My son Dan's visit to Billings was way too short but at least we got in a few rides together while he was here. Today he heads out for Pittsburgh and I decided to ride out for a few hours with him. After much discussion he elected to take Highway 212 from the Hardin, MT area to get himself to Rapid City instead of riding I-90. Not only is that route shorter, it's not the Interstate.
We left about 10:30am. He pulled over to the Department of Motor Vehicles to show me how to take the motorcycle performance test on their marked out lot, something I have to complete within the next year. He is so adept at this I wonder how I will ever get this done. My FJR is a giant when I get it on the course and the outside weaves look daunting. A friend has offered me his '74 Honda 450 for the test and I think I might take him up on that.
We got on I-90 and rode that to the off ramp for Highway 212 which is also where the Bighorn Battlefield is. Dan wanted to stop so we spent the next hour checking it out. I've been here a few times and it's always worth a stop. We walked up to Last Stand Hill where Custer met his end. The soldiers found there are buried under the monument. Custer's body were moved to West Point.
This is looking southwest from Last Stand Hill.
Adjacent to this is the memorial to the Native Americans who died here. This is relatively new and installed after the whole memorial was renamed the Bighorn Battle field rather that how it had been named after Custer.
We spent some time in their museum before gearing up to get ready to hit the road again.
Highway 212 took us through the Crow and, eventually, the Northern Cheyanne reservations and the towns of Busby, Ashland, and, finally to Broadus. It's a 2-lane road and has it's share of sweeping curves and great vistas. It does have lots of semi-trucks and those who want to pass them so one has to be on top of things, especially when the passers are coming at you. The weather was warm, clear, and with little wind. Really good riding conditions.
We stopped in Broadus and it was time to say our goodbyes. We'd traveled 175 today and he still had a long way to go so it was a quick hug and off we went. He traveled on to Chamberlain, SD for the night after a meal stop in Sturgis. I headed back to Billings the way I had come. I kept thinking I should stop for a photo somewhere and finally did when road construction stopped traffic for a while.
Note in the picture that I moved my seat pad to the rear seat. I wanted to see if it really makes a difference over the stock seat and I can say that I'm not convinced that it does. My butt gets sore either way. I read about these custom seats people put on their bikes but I'd really like to sit on one before shelling out $500+. It won't be anything I'll do right away since most require your stock seat so they can build the new seat over the original shell. This sounds like a winter project for when the bike is off the road. That or find a stock seat for sale and have the custom seat build over that.
When I pulled in to home my trip meter showed that I had done 350 miles, a person record distance for me on the FJR.
I got the bike on April 8, 2021 but really didn't start riding it until a week later when my helmet arrived. That means that I've put 2,460 miles on it 7 weeks. That's not too bad. More miles to come.
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