Forum Replies Created
Piaggio Fly 50 / 150
-
After getting new skins on Thursday, I got about 500 miles in. Saturday I went out Scenic Highway 30, up to Larch Mountain, out to Cascade Locks (about 5 miles of slab after the end of the HWY). I gassed up in Cascade Locks, bombed it to Bonneville Dam, hung out there for a little while, had a snack, realized I was runniong a little late for a party and took the Freeway all the way back to Tigard, that’s about 43 miles of straight Freeway. I know, not a lot for some, but that much freeway after the morning was very fatiguing. Here’s a photo from the Gorge:
On Sunday I met up with a couple people from Work. We were planning on going up the east-side of Mt St Helens, unfortunately all of the roads going where we wanted to go were closed, supposedly blocked by snow. We hit some rough roads, and I scared myself around one corner, dragging a toe a little. We ended up following the Lewis river down into Cougar and stopped for lunch. After lunch we came the rest of the way down into Woodland, went freeway to Kelso, stopped for gas (53 mpg), crossed the Columbia and came back on HWY 30, till we turned up what is basically a paved logging road, then zipped back into Portland on Skyline, a ridge-line road with a lot of good twisties. It ended up being 300+ miles for the day, with about 5 miles of gravel traveled. Here a view of Mt St Helens from one of the viewpoints on Forest Service Rd 30:
Now that gives me about 1400 miles on the bike, even with the soreness, loving every mile of it
One of the guys I work with has an FZ1, with sport touring tires, and he goes up a lot of mountain roads that have long stretches of gravel without any issues. Although, he has been riding for about as long as I have been alive, maybe longer. I have only been on gravel in a driveway, and I was going super slow (about 8 mph)….so it felt pretty solid. I’m along with everyone else, just do it, but start out slow, probably not as slow as I was going. By the time you get to the other end of the road, it’ll be old-hat for ya
LOL….5″ lift, plus over-sized tires….compensating for anything??
Good thing I drive a Ranger, low bed-height, even though it is a 4×4. I have a hard tonneau-cover on it, but it is easily removed.
The tire was past half-way through the it’s life, but had decent tread left.
I talked to one of the guys at work, and he told me that next time instead of trying to push it, to start it and let it idle as I walk beside it…the bike will push itself, and there won’t be any more wear on the tire than if I push.
