But it's one I like anyway. Ken Malone (RedBird on the Forum) and I got together this morning for what may be the last warm day for a couple of weeks and, if the weekend forecast is right, one of my last chances to get out of my garage and alley for a while. We are predicted to get up to 2 feet of snow this weekend!
Ken was on his newish NC700. I think he said that it's a 2018 or 2019. The guy who was the first owner had done some nice customizing: windshield, wind deflectors, Givi crash bars and pannier mounts. It's a good looking bike and Ken managed to stay in close contact with me on my much more powerful 2010 NT700V. Neither of us had seen the other one's new bike. I liked his; he liked mine.
We went up CO-392 to Briggsdale and kept going north on CR-77 to Hereford. There we turned north and went past Carpenter, WY, on our way to I-80. Just before we got to 80, we had an exciting moment
, especially for me! There are a series of short, steep little hills that are close together. I was in the lead and knowing how steep those hills are, I should have slowed down since I was outrunning my line of sight. But I hadn't and came over a hill top and there was a herd of pronghorns crossing the road just over the summit. I didn't have time to count, but there were at least 20-30. A little over half the herd had gotten through the fence on the east side of the road and when I came in view, accelerated as hard as they could to the west. I was decelerating as hard as I could. The part of the herd that was still getting through the fence, reversed direction and accelerated as hard as they could in the other direction. For those of you who aren't familiar with pronghorns, they are usually called antelope, but they're not related to any other antelope species in the world. A lot of people out here call them goats, but they're not goats either. They're pronghorns, unrelated to any other animal in the world. They're fast, up to 60mph and have fantastic vision. One thing they don't do is the kind of suicidal things that deer do -- as far as I know they don't double back into the road once they've crossed it like deer will.
https://www.fws.gov/sagebrush/images/photoalbum/PronghornsCrossHighway_Seedskadee_Koerner.jpg
After we got on I-80, we realized how hard the wind was blowing. I was impressed that Ken's NC didn't have any trouble running at 80mph with me, but neither of us was getting very good gas mileage. The instant mileage was showing around 40mpg and a little lower. We were only on 80 for about 20 miles and then got on US-30 just east of Pine Bluffs, the last town in Wyoming. 30 took us to Kimball, NE, and Subway for lunch. After topping off our tanks, we went south on NE-71 until we crossed the Colorado border and were on CO-71. We followed it to CO-14, turned west rode through New Raymer and back to Briggsdale and home to my house. Interestingly (to me at least) the distance between the gas station near my house and Kimball going to Kimball was within 3/10 of a mile as the distance coming back to the same station by a different route. I got 49.4 mpg on the way up and 54.9 mpg coming back. The scenery is...well...scenic in the way that Eastern Colorado is scenic. Not flat, but long vistas and watersheds running mainly east and west. About the time you get west of New Raymer on 14, you start seeing lots of infrastructure built to support the huge amount of oil development done in NE Colorado over the last 10-12 years. We've had a dry winter and so there's not much in the way of color except for dull brown. That may change if the snow storm predicted for this weekend is as big as they're thinking. Our temperatures aren't supposed to be very far above or below freezing.
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Ken was on his newish NC700. I think he said that it's a 2018 or 2019. The guy who was the first owner had done some nice customizing: windshield, wind deflectors, Givi crash bars and pannier mounts. It's a good looking bike and Ken managed to stay in close contact with me on my much more powerful 2010 NT700V. Neither of us had seen the other one's new bike. I liked his; he liked mine.
We went up CO-392 to Briggsdale and kept going north on CR-77 to Hereford. There we turned north and went past Carpenter, WY, on our way to I-80. Just before we got to 80, we had an exciting moment
, especially for me! There are a series of short, steep little hills that are close together. I was in the lead and knowing how steep those hills are, I should have slowed down since I was outrunning my line of sight. But I hadn't and came over a hill top and there was a herd of pronghorns crossing the road just over the summit. I didn't have time to count, but there were at least 20-30. A little over half the herd had gotten through the fence on the east side of the road and when I came in view, accelerated as hard as they could to the west. I was decelerating as hard as I could. The part of the herd that was still getting through the fence, reversed direction and accelerated as hard as they could in the other direction. For those of you who aren't familiar with pronghorns, they are usually called antelope, but they're not related to any other antelope species in the world. A lot of people out here call them goats, but they're not goats either. They're pronghorns, unrelated to any other animal in the world. They're fast, up to 60mph and have fantastic vision. One thing they don't do is the kind of suicidal things that deer do -- as far as I know they don't double back into the road once they've crossed it like deer will. https://www.fws.gov/sagebrush/images/photoalbum/PronghornsCrossHighway_Seedskadee_Koerner.jpg
After we got on I-80, we realized how hard the wind was blowing. I was impressed that Ken's NC didn't have any trouble running at 80mph with me, but neither of us was getting very good gas mileage. The instant mileage was showing around 40mpg and a little lower. We were only on 80 for about 20 miles and then got on US-30 just east of Pine Bluffs, the last town in Wyoming. 30 took us to Kimball, NE, and Subway for lunch. After topping off our tanks, we went south on NE-71 until we crossed the Colorado border and were on CO-71. We followed it to CO-14, turned west rode through New Raymer and back to Briggsdale and home to my house. Interestingly (to me at least) the distance between the gas station near my house and Kimball going to Kimball was within 3/10 of a mile as the distance coming back to the same station by a different route. I got 49.4 mpg on the way up and 54.9 mpg coming back. The scenery is...well...scenic in the way that Eastern Colorado is scenic. Not flat, but long vistas and watersheds running mainly east and west. About the time you get west of New Raymer on 14, you start seeing lots of infrastructure built to support the huge amount of oil development done in NE Colorado over the last 10-12 years. We've had a dry winter and so there's not much in the way of color except for dull brown. That may change if the snow storm predicted for this weekend is as big as they're thinking. Our temperatures aren't supposed to be very far above or below freezing.
Kimball Loop March 2021
spotwalla.com
