Heading West - Day 10 - Epic Motorcycle Ride

Monday, July 23, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in 2012 Epic Motorcycle Ride

Soon after we fell asleep last night it seemed like everyone decided to start running around doing stuff and making as much noise as possible. I put some ear plugs in and eventually fell asleep.

I had my alarm set for 6:10am so we could get started early. There was a cool mist surrounding the campground when we woke up. Once again our normal routine of packing up and eating took place. We were on our bikes by about 7:15 and headed out. The original plan was to skirt Redwoods on and ride some gravel and dirt roads and eventually catch up with 299 toward Redding. Since Ryan's tire was essentially shot, we decided to head to Eureka where we found a KTM dealer and try to get Ryan a new tire.

The ride there was extremely cold and foggy. We unfortunately didn't get to see too much of the coast or trees because of the fog. Eventually we made it to Eureka and found the KTM dealer just after they opened at 9am. Fortunately they had a tire that fit the bike and set about replacing it. It didn't take too long and before too long we were out on our way to Redding and eventually Reno.

The cold and fog continued until we finally crossed a high pass on 299 and it seemed like the temperature immediately went up by about 20 degrees. We had been complaining the last week about how cold and damp it had been during the journey and getting blasted with this hot dry heat for an hour or so made us realize that both extremes can be equally bad.

We pulled into Redding and decided to get Wendy's for lunch so we could get some Frosties as well. We decided to go ahead and call ahead and see if we could book a hotel room without just aimlessly riding around Reno trying to find somewhere to stay. I was looking at a map for an REI so we could buy more freeze dried meals and saw there was a Comfort Inn & Suites just around the corner so we called them and got a room. We then drenched ourselves in water to try and cool us down while riding. This helped for a bit until it evaporated and we were stuck sweating in our riding suits again.

By the time we reached Highway 44 it looked like we might hit some rain and sure enough within a few minutes it started to lightly rain on us again. The rain quickly went away for a while and we had more nice riding on 44 then 36 and 395. We fueled up again in Susanville, CA and took a little rest. Ryan's debit card ended up getting declined due to overuse which we thought was strange since we had been using our cards for the last 8 days several times each day. He got it cleared up and we got on our way. There was about 86 miles to go before we reached our hotel. As soon as we got out of Susanville the winds kicked up like crazy. We were riding with side gusts of 30 or 40 miles per hour and we saw some rain off in the distance. For the remainder of the ride into Reno we were either getting blown all over the road by wind or rained on.

Eventually we made it into Reno around 7 and went to REI so we could get more food. We then checked into our hotel, showered, started our laundry and then went to find something to eat. The closest thing was Denny's so we just went there. We were so exhausted we didn't feel like venturing out any further.

We came back and threw our stuff into the dryer and relaxed for a while and worked on this ride report. Our laundry finished and now we're getting ready for bed. Tomorrow is the day we've least been looking forward to the entire trip. Reno to SLC. About 540 miles through a hot dry desert. Additionally we're also going to lose an hour which makes things even worse. We'll see how it goes! We're off to bed now so we can get up early and get going before it's too hot.

Teaser photos: