November 25, 2022
It’s been almost a month since I’ve had the bike out for a ride but it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. We had a pretty good snowstorm which was followed by a few weeks of frigid temperatures so the snow and ice stuck around. The week of Thanksgiving saw a warm up which was great for the RunTurkeyRun! we are involved with putting on as it melted most of the snow off the streets making running lots safer. The warming continued to Friday and with dry streets it was time to rude.
A few months ago at the Scrub Run, I’d talked to a fellow runner, Bob, and we discovered that we both had Yamaha bikes and loved to ride. We’d left it with that we’d have to get together and ride sometime. Then at this week’s Turkey Run, we chatted briefly and mentioned that Friday looked pretty good but made no plans. About midday Friday I decided to gear up and get the bike out just as the phone rang. It was Bob who said he had just gassed up and was ready to ride. I said I’d meet him at the gas station at Zimmerman and Grand, grabbed my helmet and went over there, topped up, and waited.
What a beautiful day. It’s in the low-50s with only a light breeze.
Bob showed up on his Yamaha Tenere and we chatted and compared bikes before deciding where to go. Bob told me to lead and we headed out Grand to the west and worked our way to Buffalo Trail and took it south to Laurel. We encountered some wind from the west but it wasn’t too bad. We passed through Laurel and once out of town onto Highway 212. Not far after that I turned us left and we took the old highway which I figured would be less windy. It was and we got back on the new road just a mile or two from Rockvale where we turned south.
I wanted to check out the progress on CarHenge in Edgar so we made that detour and stopped for some photos.
On to Fromberg and when we got there we turned east and went to the Fromberg-Bridger Road. This is a nice, paved backroad that run past miles of farmland with nice views of the mountains to the west. We stopped for a photo opportunity along the way.
We continued on to Bridger and this was the only place where there were still patches of snow on the road. These were easily avoided and we turned south on the main highway and headed back to Fromberg. I was keeping my eye on my odometer and when we got to the closed Bridger Rest Area I had to pull over for picture time.
Yes, it just turned 20,000 miles. I bought the bike in April 2021 and didn’t ride it much for the first month as I had to get a helmet first and the riding I did do was slow maneuvers through the neighborhood. Then I didn’t ride it much last winter for 3-4 months followed by 6 weeks off last summer while I recovered from surgery. (The surgery was NOT related to motorcycle riding.). I figure that leaves about 14 months of riding or 1,428 miles per month. There were two long rides in there, the trip of August 2021 which was almost 7,000 miles and the September 2022 ride that was just under 3,000 miles. I guess that means that I racked up the remaining 10,000 miles on day rides.
Yes, I like riding.
Bob took the lead the rest of the way back, sticking to the new portion of Hwy 212, then grabbing the slab back to Billings before cruising through the roundabouts on Shilo. It was great day.
104 miles for the day.
