ST.N National - Day 4

I traveled a little bit less miles today, but it took just as long if not longer. Average speeds have dropped after crossing the Mississippi river, and I was stopping to look at things more often.

Startpoint: Davenport, IA
Endpoint: Cambridge, OH
Miles traveled: 560
Mishaps: 0
Tickets: 0
Gallons of gas used: 12.035





It was still flat for a while after crossing the river, but all green and with trees.


Rest stop in Illinois


Same rest stop


Covered bridge


View from observation tower


Observation tower


Steps to the observation tower


Indiana rest stop

I stopped in Indianapolis on the way so I could take a picture next to the Speedway:


It started getting hilly in the middle of Ohio, as I got closer to the Appallachian mountains.

First rest stop in Ohio:





Sunset in Ohio

The rear tire is starting to get a flat spot now, after riding on mostly straight roads all the way to here. I think I've identified the problem with the radar detector - the power connector for it keeps moving because of vibration, causing intermittent breaks in the circuit. I'm using the cigarette lighter plug that came with the detector, and those are not designed for this kind of environment. I need to find a rubber band or something to secure it for now, and I'll hardwire some plugs for it when I return.

ST.N National - Day 3

Day 3 took me across and around Iowa and up into Minnesota and back.

Startpoint: Lincoln, NE
Endpoint: Davenport, IA
Miles traveled: 600
Mishaps: 0
Tickets: 0
Gallons of gas used: 14.204

I like Iowa. It's pretty flat, but at least it's green and has trees. Maybe I just miss the greenery and the trees.






FJR at rest stop in Iowa





My radar detector is acting up. I don't think it's the detector actually, I think it's my wiring. It keeps resetting itself, pretty often. Sometimes when I go over bumps, sometimes not. I've tried to duplicate that behaviour with the bike parked by moving around the wires and bumping the connections, but couldn't get it to reset. I guess I'll live with it for now, maybe take a closer look at it when I get to D.C.


Filling up somewhere in Iowa

I went up to Minnesota just so I can take a picture next to a sign that says Minnesota on it :)



And a picture next to a sign that says Iowa:



I should've taken pictures like that in other states, but didn't think of it.


Random rest stop in Iowa


Random rest stop in Iowa

I'm now in Davenport, right by the Mississippi river - I can see Illinois on the other side.


FJR next to the Mississippi river

This is the view from my hotel window. You can see my FJR all the way on the right, next to the BMW 318:




Bridge to Illinois

ST.N National - Day 2

Day 2 was even more boring than day 1. Basically, day 1 minus the friendly officer encounter.

Startpoint: Evanston, WY
Endpoint: Lincoln, NE
Miles traveled: 800
Mishaps: 0
Tickets: 0
Gallons of gas used: 19.646

But first I would like to mention that Valentine 1 rocks - I love those directional arrows and the threat counter!! Now I want even more - it should have an LCD screen showing me all the threats and their location relative to me. Maybe it can integrate with the GPS and put markers where all the threats are? I can dream, right?


Fillup in Evanston, WY in the morning

Coming across Wyoming after the Rockies reminded me of crossing Eastern Montana back when I bought that KLR from DantesDameX. Very very windy - so much so that I saw a semi being blown a couple of feet to the side (into my lane, but I was pretty far back) while going down I-80. Coming into Nebraska, the wind wasn't as harsh, but still bad.

Nebraska is boring. This is what it looks like:








FJR at rest stop in Nebraska

ALL of it looks like that. Well, ok, it got greener as I moved East and even had some lakes (ponds? puddles?) near I-80. But still flat and boring with nothing to see. I stopped in Lincoln, NE for the night and went to a local place called Runza - had a great philly cheesesteak with onion rings there. For a change, I got to Lincoln while it was still light out, unlike the previous night where the last 100 miles or so were in the dark.

I should also mention, that while my ER-6 earphones are great, the left one was hurting my ear a little on Day 1. By the middle of this day (Day 2), I had to take them out and just use earplugs, because the left one was hurting too much. Of course, this means that I have no sound from the radar detector, so I kept my speed down and only used the visual indicators.

One more thing - talking to people at gas stations, a lot of them are starting to say things like "holy crap, you rode that all the way from California?!" :)

ST.N National - Day 1

Day 1 of my trip to the National in WV sees me ride I-80 in 4 different states for 860 miles. Except for one "incident", it was pretty uneventful and boring.

Startpoint: Mountain View, CA
Endpoint: Evanston, WY
Miles traveled: 860
Mishaps: 0
Tickets: 0
Gallons of gas used: 20.728

I started out early in the morning, my bike already loaded and set up from the night before. Took the interstates up through California and into Nevada.


Filling up not far from Donner Pass, CA


View(tm) from gas station near Donner Pass, CA


FJR at same gas station


Filling up in Winnemucca, NV


Bugs I collected (Winnemucca, NV)


This was across from gas station in Winnemucca, NV


Lunch (gas station food) in Winnemucca, NV

It was pretty hot in Nevada, even with the Aerostich vents open. Moving at a decent clip was giving me enough wind to not get too hot. Speaking of moving at a decent clip... I got pulled over in Nevada a little past Elko (on I-80). Officer Friendly told me I was going 86 in 75 - but he wasn't going to give me a ticket or a warning. He just wanted to check out my bike and how it's set up. We talked about riding, about my bike (he wants to get an FJR), IBA and other stuff. Then I left, but cut my speed down. This conversation with the officer was perhaps the coolest thing that happened to me all day :) .

This is what most of I-80 looks like in Nevada:






FJR at rest stop in Nevada

Anyway, the rest is boring.


Fill up at the last town in Nevada, Wendover


View from gas station in Wendover, NV

I went through Utah, it was getting dark as I reached Salt Lake City. My destination for the day was Evanston, WY, so I continued up the mountains in the dark and cold. Evanston is at 6700 feet or so, it was chilly.


FJR at the hotel in Evanston, WY

ST.N National - Day 0

So today was supposed to be the first day of travel. I left at 1pm and was hoping to ride about 350 miles and stop for the night. That didn't work out so well.

I rode 100 miles to Lodi, CA where I stopped for gas.



I really didn't like the way the GS handled with all that weight up high. It was wobbly (even though I increased the preload) and just didn't feel right. The final straw was when I realized that if I sit on it while it's on the centerstand and lean back a little, the front wheel comes up from the ground. That's it, I turned around and went back home. I'll take my FJR instead.

I thought it was going to be a quick thing to move everything to the FJR and ride off. I forgot that I hardwired my Valentine 1 to the GS. Since I had to do the wiring for it on the FJR, I wired up the audio system too, so that everything is under the seat. By now it's pointless to leave though, I'll grab a few hours of sleep and leave early in the morning instead.

ST.N National - Day -1

So I'm going to the ST.N National in WV. That's on the other side of the country - but I don't have to be there till next Wednesday. That should be plenty of time.

Of course, as seems to be the case for the last few trips, I didn't have everything prepared early enough. It's 1:45 am on Friday, and I was planning to leave early in the morning - not happening any more. I'll leave in the afternoon. The good part is that I think I got everything wired up and working correctly. Valentine 1 and music and I can hear both.

It's tough to get everything ready on a new bike in only a few weeks. I got a lot of stuff done, but didn't have time to install the driving lights. I have the lightbar and the lights in a box here - wish I had them installed. Jesse is taking his sweet time getting my cases shipped. It's been 2 weeks since I ordered them - for something that was in stock, that's a damn long time. He might ship them tomorrow. Too late now, I'll be installing them after I come back. For now I went to Road Rider and got a Cortech tail bag:





Along with my Givi V46 topcase and the tankbag, this should provide enough space. The tailbag is getting things like tools, a bottle of oil, some water and some MRE's. And the fuel bottle and the tire pump. The Givi will get the clothes, laptop and other miscellaneous crap. I'm short on space on this trip - I generally try to leave the Givi empty, so I have a place to lock my helmet and gloves and in case I need to get something on the way and be able to transport it. Obviously that's not happening this time.

Anyways. I'm gonna go pack my clothes and go to sleep. I'll be posting updates to this thread as I go along. Anybody who's not going wanna plot various people's daily locations on a map? Use the Google Maps API, it's pretty easy. I'm too tired to set anything up for that right now.

GS farkle - tank bag

BMW R1200 GS has a plastic tank cover, so my old trusty Cortech tankbag with a magnetic base would not work. I needed one though, so I went to CalMoto and bought a Touratech tankbag.

Since the magnets won't work, it uses a different system to attach to the bike. There are 2 pieces that are attached to the bike, and the tankbag mounts to them.


Tank with attachments installed


The front attachment point

As you can see, the tank bag zips to the front attachment point and then velcro's to the back attachment point. This makes it pretty easy to remove (though not as easy as a magnetic mount). In order to mount the attachment points, I had to glue 2 pieces of velcro to the tank cover. The attachment points then velcro to the tank.




The bottom part of the rear mount is secured with 2 straps


Front velcro attachment

The bottom part of the front attachment thingy has 2 metal hooks that go under the VIN plate that's in front of the tank. You put the hooks under it and pull up, then velcro the piece on.



The attachment points stay on the bike all the time, with the rear one also acting as a tank protector. The bag can be mounted only when needed.


Tank bag


A carry handle on the front of the bag

The bottom of the bag is covered by some kind of vinyl, which makes it stick to the tank and not slide around.




Tankbag mounted on the bike


View from the front


Rider's view


And this just a really cool picture :)