how i spent my weekend.

[charleetho]

Saturday - Took the son snowboarding in the mountains. Had to kill time so I read a software testing book. Boring. But my son had fun. Sunday - Made sure to set the VCR to record Daytona. Haven't watched it yet, so don't anyone spoil it for me. Met up with some Colorado Dualsporters. Since the mountains are pretty dangerous with all the sand and ice this time of year we decided to checkout the eastern plains. Our destination? Pawnee Buttes. To big stone hills in the middle of grasslands. Northeast Colorado almost to Wyoming and Nebraska. To see a picture click here. http://www.coloradolottery.com/photogallery/pop_display.cfm? photoId=147 We had 2 KLR650s, Steve and Floyd, a BMW F650GS, Ed, and me on the Peg. I had just install my 15t front sprocket and was eager to see how it would work. It was a beautiful sunny March day. Thirties in the morning, warming up to the 60's. We rode out of Denver and tried to stay on gravel roads all the way there. This was not to difficult, it just required zigzagging across the landscape. Even with the zigzags we would be on arrow straight dirt roads for miles at a time. The 2 KLR guys lead the way. 80 - 90 mph was their cruising speed. That felt real fast to me, but I mostly kept up. Ed, the F650 guy, fell a little farther behind, but they never had to wait more then a minute for us. There were some curves in the roads. When you have just been going 85 on a straight slowing down to 50 feels like you can get off and walk, that is until you enter a gravel corner and realize you are drifting rapidly to the outer edge and if you don't do something you will be exploring a field. You say to yourself, "Charlie, (that's my name, you would use yours) you better lean a little harder and pray the tires bite" I did and they did. We got to one open area and the 2 KLR hot shots blast up a head. We could see them up ahead when Floyd went down. Steve turned around and then he went down. It was almost like synchronized crashing. They had hit a big patch of mud and the tires just went out from underneath them. Me and Ed had a good laugh. We slowly paddled our way across the mud. The only things getting dirty was our fenders undersides and boot soles. At the buttes we did some riding up a gulch/sand wash. The KLR dudes took off to leave me and the Beemer feeling like a couple of rudderless ships in a storm. The sand was soft and deep. Then Steve and Floyd came back pointed out that off to the side was a single track path on the terra firma. Off we went. What fun! The new gearing really helped when it came time to climb the sides of the gulch and over the little hills. We found a private butte viewing hill to eat lunch, admired the landscape, and talked bikes. We looped around the buttes and headed back west. We went by this giant energy windmill farm, really cool looking place, and started realizing our energy "gas" was getting very low. We finally hit paved road and headed towards civilization. Well, the F650 ran dry. We siphoned about 1/2 gallon from a KLR to the Beemer. Three miles later, at 240 miles on the tank, I run dry. We get another half gallon from the other KLR. We rode another 15 or so miles and found an open gas station just north of Greeley. I figure the Peg got about 43 mpg. Lowest I have ever seen. 15t sprocket? hmm. The others, including the fuel injected BMW averaged a little over 50 mpg. From there we hauled it back to Denver via a state highway. Clicked on the electric vest and grips to hold off the ensuing chill. I got home 12 hours after I left, 7:30 pm. Got in 350 miles of riding which I would estimate 225 were on dirt roads. A good way to spent a later winter day. Speeding down dirt roads, chatting with other bikers, viewing immense treeless landscapes, and eating dust. If you don't think that sounds like fun, I won't explain it because you wouldn't understand Charlie T. 00 "Pig"aso.