RockSTer
10-10-2005, 08:58 PM
A couple of weeks ago I rode the STeed from Radium down to Tucson. The first day (Radium to Twin Falls Mt. on Hwy 93) way only memorable due to the ability of the ST 1300 to handle poor weather. I am coming from the cruiser world ( I have a Kawasaki Mean Streak) and was really pleased with the ST considering it rained all day and never got above 50 degrees. I have the Honda heated grips and a heated Corbin seat. Both really helped keep me warm. I wore a First gear ballistic nylon jacket that was labelled as waterproof and first gear overpants. Both performed well and I stayed warm and dry. All I can say is thank God for the full face helmet and neck warmer.
Day 2, Twin Falls to Missoula was one of the highlights of the trip. What a great road for a bike. Curves galore and harldly a sole on the road. I was travelling on a weekday (Tuesday) and I guess with summer over, there wasn't much traffic. The Bitteroot mtns. and the section along the Salmon river were fantastic. I will definetely be doing this again.
Day 3, Missoula to Cedar City UT, was a nice ride, especially interesting to me was Craters of the Moon national monument. Interesting to me because I am a geologist, so stuff like rocks (lava flows) intrigues me. Anyway, nice ride, again, empty roads and very peaceful.
Day 4, Cedar City to Payson AZ, as you can tell this was a pretty relaxed pace (no iron butt for this dude) so I decided to go through Zion National Park. Zion is a slow touristy drive but the scenery is well worth it if you are not in a hurry. Twisty mountain roads here but too many vehicles to allow you to have any real fun. There were a couple of places where we had to stop for construction with pilot cars. A little trick I used was to pull off to the side after we went through one of these and wait until I was at the end of the pack. Then I would stop at a few pullouts and take some pictures, giving me some "running room" to catch up to the pack. Being at the end I could stop and admire the view, take pics and then zoom up to catch the rest making it a bit more fun.
Day 4, Payson to Tucson was a great ride except for the ticket I got near Globe AZ. As you can tell if you know the area, I was avoiding the freeways and taking all secondary roads as much as possible. Again there were very few cars and most roads were posted at 65 mph. Except the one area near globe was 55. Arizona seems to patrol much heavier than the other states I went through on this trip, MT, Idaho, NV and Utah. The officer was very friendly and after writing up the lowest ticket he could ($32 for going 65 in a 55 even though I was doing 69) he spent 15-20 minutes talking bikes and looking over every detail of the ST. He is a Harley guy but admitted that he was considering an ST as an option.
Anyway, the riding in Arizona from the Grand Canyon area to Tucson on the back roads is a lot of fun. Even though I had all that First Gear gear on, I really only got hot when I got down to Globe and Oracle where the temps got up into the 90's.
Sorry this is so long, but it was just so much fun I had to put it in writing!
For those interested in farkles etc., I have the Corbin seat/smuggler trunk combo and I really like it. The storage area is great (I used it for water, my full size digital SLR, ballcap, maps etc. All the stuff you want to get at quickly. The seat worked great for me. I never had any soreness or stiffness after riding about 7-8 hour days. I used a Garmin e-Trex Vista GPS and simply hooked the soft case belthook onto my keyring and it hung there very nicely while plugged into my Honda accessory socket in the right fairing pocket.
I have attached a few pics.
Day 2, Twin Falls to Missoula was one of the highlights of the trip. What a great road for a bike. Curves galore and harldly a sole on the road. I was travelling on a weekday (Tuesday) and I guess with summer over, there wasn't much traffic. The Bitteroot mtns. and the section along the Salmon river were fantastic. I will definetely be doing this again.
Day 3, Missoula to Cedar City UT, was a nice ride, especially interesting to me was Craters of the Moon national monument. Interesting to me because I am a geologist, so stuff like rocks (lava flows) intrigues me. Anyway, nice ride, again, empty roads and very peaceful.
Day 4, Cedar City to Payson AZ, as you can tell this was a pretty relaxed pace (no iron butt for this dude) so I decided to go through Zion National Park. Zion is a slow touristy drive but the scenery is well worth it if you are not in a hurry. Twisty mountain roads here but too many vehicles to allow you to have any real fun. There were a couple of places where we had to stop for construction with pilot cars. A little trick I used was to pull off to the side after we went through one of these and wait until I was at the end of the pack. Then I would stop at a few pullouts and take some pictures, giving me some "running room" to catch up to the pack. Being at the end I could stop and admire the view, take pics and then zoom up to catch the rest making it a bit more fun.
Day 4, Payson to Tucson was a great ride except for the ticket I got near Globe AZ. As you can tell if you know the area, I was avoiding the freeways and taking all secondary roads as much as possible. Again there were very few cars and most roads were posted at 65 mph. Except the one area near globe was 55. Arizona seems to patrol much heavier than the other states I went through on this trip, MT, Idaho, NV and Utah. The officer was very friendly and after writing up the lowest ticket he could ($32 for going 65 in a 55 even though I was doing 69) he spent 15-20 minutes talking bikes and looking over every detail of the ST. He is a Harley guy but admitted that he was considering an ST as an option.
Anyway, the riding in Arizona from the Grand Canyon area to Tucson on the back roads is a lot of fun. Even though I had all that First Gear gear on, I really only got hot when I got down to Globe and Oracle where the temps got up into the 90's.
Sorry this is so long, but it was just so much fun I had to put it in writing!
For those interested in farkles etc., I have the Corbin seat/smuggler trunk combo and I really like it. The storage area is great (I used it for water, my full size digital SLR, ballcap, maps etc. All the stuff you want to get at quickly. The seat worked great for me. I never had any soreness or stiffness after riding about 7-8 hour days. I used a Garmin e-Trex Vista GPS and simply hooked the soft case belthook onto my keyring and it hung there very nicely while plugged into my Honda accessory socket in the right fairing pocket.
I have attached a few pics.