Friday, July 17, 2015

Home from Utah

Long day in the saddle today, got home from Park City, Utah at 6:05PM after leaving at 4:10 AM.

14 hours of riding, which included an initial 6-7 hours of riding in which I couldn't go more than 30-45 minutes before feeling too sleepy to ride safely, forcing me to make a lot of stops to wake myself up.

Encountered a traffic jam on eastbound I-70 west of Parachute, CO.  It was caused by some cager who managed to roll his car.  This stopped traffic dead for almost an hour.

Another hour was consumed telecommuting from a rest area near Edwards, CO to do a network change for testing that's going on this weekend for one of our data centers.

The first few hours were a bit chilly while I transited the canyon roads from Salt Lake City to Green River, UT.  Note to self, even in summer, bring along some long underwear or at least a nice warm henley shirt.

My riding jacket's wind liner did enough to keep me from freezing though, so that's OK.

Total roundtrip mileage for the Utah trip: 1248 miles.

Brigitta, my '87 R80 BMW Airhead, did great though I did find an issue that need fixing.

The gauge lights for the speedo and the tach are not working, so you can't see how fast you're going when it's dark outside.  I got a small LED headlamp for the return trip that illuminated the cockpit area well.

I noticed when I got to Park City on Tuesday that the high beam wasn't working on the headlight. Replaced it with a bulb from my boss, Ari, and that's now good to go.

At the Yellowcat highway exit on I-70, while still in Utah


Cameo Bridge near Glenwood Springs, CO

Not many pictures taken, construction, accidents, a hot day and a severe case of gethomeitis on my part precluded additional stops just for pictures.

8 comments:

SonjaM said...

I never had a severe case of gethome-itis, on the contrary I often suffer from getaway-itis, which can be cured by multiple homeopathic doses of travelling.

It's so nice to see Brigitta on the road, Dom. I missed her ;-)

redlegsrides said...

Brigitta is ready to be your getaway-itis steed when you and Roland come to Colorado, he can ride Stewie. I had forgotten how much faster Brigitta is than my Scarlett. Though I did find my two-wheeled skills quite rusty!

VStar Lady said...

Quite a change from the Ural eh? Awesome account. Glad you are home safely.

redlegsrides said...

VStar Lady, yes, quite the change. Each has its pros/cons. Scarlett is much easier to pose in the sketchy spots.

RichardM said...

Interesting that the high beam filament failed. As it doesn't get much use. Maybe time to replace the dash lights with LED. I read that it's fairly easy these days.

Finding a place to stop with the BMW was always a hassle as the stock side stand was difficult to use. I had picked up a Brown side stand but sold it to a fellow airhead after the sidecar went on.

redlegsrides said...

RichardM, I run with the high beam in all the time in daylight. The stock side stand sucks, even more with the pots know use which sometimes don't allow me to push the stand fully forward, resulting in the stand snapping back up while I am leaning the bike to park it! Almost dropped it a few times .

Trobairitz said...

It doesn't sound like a great ride home, but at least the view was pretty.

Did you manage a nap while stopped in traffic for an hour or was it crawling along so no relief?

redlegsrides said...

No napping, Trobairitz....not moving but really no where to pull off under some shade.