2020 Miles - not 2021! — 12 days

[Columbia]

Greetings

Just returned from 12 days on the ST, riding through eastern Oregon (ever heard of the "rattlesnake," north of Joseph? I had not. GREAT TWISTY ROAD both in Oregon (descending in altitude) and Washington (ascending)) eastern Washington to Spokane then SE through Idaho to Kamiah then east over Lolo Pass into Montana. (I've done Lolo both ways on various two wheeled machines. Slower on the Spyder but no less enjoyable.) Southeast past the Bitteroots into the Madison River valley then east to Bozeman. South to Yellowstone (Old Faithful is still faithful; a NP ranger friend told me she's been asked more than once "When do you turn it off for the winter?") Then home going west through Idaho and back to central Oregon.

We avoided interstates (in red on the map), preferring the "blue highways," i.e. the secondary roads—blue on the map.

Weather was sunny the whole time but for two brief cloudy sessions, the first with 17 raindrops on the windscreen, the second with 38. Below freezing a couple of mornings and I learned the ST needs a l-o-n-g warmup if it's not going to give severe shaking/juddering when starting off (reverse or first). Ten minutes idling probably didn't help MPG!

Impressions/Observations:

My ST uses more fuel per mile than my Subaru Forester. I do not have a lead foot.

Before leaving I added a 52L Givi top case which, with the two stock Givi V35 side cases and the frunk, gave us barely enough storage space. It was my wife's first time on the bike for more than a day ride. We didn't carry anything we didn't use. I put two down jackets in a dry-bag on the top case rack, along with an evaporative cooling bag for insulin. (I'm considering a trailer for the ease of packing. Anyone backed up with a mono-wheel trailer attached?)

I used to do 500+ miles a day on two wheels. I am now older but no wiser and my body said Cut that out! Longest day was something like 220 miles. Need to get a back rest for me; the wife has one already. (Ultimate seat, came with the bike which I bought this July. Fairly comfortable.)

My ST needs a sixth gear and the ratios of 1-5 need fixing too.

Heated gear = happy wife. We used Warm 'n' Safe. Everything worked well for her except the heated gloves (not liners) which didn't get as hot as she wanted. She's cold-blooded and the sock/pants/jacket liners all worked as expected.

The Garmin Zumo on the handlebar is terrible. I'm used to a GPS being more line-of-sight and didn't like looking down. The stock location puts the GPS screen at near flat/horizontal, so glare is a problem except at night. See below for photos of where I'll move it (and let me know if you see a problem with using the bolt I'm using to support the RAM ball and arm. I've got a new wired cradle coming along with an AMPS compatible RAM-ball mount. I'll leave the original Zumo mount on the bars, change the wiring on the new cradle to keyed-power only (removing all the extra wires from the cradle but leaving them intact in case I want to restore the cradle to original status) and run a wire to the fused connection box in the frunk.)

Overall? A good trip. I still miss leaning in corners. Muscling the ST around curves adds its own challenges. I like my Spyder more in theory than in practice, with the gearing and MPG my main concerns.

If I don't think about how much fuel I'm using, it becomes more enjoyable. Having the wife along was a huge plus—she never got on any of my motorcycles, but was comfy on three wheels.

I never wrote about any of the journeys I've done on two wheels. Not sure why I wrote this ride report. Perhaps it'll inspire you to explore eastern Oregon: some great roads and beautiful scenery, plus interesting natural features and small towns. Please give me your impressions of the GPS mount in photos below. Thanks!

Steve