Finally Getting Some Real Time on the V-Strom
The V-Strom on the road to Pagoda.
There is no better way of getting truly familiar with a new motorcycle than living on one for a week. Today is Monday of our OFMC weeklong trip, having left on Friday, and I’m really getting to know this V-Strom that I bought two months ago.
The first thing that hit me was that I have got to get some highway pegs on this bike. After a few hours on the road I’m looking for a place to move my feet to in a different position, and where the heck are those highway pegs? I’ll probably need to put on a case guard–which won’t be a bad thing–and then attach some pegs to that. That’s what I did with my CB750 all those many years ago and that’s still how the bike is equipped today.
The second thing to hit me was that I need a throttle lock. Again, after a few hours, your hand is starting to protest against hanging onto this grip all this time. That one will be easy and cheap to address.
We headed out on Friday, meeting up in the Poudre and that gave me an opportunity to try out the bike’s capabilities a bit, too. I rode up the Buckhorn road, over through Stove Prairie to the Poudre, and was heading up the Poudre when I saw for an instant, a couple curves ahead of me, two bikes. Not just any two bikes, but two Harleys with suitcases mounted on top of the top bags at the rear. Nearly all these bloated OFMC biker types have those on their luxocruisers these days.
So I figured I needed to catch up and see if it was really who I thought it was. Now there were a couple cars between me and them but these are motorcycles, so even if the center line is yellow a quick flip of the wrist and two seconds later you’re ahead of the guy you used to be behind. And I was. So it was a pleasure to see that the V-Strom had that pep. And it had it in spades.
I caught up and it was indeed Brett and Jason and they recognized my jacket, even though the bike was unfamiliar, and pulled off. When we took off again I was in the lead and they said it was about 15 seconds before I was gone out of sight. This bike is so light and agile that I just blasted up the canyon and it was fun.
Nothing particular to report about Saturday, just a few passes and then a night in Dillon where one of our group is the sax player in the featured band at some summer festival they do in Dillon. We left there Sunday morning, headed up CO 9 along the Blue River to Kremmling, west over Gore Pass, up to U.S. 40, and then for them, to Craig and down to Meeker.
Not for me. I saw that a road heading south out of Hayden looped around through some little nothing town called Pagoda and met highway 13 coming down from Craig somewhere north of Meeker. And there were about–by my judgment–8 miles of gravel. I went that way. As it turned out, there were closer to 11 miles of gravel but no problem. I was riding a dual-sport bike and it likes gravel.
So I got to see more of Colorado that I’ve never seen before. In this case, high cliffs on both sides with a lush green valley down the middle with a few ranch houses, some hay fields, some cattle, some horses, and a stream meandering down the middle. Nothing special, just the typically beautiful thing that ranch valleys normally feature. Has anyone ever noticed that ranchers live in some of the most beautiful places imaginable?
My route was probably half the miles that everyone else rode but I got to Meeker about 10 minutes later than they did because I was going slow on the gravel and they were blasting on the asphalt. That suits me just fine. It was a really nice ride. I love how I have so many more options now.
Biker Quote for Today
You know you’re becoming addicted to riding when you find yourself gravitating to the center of the lane, only to remember that you are not sitting in the center of the vehicle!
Tags: off-road Colorado
