as the road continued to climb higher and higher. There were signs along the road giving mileage to the next area and I remember thinking I must be near the top only to be faced with another group of chain-up areas. 11,000 feet is easily the highest elevation I have ridden so far. This pass isn't as challenging as others since it is an interstate with friendly sweeping curves instead of the normally tight turns and lower speeds you encounter on less travelled routes. But the scenery was still spectacular.
Once I realized I was going to be back to Grand Junction fairly early, I started hunting for churches in the many small towns along I-70. There are an amazing number of churches in pretty much every small town.
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| One of many small churches I visited. They were eager to invite me to join them :) |
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| I managed to visit one Colorado memorial site along my path back. |
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| I had to pull over for this picture. Couldn't have asked for better weather. |
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| Back in Colorado! |
I did things a bit differently for this year than last year. The rally requires riders to keep a log of places visited with time and mileage. I kept that log real-time last year but felt like that process had slowed me down a it. This year I decided to take a picture of my odometer (with clock) and a picture of the bonus at each stop. I used the pictures to build the bonus log after stopping for the day. It worked out well, and having the odometer pictures made building a timeline very simple. I also made a smaller version of my rally placard. This allowed me to keep everything I needed in my tank bag and not have to get off the bike at every stop (unless I needed to stretch my legs).
Also different this year was my approach to all of the word bonus locations. For last year's rally I had all of the stops pre-planned. This is my preferred method. Because of my last minute change of plans this year I didn't have all the stops prepared and had to pick them up along the way. It worked out fine in the end (I had all the stops completed on the first day), but made driving by a sign a bit stressful.
Different bike this year, too. Big change from the Wing to a BMW RT, but the gas mileage improvement made a huge difference in efficiency. 200 miles on the Wing and I was stressing the next gas stop. The RT routinely made it 250+ miles before the fuel light came on. I estimate I needed 2 fewer gas stops. It all starts to add up. I was also a lot more comfortable pushing my RT through he curves a bit harder than the Wing.
I wasn't sure how competitive my route was going to be this year. Unlike last year, nothing jumped out at me in terms of "the route". I found several that I thought would be strong, but they all required more miles than I was comfortable with. I ended up finishing 8th with a very competitive points/mile ratio. Overall I am very happy, had a great time and plan to do it all again next year!
Riding Home
Faced with possibilities for collecting some more TOH memorial sites or just getting home efficiently, I decided to take a direct route home and avoid the extra miles. My seat isn't great and my body was protesting the miles ridden over the last few days. I left at a reasonable hour on Monday morning, stopped in Boise overnight and pushed home on Tuesday. I did take a small diversion from Grand Junction to Salt Lake City that was worth the extra few hours.
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| A nice little stop in the Yakima Canyon on the trip home. |
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| Not a memorial on the list, but a doughboy stop :) |
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| I love Utah's sign :) |
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| Obligatory bike picture. |
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| Peaceful stop on my way out of town. |
