Ride to BMWMOA Rally - Day 1: corn, corn, corn, corn....

Mileage Start: 33401
Mileage End: 34085
Total Today: 684 in 12.5hrs including stops.

We departed Centennial, CO at 0705 and arrived at west West Des Moines at 1940 mountain or 2040 central, almost 12 hrs of saddle time. Dave was my riding companion for the day, he rode from the Bay Area in California. He rides a 99 r1100rt, black and farkled up. He must have been getting 50mpg or better because he said he could go 300 miles on one tank! His bike has a six gallon tank vice mine which only has 5.5 gallons worth of capacity.

We made good time thru NE using the I-80, insert your favorite corn fields joke here. The morning temps were mild once we got out of Colorado, it was in the mid-50s when we started off! It got warmer and more humid as we made our way eastward, curiously we both also noted how the height of the corn stalks seemed also higher as we moved eastward.

My butt and knees did pretty well and I got in some long distance riding testing for the Navicore gps software on my n800 internet tablet.

Besides the issues with glare from the sun, discovered a couple of other behaviors on the part of the gps software that one should be aware of.

1. It apparently defaults to using the shortest route setting when you have it find a route to the day's destination. This was Des Moines, IA for today's ride. We wanted to slab it the whole way there but that apparently is not the shortest way. Each time I neared an exit the gps would prompt me to exit and take the county road nearby! Finally realized why it was doing this and I was able to switch the settings to 'fastest route' and that caused the prompts to quit.

2. Found out that although the gps poi listing permitted me to find a motel for the night while we were having dinner in a Cracker Barrel restaurant near Omaha, it proved a bit difficult to bring up the utility gui to designate our motel of choice as a waypoint. I also tried to designate it as a favorite but in that I was unsuccessful. Still, it directed me surely to the motel I had chosen.

Almost 12hrs of saddletime today, Maria did great as usual. No cager incidents to report for me though David did have a close call with some idiot cager in Omaha which we manage to hit right at rush hour!

Dave and I go our separate ways after we get through the rest of Iowa tomorrow. He'll head North to Wisconson to explore some of its designated Rustic Roads and I head over to Batavia, IL to see an old army buddy of mine and spend the night at his house.