From Kingman, I saw the sign for Route 66. I had been riding 410 miles so far and I just didn�t feel like going on Route 66. Maybe some other time I thought. Manly because I knew R66 was mainly a straight road and not any better than I40 as far as having fun with a good handling motorcycle. In addition, I was getting pretty tired and at that point I just wanted to get to a hotel and take a nice shower and get something to eat. So I stayed on I40 for the remainder of my trip. Turned out, the ride on I40 wasn�t too bad. I stopped at Seligman for gas and saw another motorcycle traveler there riding a Japanese cruiser something. This guy pretended I didn�t even exist. I tried to say hello but he never even looked in my direction. What was his malfunction?
Out of Seligman, I40 started to climb up to altitude so the terrain changed from barren desert to pine forest along with interesting rock formations the southwest is so famous for. The temperature also became more bearable for me and I stopped sweating. The climb was sometimes gradual but sometimes steep although there were no turns. On the long ascends, motorhomes and tractor-trailers struggled to maintain 45 mph. The Bandit and me just cruised on by at a steady 90 mph. Thanks to the bike�s flat torque curve and big displacement, continued climbs at high altitudes didn�t affect its performance much. By the time I made it to Williams, Arizona, I was at over 7,000 feet above sea level. In fact, this area of Arizona never went below 5,000 feet. I did feel a slight softening of the Bandit�s power delivery although I never asked for more than it could deliver. |
