Nevada - Tour of Honor

[Warchild]

This has been an exceptionally busy summer - only now am I freed up enough to try to do the Nevada Tour Of Honor sites.

Since the route is very conveniently just over 1000 miles, I thought I'd be the first to to an all "in-state" SaddleSore while scoring the ToH sites - an Illinois ToH rider did a SS1K earlier this year, but used a neighboring state for a gas receipt. I knew that Nevada would be a very fast SS1K, which proved to be the case as it was just a little over 15 hours of riding time to get all seven in Nevada.

Since I was more interested in making time than being coddled in comfort, the Hayabusa got the nod for this trip. The Givi's only carry the cold weather gear, bike cover, tools and tire repair kit. The tankbag hold the all-important camera/rally flag. Not carrying much else, because I am not stopping much.

Here was the preliminary route, starting in Reno, ending in Elko:

I started by contacting fellow ToH rider Brian Roberts to see if he was interested in doing a SS1K with me since he hasn't gotten the Nevada sites either, but he said he wasn't sure about it. However, fellow LD Rider/forum member RenoJohn Austin said he'd be around for the weekend since it was the start of "Hot August Nights" in Reno. He was able to hook me up with a very funky but interesting room at the "Club CalNeva" in the heart of downtown Reno. THANKS, RenoJohn! Um... it was interesting, to say the least!

RenoJohn provided an excellent piece of advice: leave Reno very, VERY early so as to arrive in the blazing hot Boulder City/Hoover Dam area before noon. I decided on a 2am departure, and with a fast pace and good luck, I'd be in and out of the searing-hot Vegas area before noon.

RenoJohn came downtown to the Club CalNeva to see me off... here I am at approximately 1:45am, ensuring SPOT Tracker is set in "Tracking" mode.....

Ready to roll!!!!! I give RenoJohn the AdvRider Salute while he captures me rolling out of the Valet Parking area at the Club CalNeva:

Departing under the "Reno Arch" in the middle of downtown - Virgina St was closed off for "Hot August Nights". I got my Starting gas receipt at 2:02 PDT, 6Aug11:

34 miles later, I rolled into Site #1, the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Carson City. Since it was 2:42am, nobody was around to object to placing the bike right next to the Memorial:

Then it was off into the inky black night, hauling down HWY 95 to Tonopah. This was a lengthy little roll, about 230-ish miles, which placed me in Tonopah at dawn. This was a very neat memorial; the .30 cal machine gun is a nice touch!

A second shot here to include the bike in the memorial....

Got my second gas receipt in Tonopah, taking on-board a total of 6.877 gallons for the previous 261.7 miles. Now it was time to descend into the inferno of southern Nevada. I made decent enough time, rolling into North Vegas just before 9:30am.... and it was 97 degrees already. Sweet.

I crawled through Vegas, rode south to Boulder City to score the Rocks Memorial in the Veterans Memorial Park on the west side of the city. The park itself was easy to find; the specific Rocks Memorial was not quite as easy to find, as most all the memorials in this park are also of the "rock" variety!

Now it was off to nearby Hoover Dam, which was the only ToH monument in Nevada that looked a little sketchy to get in/out of cleanly... particularly given it was the height of tourist season on a Saturday weekend! To add to the enjoyment, the thermometer climbed to 106 degrees - and it's barely 10am!

Rode down the Hoover Dam Access Road, parking in $7 shaded parking, and strolled out on the dam with rally towel in hand to photograph this memorial.... I got a LOT of funny looks from people, walking around in heavy 1000-denier black Motoport pants, and a Tourmaster Transition jacket!

There was no way whatsoever to (legally) get the bike in this photo, and taking a photo of the bike in the shaded parking lot didn't seem terribly useful, but I have the date/time-stamping parking lot receipt to help validate things. Back out into the blazing heat, rolled buck up to Boulder City and decided to refuel now for this next fast section of the route. It was 11:10am as I took on-board 7.435 gallons for the previous 248.3 miles.

At this point, I was sitting at 516.6 miles into this ride... Hoover Dam was the roughly halfway through this ToH run.

I backtracked up to Vegas and caught I-15 northeast towards Salt Lake City, but jumped off it a short while later to take HWY 93 (Great Basin Highway) north towards Ely. Now I am starting to get tired and hot.... even though I didn't need gas, I stopped at Alamo for 3.178 gallons of fuel, and another gallon of ice water for the rear Coleman thermos. I jumped onto lickety-split HWY 318 just north of Ash Springs, and took this fast little road all the way into Ely.

When I got to Ely, I was stunned/dismayed to see they had the *entire* downtown park area cordoned off for a massively ginormous Arts Festival! There was no way to get the bike anywhere close enough to photograph with the memorial, so I had someone snap off a shot of me holding the flag:

As I was leaving, someone pulled out of a parking spot that looked like it would afford me a decent shot of the bike with the memorial in the background, so I went ahead with a second shot:

Since I had refueled at Alamo, I skipped gassing at Ely and took off for the 124 miles to West Wendover and the 509th Composite Group monument there. This was a very fast road, and very little traffic of any kind. Rolled into West Wendover and snapped off this photo.... my odometer is at 906.8 miles here:

Took aboard just under 3 gallons at my final fueling before the finish at Elko, just 105 miles to the west. It was quite late in the afternoon now.... it was a real treat to stare directly into the blazing setting sun for an hour and a half at the end of a 1000-mile day, lemme tells ya!

Fellow LDRider and forum member beerme was watching me all day on Spotwalla, and was there to greet me at the Elko Memorial adjacent to the Courthouse. He also signed off as a Finishing Witness for the SaddleSore 1000. THANKS, Brad! After taking this last shot, I was definitely ready for a little nappy-nap time:

Final stats: 7 NV ToH memorials; 1015.1 miles, avg rolling speed: 66.6 mph (!), total riding time: 15 hrs, 14 min.

On the way back home the next morning, I stopped at a summit somewhere west of Carlin just to take in the vast Nevada Outback and the big blue sky.... there is nothing I rather do than take a big, fast liter+ bike vast distances across the American West....

 

[saxman]

Thanks Warchild - almost painful to read, but definitely worth doing.

 

[Warchild]

Final snapshot of SPOT breadcrumbs during this run:

 

[painman]

Very nice WC. There is nothing like soloing on a two lane strip with the solitude and remote vastness that the Nevada desert has to offer. These are times we never forget. Take care, PM. <><

 

[BIODSL]

Very cool final self-portrait, Dale. Looks like it was a great day.

 

[Willie]

Enjoyed the read, wish I knew about this tour earlier in the year.

Willie

 

[Bugnatr]

Good stuff Dale.

FYI : The Tonopah Memorial is made up of burnt engine & propeller bits from a B 24 that crashed during practice bomb runs during WW2.

I know where my FJR gets warm, where's the hot points on a Busa?

 

[Warchild]

Very cool final self-portrait, Dale. Looks like it was a great day.

I was, indeed! For that pic, I was experimenting with a small, pocket-sized tripod that's only 6" tall... works pretty well!

Enjoyed the read, wish I knew about this tour earlier in the year.

Welllll... here's my mid-January post about the Tour of Honor....

I know where my FJR gets warm, where's the hot points on a Busa?

Hate to tell you, but... the Hayabusa has no hot spots... unlike the many openings in our FJR's fairing, the Hayabusa's completely enclosed fairing does a splendid job of routing engine bay heat away from the rider.

 

[Warchild]

Final GPS stats.... heh....

 

[tmc]

Dayum Dale.... How hard was it to keep the Busa on the ground when you hit that "Maximum Speed"?

PS: gotta love Vegas heat. Not at all sorry I moved the hell away from there in 03.

 

[Warchild]

Dayum Dale.... How hard was it to keep the Busa on the ground when you hit that "Maximum Speed"?

:lol:

 

[Good2Go]

I suppose if you're riding through Hell - S. NV this time of year - might as well do it at 66.6 mph :devil: ... you know, for full effect and all .

 

[wfooshee]

First off, congrats on the ride. I remember your original post, and I keep coming back to the Florida locations, 2 of which I've actually been to already (but not as part of the Tour.)

I have a better max speed on my GPS, but I don't have one of these rides, yet.

Trying to work up a way to think about the possibility of maybe getting a plan together to consider the option of taking on such a ride for Florida. The seven locations in Florida work out to 1088 miles, Pensacola to Oceanside. I wouldn't be close to the first one to do it, someone got all 7 on February 3rd, wasted no time at all! This would also be my inaugural IBR ride if I do it this way, as opposed to a loop from home back to home. (See, a 1-way trip for the miles means you still have to get home. Dunno if I want to do that on my first SS1000 . . . .)

 

[RPrice]

Dale,

Thanks for this great report, very inspiring. My son is an Army Ranger and a recipient of the Silver Star for Gallantry in Action near Tikrit, Iraq in May 2007. So, Veteran related tours "get me going". He now rides a Super Duke 990 but wants a Hayabusa really bad. When I read your posts about this Tour I became intrigued, and I still have time to do it! I can jump onto US 93 at Panaca, or start in Boulder City (short rides from here)and go from there. Anyway, I really enjoyed the account of your trip.

Thanks, Bob

 

[Warchild]

A little epilogue to this thread...

Here's the Nevada SaddleSore 1000 certificate from the Iron Butt Association - note Tour of Honor logo at bottom tight corner...

 

[LowAndSilent]

Congrats on a great ride, Dale! Awesome job.