So I wanted to post a bit on my trip and give thanks to everyone who contributed their knowledge that I leveraged for this trip. A bit on overall trip background. Went for 9 days and had never ridden more than 300 miles in a day before this so I was a little worried about the whole “monkey butt” thing but thanks to my stock 2005 ST3 seat I had no issues whatsoever with that. For most of the trip it was just me and my brother-in-law on his BMW R1100S. And I know deep down he is jealous of my Ducati.
So I planned on camping the entire time but weather got in the way a bit so overall camped 5 nights and stayed in a motel for 3. Had a great time but don’t know if I want to go so far away next time.
So here’s how things went. But before I go into details I have to thank everyone that provided input on planning, maintenance, what to expect, stuff to pack and all kinds of other stuff. I read through this Forum (especially the ST Forum) for months on what I needed to do to plan for this trip and I packed right and was consistently providing for the other riders in my group some of the essentials that these “life-long” tourers had failed to consider to bring. And I don’t think that I over packed…maybe a little but next time I can get by with a few less shirts and changes of clothes. Who needs to smell nice out there?
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Day 1 – Chicago to Ravenna NE – 650 miles
Rode fast to try and get the heck out west, overall for my first ride over 300 miles on the ST3 had no problems and was very comfortable, a pleasant surprise. Ended up camping off the road at a state camping area.
Day 2 – Ravenna NE to Estes Park CO – 430 miles
Rode north on SR 2 to Alliance NE, beautiful scenery, basically nothing on that road but rolling hills and meadows and the occasional towns about 15 miles apart. From Alliance headed south on 385 to Sterling CO then took SR 14 straight west to Ft. Collins. Lots of rolling hills and straight empty roads, passed a cop going the other way doing 85 on this road and I don’t think he gave me a second look. Set up steaks at a little camping area halfway between Loveland and Estes Park off US 34, stayed there for 4 nights)
Day 3 – Hit Mt. Evans and drive around Estes Park – 238 miles
Headed south out of Estes Park on SR 7, beautiful road, beautiful turns. Linked up with SR 72 towards to Central City, again nice turns and great scenery. So far on the trip the weather has been beautiful and sunny (I say this now because o how fast the weather can change in those mountains). From Central City went to Idaho Springs and up to Mt. Evans on the last day the top road was open for the summer season. Bike handles well, was worried for a bit once we started to hit higher elevations and started idling lower than usual but no stalls, but incredible switchbacks and 50 mile views. On the way up I spotted a couple of racing green test mules for what I think is the new Jaguar coup followed by a support vehicle with all kinds of tires and stuff on top. Must have been doing some high altitude testing. From Mt. Evans we went over to Winter Park and just after that it started raining hard and I was surprised when the rain started to hurt like hell. Then I looked down at my gages and noticed pieces if ice bouncing around and realized we were in a hail storm…nice. Slowed down a bit but decided to keep driving through it, only lasted for about 5 min but needless to say I was glad when we were out of it. Unfortunately is was just after noon and it rained for the rest of the day on our way back across the top of Rocky Mountain National Park back to our campsite and was about 45 degrees. Along the way there was a lot of road construction and dirt, muddy roads. I have never been so miserable and my bike was filthy, covered in mud. When we got back and joked that we felt like we had just ridden through the “Devil’s Anus”.
Day 4 – Loveland to Walden CO and back – 200 miles
Drove towards Loveland and go north on SR 56/CR 27 to SR 14. This is an incredible road with tight turns some with big elevation changes, can’t say enough on how fun this road was. It dead ends into SR 14 and we went west to Walden. Fantastic slow and high speed turns and wonderful views. Had late breakfast in Walden and headed back. Stopped at the Mishawaka Inn for a few drinks, its just west of SR 27 off of SR 14, great place on the river that also has great live music. Jumped in the river a floated a bit, dried off and headed back to camp. Overall, great day of riding with spots of rain here and there.
Day 5 – Cruised around Estes Park and back up into the “Devil’s Anus” – 95 miles
Weather was great starting off and we had hoped it would stay nice so we could get to the top of visitors center in the Rocky Mountain National Park but alas that did not happen and had a repeat of Day 3, cold and rainy.
Day 6 – Loveland CO to Custer WY – 340 miles
So I can safely say that driving for 4 hours with a 40 mile/hour cross wind pretty much sucks. That wind across the Wyoming plains was relentless. And even once we got off of I-25 just south of Douglas and headed west on US 18 it was still bad. Not much scenery overall, one of those “lets get from point A to point B riding days”. Had some bad storms once we got into Custer so we decided to stay in a motel. Wow, how nice a bed can feel. We ended up staying here for two nights.
Day 7 – Toured around Black Hills National Forest – 150 miles
Best riding of the trip going east from Custer and heading north on the “Iron Mountain Road” RT 16A which leads up to Mt. Rushmore. Stopped there for a bit then headed up to check out Deadwood (not much like HBO show anymore). Then back through Lead, down to Sylvan Lake which is incredible. From there took Needles Highway back down to Custer. Fantastic day of riding, great weather and great sights.
Day 8 – Homeward bound, Custer through badlands ending the day in Sioux Falls – 415 miles
Sadly leaving Black Hills/Custer area, stopped by the Crazy Horse Memorial, man that thing is big, and man it’s going to take a while to get that thing finished. Great stop though, go in and watch the 20 min movie on how it came to be. Really interesting story of this privately funded endeavor. Then made our way towards Rapid City via the Custer Park wildlife loop. Saw a few herds of Buffalo but not much else. Made a trip through the badlands took a lot of pictures (BTW, I know its probably not the safest practice but I got pretty good at snapping photos on the bike, not too bad once you get the hang of it on you are on a fairly straight road). Got back on I-90 and headed east for as far as we could which was an exit near the Sioux Falls Airport and crashed (not literally) for the night. Was even able to catch the tail end of the ND game to gladly see ND get beat by Penn State. Not a lover of Penn State but a hater of ND.
Day 9 – Sioux Falls to Chicago – 560 miles
Well last day of riding and although I was sad to not have a few more days in some great locations, I was happy to be getting back home. Nothing too memorable about the days ride other than calculating over and over in my head the exact time I should arrive back home.
So, seeing how this is a Duc forum I figured I should say something about my bike. I had my 6,000 mike service done at about 3,000 miles for fear of going too far past. I think that was the safe decision and I had absolutely no problems with the bike the entire trip and it was a great blend of comfort and as we all know performance. Couldn’t have asked for a better bike. Did approximately 3,200 miles in 9 days.
I did do some damage to my Leo Vince’s when I went into a high speed turn up near Winter Park and couldn’t hold the turn radius and ever so slightly drifted wide and onto the shoulder doing about 70 but was able to keep it upright in the gravel. I hit a rock the size of a softball with my right side header going back to the muffler. Scared the s$%t out of me and I rode a bit more within my limits for the rest of the day, but overall only a ding the size of a quarter.
Had a great time and can’t wait to go on another adventure next year.
Brian
Here is a link to more pictures from the trip:
http://s232.photobucket.com/albums/ee68/st34me/
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