Motorcycle Trip Winnemucca, NV to Ely, NV 2019-06-02

A playlist of all of the videos from the ride from May 30 thru June 14th.

We started our ride from Winnemucca riding east a 4,000+ feet (see below). These kinds of charts are helpful to know what kind of altitude changes you can expect. Note that the altitude changes from 4,000 feet to above 7,500 feet. By this time you have gotten used to the 4,000 foot elevation gain but consider for yourself and your pillion:

Where on the route you can stop to take a break to adjust to the new altitude
Look at different points along the route before leaving to check temperature and weather
Look for rain along the route
Even if you will only take 30 or 40 minutes to go through a high pass at 60 MPH that is still a VERY cold trip
Have clothes ready / quickly in reach so you can pull off to the side of the road and put clothes on
As you can see from the videos on Highway 50 we ran into sunny weather and rain, we were told that the past week had been solid rain, the most rain they had seen

We started out on the 'superslab' Interstate 80. At high speeds and with trucks it is always a noisy ride with lots of wind buffeting. Which is why we tend to stay away from the highways. We then turned down Highway 305 to the south, clear sky. As we rode along the Toiyabe Mountain Range came into clear view:

After about 150 miles on I-80 and Route 305 we were ready for gas and some food. We turned east from Route 305 onto Route 50 'America's Loneliest Highway' and into the town of Austin. I found the 'Loneliest Highway' name to be a misnomer as half the highways that we had already been on were as 'lonely' if not more so. But it is a good tourist slogan ;-}.

We got gas at 'Champs' and then found a small diner 'Toiyabe Café', Rose REALLY liked waitress we had, she was genuine. Real. A happy person just trying to get along.
Rose also liked the artwork on the restroom wall:

The artwork also has a human story behind the prints, one of day to day struggles and how life is messy. It reminded me that we all have stories from our life that didn't work out like a fairytale, my life is definitely not an exception. I bought a couple more from FlyingEdna, this is one of them:

But what brought all this to mind is one of the NICE things about motorcycle trips is that when on a motorcycle people seem much more amenable to conversation. I have had quite a few conversations that started with 'you know I used to own ...'. It is as if the car is a huge barrier to discourse. The Motorcycle doesn't have a door or window, when you close a car door the conversation stops. Even when going into a store / diner / restaurant when people see you with your gear on they just start talking about how they had a motorcycle or ask how it is to ride a motorcycle or ... You get to know people when you travel on a motorcycle.

As we got back on the road we headed east towards Utah. We could see open sky and rain off into the distance in this 15 minute video of the ride as we go into the storm. And then before the video is done we are back out of the rain. Be ready for anything.

Further on down the road as we were coming down off a peak we ride into the twisties in the sunshine. Blue Skies. Clouds. Rain Clouds. Mixed bag.

We arrived in Ely NV and settled in for the night.

Motorcycle Trip To The Moab

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Elevations for this ride so you can predict how cold you may get or if you may need to take breaks for altitude changes. Y Axis is altitude feet, X Axis is Miles travelled: