My son (on an '08 Sprint ST) and I (on an '07 Tiger 1050) departed for Salt Lake City, Utah, on August 5, 2008. I left Stroud early and met my son North of Oklahoma City. We rode Northwest through the Oklahoma Panhandle (temps got as high as 105 degrees F.). The trip was a business trip for my son (Outdoor Retailers' convention at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City). I went along for a vacation to visit with old friends (I lived there for 24 years--1974 to 1998) and to ride the mountains.
We were crimped for time on the trip out, so we planned 600 miles each day to cover the 1200 mile distance to Salt Lake City. We spent the first night in Taos, NM. We arrived in time to clean the bikes before dark. Temps were much better once we got to the mountains. Taos has grown since I was last through there. We woke up the next morning to 47 degree temperatures, and put our rain gear over our summer riding gear and headed West.
We had some very good riding before we left New Mexico--lots of twisty mountain roads with little traffic. We dodged some rain storms in Southern Colorado and some caught us. When we got to Utah, we removed our rain gear and headed North from Monticello, Utah. We spent the night just South of Salt Lake City--room reservations in SLC started the next day. Again, we arrived in plenty of time to clean the bug-guts and road film from the light rain off the bikes before dark.
I enjoyed riding in the Wasatch and Uinta mountains and visiting old friends. We left on the return trip on August 11, 2008. We rode East to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where we spent the first night. From Steamboat (it was 42 degrees F when we woke up), we rode South through Leadville, Salida, Florence, and Colorado City (where we got on I-25 to Raton, NM). We ate lunch in Salida and supper in Raton (we took a longer time than usual in Raton to wait for a thunderstorm to move South of our route to Clayton, NM. We had to ride on some wet road, but did not get into any rain. We decided to go on to Guymon, OK to spend the night, but the thunderstorms had a different idea, and we stopped in Boise City, OK to avoid a thunderstorm between Boise City and Guymon. Lodging is sadly lacking at the two motels in Boise City. We got up early the next morning and rode to Guymon for breakfast; and after breakfast, we retraced our outbound route to home.
We really enjoyed the riding in the Colorado high country. Leadville is a very interesting city. Just North of Leadville, we crossed the Arkansas river when it was only 3 ft. wide. We basically followed the Arkansas river all the way to Canon City where we headed South again to Florence.
Both bikes performed flawlessly. The Sprint ST did average a couple more MPG than the Tiger; but, I expected that due to the difference in wind drag. I have a large screen on the Tiger, and I didn't get my helmet visor all covered with bugs.
I did notice a small loss of power above 7000 ft. elevation. My son didn't notice any, but the ST is still stock and the Tiger has an aftermarket can and the off-road tune--it was probably running too rich above 7000 ft. elevation. My mpg above 7000 ft was 47 mpg, and below 7000 ft was a little over 50 mpg.
The stock rear tire on the Sprint ST had a very noticeable flat part in the center of the tread by the time we got to SLC. I had put Michelin
PR 2's on the Tiger a month before the trip, and the dual compound tire worked very well with no sign of a flat area after the 2688 mile trip.
Link to pics:
MobileMe Gallery
Larry
Oklahoma to Utah trip (2688 miles)
