Day one:
The group gathers in my driveway:
Our diverse group has sigtrap’s BMW F800ST, Michael’s Honda Shadow 1100 and my Honda 599.
First order of business: twisties. Head down Spiral Highway to Lewiston, ID and go east on Highway 12.
Spiral:
Highway 12 (photo taken years ago):
We hit construction. Lots of construction. Crews are slicing up parts of the road to put in drainage pipes, I believe. The net effect is speed bumps for us.
30 miles from the pass, we lose our tail rider. We pull over and wait a few minutes, then turn around. Find him off to the side of the road, looking at his bike.
Punctured rear tire.
Start plugging.
Thunder, lightning and rain roll over us.
The Shadow picked a decently scenic place to get a flat:
We finally get the tire pumped up so we continued on our way.
We found lodging in Missoula, MT, then went off to a bar to eat horribly greasy food and consume lots of beer. Good times had by all!
Day two:
At IHOP for breakfast, Michael called around to local motorcycle shops. He found one with a tire that can squeeze us in today, we found it and took the boxes off the Shadow.
Milling around the shop for an hour, Kim is interested in the helmet sale: 50% off MSRP! Only in Montana, I suppose.
Sigtrap entertains himself with his camera:
As we reassemble the bike I ask if Michael wanted his axle pinch bolt tightened. It wasn’t even finger tight, just sitting in a couple threads.
Sigtrap practices his Zen Mechanics:
Bikes ready to rock, the group takes off for Sandpoint, ID. It’s rainy and cold the entire way up and I’ve lent out most of my cold weather gear to either my wife or sigtrap. My gloves are sporting some speed holes from lots of miles of use.
My internal compass is working wonderfully as I guide us directly to the largest stretches of construction in the state. The road work lulled me into a false sense of security by providing paved detours around the roadwork. Of course, when the rain started to pick up, the detours turned into unpaved slimy goop. Joy.
Without issue we make Plains, MT and fuel up. I gas the bike through a large puddle in the parking lot to make the trip feel more adventurous. Sending the wife in to buy delicious gas station hot chocolate, the men left at the motorcycles were on the receiving end of “fourth generation Plains yellers.” A small gaggle of high school age girls were screaming obscenities at us with great enthusiasm. I have to give them credit: despite a complete lack of sense, they ran with what they had in their small little brains.
A short ways back on the highway allowed the two single guys in our group to drown their regrets in buffalo hot dogs and huckleberryade.
We pass Hope, ID and Beyond Hope- err, East Hope, ID. Then Sandpoint, snagged a hotel, walked out to a pub for heartburn inducing food and beer so dark and thick you need a fork and knife.
Day three:
The sun is shining, day looks great. Walk around town, find nothing is open until 11 AM on Sunday. Gave up, mounted up and headed west, then south. Avoided the major highways when possible.
Michael’s bike is overheating pretty bad 75 miles from our destination. We pull over and he hoses it down with his water bottle, which evaporates in a hurry.
Finally it’s cool enough to ride and we finish up the trip in style: grilling burgers, smoking cigars and drinking beer.
Epilogue:
After a couple beers we tore into the Shadow to determine why it was overheating. Diagnosis: coolant? What coolant?
The radiator was perhaps 1/3 full of fluid. I poured a little over a full quart of Honda OEM coolant into the system and we bled it. The overheat light doesn’t come on now!
