Kennewick to La Grande

After having breakfast in my Hotel in Kennewick, I caught a taxi down to the motorcycle dealer to pick up my bike. The taxi driver was very nice, but I think she was almost certainly drunk or on something. Maybe she was just high on life? Anyway, she had a lot to say about the Toyota Prius and how she really wanted one. Apparently that's where all the big money is!

After picking up the bike I rode around Kennewick trying to pick up a few things that I needed. I went to the nearest REI store (like a big Kathmandu), and had a look at their "Bivys". What I really want is a bed roll, or something I can strap on to the back of the bike. If I can achieve this, then I'll be able to remove my sleeping bag from the panniers, as this takes up a fair bit of room. It also means that I could start doing a bit of camping to cut down the costs (and for the experience too!). However the concept of a "swag" is kind of lost on Americans, they have things called 'Bivys" which are similar but not quite. Most of them just look like one man tents. I'll keep looking.

I picked up a multitool, shifter and a cable to secure my Ventura rack on the bike. The cable can pretty easily be defeated by a strong pair of scissors (as the Ventura pack is made out of cloth), but I just wanted something to stop randoms being able to remove my pack with no effort. I don't plan on leaving the bike with the Ventura bag attached overnight or anything, but when I need to ride from place to place I need to stop at places temporarily with it still attached.

Then after buying a pair of lighter motorcycle gloves (fuck it was hot today), and then much dicking around with my Go Pro, I set off to La Grande in Oregon. The landscape was quite spectacular in some places, very open with a large horizon. But it a lot of places there were no trees to be seen!

When I arrived I hastily put together the stills I captured on the ride and turned it into the Youtube video above. I think I have a bit to learn with the editing of these, but it's a start.

I arrived safely at La Grande Inn, which was conveniently right next to a Denny's, so dinner was easy. A little worried considering the warnings I got from Josh, I tried the Brooklyn spaghetti meatballs, they were pretty good. No problems (yet).

Redmond to Kennewick

After saying my goodbyes, I left Josh and Wendy's place at about 10AM. Having Josh and Wendy here and also a place to stay for 2 weeks has been really helpful. I am very thankful that they allowed me to cramp their space for 2 weeks! It would have been so much more difficult doing all the organizing from a hotel, and it was great to catch up with them both and do some stuff together. They also provided me with some valuable insight into American customs and culture.

I loaded all the stuff on my bike, in the hope that none of it was too heavy and wasn't going to fall off! Each bit of luggage has a weight limit, but I had no scales to weigh them with so I just had to pack evenly and hope for the best. Thank god for the Ventura pack, there is no way all my stuff would fit into the panniers alone!

In Redmond, just about to head off to Kennewick

The plan was to go back to the bike dealer and get my 500 mile service out of the way. It. Was easy to ride to kennewick, because at the end of the trip my odometer would have exactly 520 miles on it.

After a long ride, I wearily dropped my bike at the service department and caught a taxi to my hotel. Thankfully the hotel was really nice! Somehow I got a double room, and had lots of space! I spent the rest of the night just chilling and getting my blog up-to-date. It was fantastic to get some time to relax, one of my goals of this trip was to keep it pretty easy going, I didn't want to rush through really fast like I did in Europe.

Seeing as I had no transportation, there was no restaurant in the hotel and my bike needed to kept overnight at the dealer, I just ordered Dominos for dinner. It was actually better than I was expecting!

Tomorrow I'm off to La Grande!

Picking Up Bike in Kennewick

Today I drove down to Kennewick to pickup my motorcycle. As I explained in an earlier post, I decided it was worth me taking the 220 mile drive from Redmond to Kennewick to save about $3000 on the cost of the motorbike. The Bike is a 2011 Kawasaki Coucours 14 (AKA 1400GTR in Australia), and because it isn't a 2012 I save a bit of money. There is no real difference between the '11 and '12 models, where there is big differences between the '09 and the '10:

For 2010, Kawasaki added the KTRC traction control and K-ACT ABS and brake assist, as well as linked brakes[4] which are optional in some markets and standard in others. The 2010 model also features revised bodywork to improve engine cooling, mirrors raised by 40 mm (1.6 in), a larger wind screen and with memory function, a handlebar-mounted switch to control the dash computer, variable heated grips,[4] and an eco-mode switch that tells the ECU to use a leaner, more economical air-fuel ratio at engine speeds less than 6,000 rpm and road speed less than 80 mph (130 km/h).[5] The tank-mounted storage area was removed and replaced with an auto-locking glove box in the left fairing, the exhaust silencer cap was changed, the instrument cluster illumination was changed from red to white, included key sets were changed from two active fobs/keys to one active fob/key and one passive mini fob/key, the front fork fluid levels were increased by 25ml, and the oil pan was modified so that the drain plug faces forward instead of downward. The ECU was programmed to limit top speed to 154 mph. The rear pannier covers were fully painted (instead of leaving a black area at the bottom).

The end result being that Kennewick had a brand new 2011 model in the colour I most wanted (black of course), which was 3K less than the new one in Lynnwood and was better equipped than the FJR and the older '09 Concours from the private seller. The only problem was getting that first 500-500 Mile service and driving to Kennewick.

Luckily enough for me, my rental car booking could be modified so that I could drop off in Kennewick. So after waiting on my money transfers to process from Citibank to Wendy's US bank account, I set off down to Kennewick with a cashiers cheque in hand.

The ride to Kennewick is both beautiful and ugly. Closer to Seattle is full of striking wooded mountain ranges and lakes. As you move further towards the middle of the route, the scenery changes to patchy farmland, then to eventually one can only describe as "badlands". Unfortunately I had no way of getting photos of the landscape.

I arrived in Ridenow Powersports in Kennewick, where I processed the transaction with the very friendly staff, then drove my rental car back to Budget. The Budget staff member was nice enough to give me a lift back to the bike dealer so I could pickup my bike!

I had to fit my iPhone mount to the bike so I could navigate back to Josh and Wendy's place in Redmond (I have the Navigon GPS App, which allows me to get GPS directions and listen to music on the bike at the same time). The staff at Ridenow (a man by the name of Ukiah to be precise) was very happy to give me a hand installing it. Once done, I was off down the highway back to Redmond.

As with my Hayabusa that I bought new, the bike has to be broken in. This meant that for the whole ride to Redmond I had to keep changing through gears to keep the RPMs different (apparently keeping a bike at one RPM level for a long time during break in is bad). Additionally I had to keep the bike under 5K RPM, meaning no super speed yet.

But, the GPS worked really well (even fades down my music to give me a direction), and I got to Josh and Wendy's without incident!