Most folks think Nebraska is a disaster...BOOOORRRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGG! Of course, most people ride (or drive) Nebrasksa like they do Kansas: just blast across on the Interstate. And I-80 follows the Platte River and there's hardly any terrain relief. So, it's flat and it's boring.
But at 8:00 this morning, my Concours-14-riding-buddy and I left Fort Morgan and headed North. We rode up through Kimbal to Scottsbluff and then to Alliance, where we headed southeast on NE-2, a state scenic highway dubbed "The Sandhills Journey." The Sandhills of Nebraska are lushly covered with wild grasses and are relatively large sand-dunes. There's lots of water, most of it in lakes, with a good bit of flowing water and toward the east a couple of forks of the Loup River. It was strange to see rivers with water that was deeper than the 3-4" we're seeing in the South Platte in eastern Colorado.
There was very little traffic and once Steve realized that his radar detector would probably give us adequate protection, we picked up the pace and started changing scenery at 75mph. My first tank of gas, northbound with a slight tailwind, gave me 48.8mpg. But when we turned southeast, that became a quartering headwind and mileage dropped to 46.8. I hate to think what the tank from Broken Bow to Lincoln will be. Once we got onto I-80, we were running with the traffic at 85, and the wind had shifted so it was straight from the east. The on-board mileage computer was showing between 38-42, so I may be luck to get 35mpg on this tank.
Our mission, by the way, is to meet two European Concours riders who are the Concours Owners Group Over-the-Pond Travelers this year. In '08, I was an OTP Tag-a-Long rider (Tag-a-Long means that I paid my own expenses, although I did get a loaner GTR, the European incarnation of the Concours. The down-side of that was that I didn't get a chance to rent a Deauville, which would have cost me close to $3,000 for the 19 days I rode). I rode for about five days with the Belgian who is here and for a couple of days with the German who is here.
They left Lansing, IL, at about 7:30 this morning and are taking two-lane highways to Lincoln. They're now 14 hours into their ride and we've got our fingers crossed that they realized that there are only three places to cross the Missouri River anywhere near here: St. Joseph, MO, Omaha, NE, and Sioux City, IA. They've had three five hundred mjle days, and Gie, the Belgian, has another 500 tomorrow to get to the Rockies. On Wednesday, Steve and I will give him a day of mountain riding, and on Thursday he heads home, back across the big water.
Steve and I managed to do 550 miles today and enjoyed a gorgeous scenery, and an adequate lunch in the little central Nebraska town of Thedford.
We've finally given up on waiting for the OTP-ers and ordered a pizza. They are going to be just smooth out of luck if they haven't eaten by now.
But at 8:00 this morning, my Concours-14-riding-buddy and I left Fort Morgan and headed North. We rode up through Kimbal to Scottsbluff and then to Alliance, where we headed southeast on NE-2, a state scenic highway dubbed "The Sandhills Journey." The Sandhills of Nebraska are lushly covered with wild grasses and are relatively large sand-dunes. There's lots of water, most of it in lakes, with a good bit of flowing water and toward the east a couple of forks of the Loup River. It was strange to see rivers with water that was deeper than the 3-4" we're seeing in the South Platte in eastern Colorado.
There was very little traffic and once Steve realized that his radar detector would probably give us adequate protection, we picked up the pace and started changing scenery at 75mph. My first tank of gas, northbound with a slight tailwind, gave me 48.8mpg. But when we turned southeast, that became a quartering headwind and mileage dropped to 46.8. I hate to think what the tank from Broken Bow to Lincoln will be. Once we got onto I-80, we were running with the traffic at 85, and the wind had shifted so it was straight from the east. The on-board mileage computer was showing between 38-42, so I may be luck to get 35mpg on this tank.
Our mission, by the way, is to meet two European Concours riders who are the Concours Owners Group Over-the-Pond Travelers this year. In '08, I was an OTP Tag-a-Long rider (Tag-a-Long means that I paid my own expenses, although I did get a loaner GTR, the European incarnation of the Concours. The down-side of that was that I didn't get a chance to rent a Deauville, which would have cost me close to $3,000 for the 19 days I rode). I rode for about five days with the Belgian who is here and for a couple of days with the German who is here.
They left Lansing, IL, at about 7:30 this morning and are taking two-lane highways to Lincoln. They're now 14 hours into their ride and we've got our fingers crossed that they realized that there are only three places to cross the Missouri River anywhere near here: St. Joseph, MO, Omaha, NE, and Sioux City, IA. They've had three five hundred mjle days, and Gie, the Belgian, has another 500 tomorrow to get to the Rockies. On Wednesday, Steve and I will give him a day of mountain riding, and on Thursday he heads home, back across the big water.
Steve and I managed to do 550 miles today and enjoyed a gorgeous scenery, and an adequate lunch in the little central Nebraska town of Thedford.
We've finally given up on waiting for the OTP-ers and ordered a pizza. They are going to be just smooth out of luck if they haven't eaten by now.
