A Vegas Ride Recap

My week long ride to Vegas was a great time. All told, including my return trip home, I managed to ride about 4650 miles in 7 days of riding. 1173 of those miles were in one day on my return trip home (my second IBA SaddleSore ride). I rode through rain, wind and plenty of sunshine, and made my way through 7 different states, 1 of which was a new riding experience for me. My ride went from about 75 feet below sea level in southern California to well over 7000 feet in Arizona. Absolutely crazy to think about all the extremes I enjoyed.

Highlights and lowlights? Definitely a couple that will stick for a while.

- Lowlight was riding through the Sacramento area at dusk and into the evening. Think rainstorm with small bugs near rice paddies and you have it about right. First time I have needed to stop during a ride to clean my visor and headlights!
- Riding towards Lake Havasu City was awesome. Some great scenery, great roads and lots of sunshine with pleasant temps made it great. Riding near Lake Havasu at sunset (after having been frustrated by my lack of efficiency all day) really helped reset my ride, too.
- Monument Valley, Horseshoe Bend and Valley of Fire State Park in one day riding to Vegas was almost awesome overload! I really need to spend more time in that area and explore more of the bounty of awesomeness.

I made it home after a never-ending ride on Memorial Day. Jeannette and I spent the weekend in Vegas doing some sight-seeing and attending my motorcycle rally banquet. I think it was good for her to see that there are plenty of other people out there just as crazy as I am! We had a chance to sit with other couples and talk about their experiences - very nice.

I had a decision to make. I could split the ride home up into 2 manageable days and get home sometime Tuesday afternoon, and probably avoid most of the holiday traffic, or I could grind it out and ride all the way. The shortest route from Vegas to home actually goes through eastern Nevada, part of Idaho and northeast Oregon before hitting Washington. It is not intuitive when looking at a map, but the lack of roads present few options. The actual shortest route would have saved me about 50 miles but went through the heart of Oregon, including Bend, and in to Portland and Vancouver. Traffic would have sucked. As I looked over the route I began to think that it was a much better route traffic-wise, and I might be able to make pretty good time with favorable speed limits and light traffic in the middle of nowhere. For those of you who don't get out much, speed limits on 2 lane state highways in Nevada are usually 70mph, and interstate limits in Nevada and Idaho are 75-80 mph.

Here's my route as I rode it. I left preparing to go all the way if possible and accomplish an IBA sanctioned ride  more than 1000 miles in less than 24 hours) and started keeping track of my mileage and gas receipts. The first part of my ride was the same no matter which option I chose, so I decided to play it by ear and see how traffic treated me. Turns out I didn't see more than 10 cars for over 200 miles and was making great time. In fact, I continued to make great time all the way to Ellensburg and was on track to be home at a reasonable hour until I hit traffic over Snoqualmie Pass.

Proviso lessons learned riding in Nevada prompted me to stop more often than normal for gas. Kind of like bathrooms - see one, use one - when riding out there. Traffic picked up a bit but still moved along at the limit when I reached the interstate in Idaho and on in to Oregon. Oregon has recently raised interstate limits to 70 mph (welcome to the 21st century), so that helped also. Many long-distance riders will avoid riding in Oregon because of lower than normal speed limits.

Having reached 1,000 miles I decided to stop in Ellensburg (central WA) for a longer stop for dinner and to stretch out a bit. Ellensburg is about 2 hours form home normally, but traffic was really heavy going over the pass on a holiday weekend and I was sitting through stop-and-go traffic for about an hour before it loosened up a bit. Even with that delay I managed to make it home before 10pm.

More pictures can be found in my Flickr album linked here.

My ride from my Spot tracker.

Final ride stats.

Not much going on in the way of riding for the next couple months. I have a rally planned in August near Grand Junction, Colorado, and a few more dams to visit this summer. I'll post more when I get something to write about!