Crazy Long Moto Tour 2018.09

Historic McDonalds

Our first stop for the night was Lewiston, ID where this McDonalds was near our motel. This is how they all used to look and there was a sign out front bragging about "Billions and Billions Served."

Funny, but ...

Walking around the area near the motel in Lewiston, I saw this sign. It took me several glances to parse the message ... Flu Shots were apparently going for 10% off - free. Does that mean they pay me?

Beautiful

Our five-day trip had mostly gorgeous weather with deep azure skies, bright, light sunshine, and moderate temperatures ... well, moderate in the afternoons, but cold in the mornings. Light rain over a couple of passes was sauce for the goose. This was taken near Bear Dance, Montana which is south and east of Kalispell.

Gear

My wife says motorcycling is "all about the gear." This is me in my Klim touring suit. Really and truly waterproof even when it's raining hard and the relative wind is 70 mph. Good to be warm and dry! Helmet is a Shoei Neotech II with integrated Sena communications. Boots are by Sidi. Gloves by Held.

Bear Dance Cabin

Gas!

We left Kalispell with a full tank of gas and the good intentions to top off at Happy's. Turns out Happy's Roadhouse Inn, and Good Medicine Gallery, and Bakery Café Store and Casino was closed, locked up and for sale. No worries, we could top off in Yaak, Montana. Except the gas in Yaak looked dodgy so we proceeded to Bonners Ferry for gas. My tank has a normal range of 225 miles, which is what the trip meter read when we pulled in for gas.

Winthrop

My riding buddy rode the 400 miles from Castlegar, BC to West Seattle in one go. I split the ride with a stopover in Winthrop, WA. This is the view out my window from the motel. Beautiful Fall day!

Route

Spent the night in Lewiston, ID, Kalispell, MT, Castlegar, BC and Winthrop, WA. We rode some signature roads ... Yakima Canyon Road, Lolo Pass Highway, Forest Service and Yaak River Roads, and the North Cascade Highway. All of these are familiar and worth a reprise on any occasion. The NFS and Yaak River roads were just great. Narrow (lane and a half wide) and paved. They wound through unpopulated forests, valleys, mountains. I think we may have seen one or two cars ... pretty isolated. Good to have two riders in case one had trouble along the way!

Analytics I

My GPS captures a data point every 6 seconds on average. Here are about 20,000 data points measuring instantaneous speed and a one hour moving average.

Analytics II

Gradient (Green to Red) shows instantaneous speed on the left axis and the blue shows the elevation we were riding at on the right axis. Not a lot of correlation going on that I can see.

Analytics III

My GPS captures a data point every 6 seconds on average. Here is a summary of about 20,000 data points showing how many times our speed was in the ranges at the bottom.

T-Shirt Front

I always make T-Shirts for our rides to create a keepsake reminder of our tours. This is the front. Although I had the shirt with me the whole ride, in retrospect I felt it was too politically provocative to wear in "red state" territory. It could have been misinterpreted as a political statement about leaving the country rather than leaving on a ride. Could get a guy beat up in a Montana or Idaho bar. I didn't wear it until I returned to "blue state" Washington.

T-Shirt Back

Memorializes our route. I have used Café Press to print this but this design was too subtle for them. I need to find an alternative, better print-on-demand vendor.