Another day, another hotel, another ride....
We got a great nights sleep last night so we got a good start this morning. It was partly cloudy and 70 degrees when we started down the road at 7:06 AM. We had just a short hop over to Sparks NV for our first item of the day. There was construction going on right in front of the post office so we had to detour around the block, but we did get there and they did have the appropriate signage!
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| An "S" in Team Strange Airheads |
On the way out of town I spotted a service station with service bays open so I radioed to Larry to pull in so we could check/add air in out tires. My rear was a couple pounds low, from was fine. We were off from there in just a few minutes and now getting onto I-80 eastbound for a 148 mile run to Winnemucca which we made in 2:06 averaging 70 MPH.
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| Eastbound on I-80 to Winnemucca |
Once off the interstate we stopped for a bio break first, and since we were there, coffee at a MickeyD's, and then gas before getting our next tag - the Winnemucca post office.
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| I've Been Everywhere - Winnemucca |
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| Day 18 Track |
We exited Winnemucca to the north on US-95 for a short while. This was under some pretty major construction - looked like adding one lane in each direction, but fortunately for us it wasn't active yet after the holiday weekend.
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| US-95 NB out of Winnemucca |
It was a short 31 miles before we turned off onto NV-140, a narrow, lonely two lane headed west. We would be on this for 175 miles and when we made the turn ont it there was a sign advising next gas as 175 miles... We had enough fuel, but it was already 90 and climbing so we were hoping we'd find some spots for breaks and/or lunch. We had soaked our shirts in Winnemucca in anticipation of the heat and now very glad we did as we were comfortable for the moment. It was clear we were heading for sheer desolation. There was nothing in sight for miles, and only the occasional car or truck going by.
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| NV-140 westbound |
After we were on this road for a while, I ran a search on the GPS for food ahead. It showed something at Denio Junction, some 55 miles ahead. I first thought we might make that without stopping, but after a while my shirt had dried out and it was now pushing 95 and my bladder was filling with every sip of ice water I took so, rather than suffering all the way there, I radioed to Larry to find a spot to pull over. It took another few miles but he spotted a truck pullout that was just crushed gravel (NOT motorcycle friendly) We cautiously pulled in, took bio breaks and then re-soaked our shirts. We were now comfortable again and would remain so until the next break - for lunch.
The place we broke for lunch was quite the hoot. It was a combination gas station, convenience store, casino, restaurant, local hangout, and who knows what else :-)
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| Denio (Den-I-Oh) Junction Lunch Stop |
And out across the parking lot were these:
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| 1950 Chevy 3/4 ton pickup truck |
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| A motorcycle that didn't make it? |
The food was actually quite good, if a tad pricey, but we expected that this far out in nowhere... We chatted up some locals who were quite interested in our ride. (Didn't get photos of them though!) We spent 45 minutes here including time to re-soak our shirts again and then we were off on the final leg for today - 115 more miles to go.
We would continue on 140, but it turned more westerly here and is ascended up into some elevation. We had been mostly around 4300 ft until now, but we would soon climb to 5000, then 5500, ans ultimately top out at 6286 ft. This did make the ride a bit more fun, as it added some real riding (vs straight roads) and we dropped a few degrees with the higher elevations. We would eventually get to the Oregon border where things got even more interesting. First, we would run into our first section of "chip-seal". For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a cheap way of road surfacing where they dump a layer of "oil-tar" and then spread very small ground rock - "chips" and finally they run a roller over that a few times and that's "chip-seal". It is NOT motorcycle friendly, especially when freshly put down. For one thing, until its been aged for several months and a lot of traffic, it feels "slick" under the wheels of the bike. Also, there is a lot of "loose" ships adding to the sensation of unsure footing for the motorcycle tires. As you can imagine this does not inspire confidence to lean the bike in any manner - which is kind of pretty necessary for going around corners... Once it's well aged its passable, though I still don't care for it. This section isn't brand new, but its not aged much yet either so it slows us down a bit. After just a mile or so of this there's a sign "8% grade ahead". That means steep descent, lots of curves and a white knuckle ride if its on fresh chip seal. Fortunately for us, the chip seal ends just a few hundred feet into the descent and we are back on "real" pavement. That was good, but now, as we're down this steep descent, I am having a problem with my left eye. It feels like I got some chip-dust in it and it's not only irritation, its affecting the vision from my left eye. I manage to work through it and just about the time we get to the bottom of the descent (in 9.7 miles we drop from 6264 ft to 5427 ft.) I am finally getting my eye to seeing ok again. We would go up and down a few more elevation changes, but the road would remain mostly pretty good. We did finally transition from the desert like conditions into a cooler more arid climate when we crossed into the
Fremont National Forest.
We got to 15 miles out from our destination and were thinking we were "home free" when we ran up to a road construction site where we ended up sitting for 20 minutes waiting for a pilot car and then when we got to go - we followed the pilot car through a 3.5 mile stretch of chip seal surfacing! This requires us to ride over the freshest chip seal possible - still chips thick enough to be kicked up in a rooster tail behind our tires. UGH! We do make it through that and we finally get to our hotel at 4:25 PM.
Stats for today: 386.8 miles in 10:14 elapsed time, 6:47 saddle time
