Sidecar ride to Hillsboro Posted June 19, 2005
All the pictures I took on this trip are available in the gallery. While I was remodelling my kitchen, my parents loaned me a few things, including a large microwave oven, which I needed to bring back. It seemed like an excellent time to test my carrying ability on the sidecar, so I loaded it up and headed for Oregon. The day dawns... confused
There wasn't any problem fitting all the stuff I had to transport into the sidecar, although the tonneau cover didn't fit as nicely as it could have. I emptied out two of my water jugs and threw them into the nose of the sidecar, so it wouldn't be too heavy. I checked the tires and oil, filled up my CamelBak, and hit the road around 2:30. With the enormous carrying capacity of the sidecar, I even had the luxury of a small cooler along with me, with some choice snacks. I felt great as I started out, confident that it would be an easy and enjoyable ride down to Hillsboro, I could hang out with my parents, and have a pleasant ride back. I was a bit worried about the weather, but it was so nice out in Seattle that it stopped being an active concern.
I joined the fray, but by the time I got to the first exit past the Ship Canal, I'd had enough, and I diverted to surface streets. I made my way across to 99, where things were moving much better. 99 turned into 509, and I sailed down to Sea-Tac airport with nary a care in the world (although the outfit seemed a touch gutless climing the hill at 60+ MPH). At Sea-Tac, my plans called for getting onto 167 southbound, which runs parallel to I-5 down to Puyallup. Both roads are equally packed with traffic, so it's a tossup which one to choose most of the time. Either one would have sucked that day. Fortunately, there's an HOV lane on 167, so I got in there, and largely maintained a 50 MPH average speed. Finally, what felt like ages later, I exited onto 161, and pulled off into a parking lot to have a protein bar and figure out what was going on with my earplug. One of them was fitting just fine, but the other was having a terrible time, and I eventually figured out that they just don't fit my right ear. Of course, this is the type I just bought 200 pairs of... I ended up spending nearly 20 minutes futzing with earplugs before I realized time was wasting, and I really wanted to get going. I put in one of my precious few pairs of my old, well-fitting earplugs, and continued. Unfortunately, so did the traffic. Again, I was stuck moving at a snail's pace, but this time with a bunch of traffic lights thrown in. Eventually (about 30 minutes later) I'd gone the 3 or so miles which brought me in sight of the huge road construction project ahead of us. Crap! I looked down at the GPS's map, and decided to take a chance cutting across to highway 7, which would work as well as 161 for the route I was travelling. I noticed at the moment I split off (which immediately increased my speed) the GPS said I had so far had a 24 MPH average speed. Ick! Fortunately, things improved from this point, and I finally got myself out of the heavy traffic. Finally! This is more like itOnce I'd found 7, and gotten out of the last vestiges of neon stripmall Hell, it got very pleasant. There wasn't much traffic any more, the weather was still beautiful, and everything was working right. I was cruising along at 50-60 MPH (I was interested to note that the Goldwing's speedometer reads close to 15% too fast). I got to the twisty section of 7, which I normally hit right after turning off 161. I was interested to note that the sidecar didn't have any problems going through the twisties at a decent clip. I was leaning off pretty heavily, which I'm sure helped.
All too soon, I was approaching I-5. I had been afraid the sidecar rig might not really be up to sustained travel at 70+ miles per hour, but it did pretty well. It's not much fun, with the nearly complete lack of wind protection, but it was bearable. Because I'd taken so long to get through the traffic out of Seattle, I decided to just take I-5 the rest of the way. It was certainly less fun, but probably took 30 minutes off my time. Although weather was generally pleasant, I did manage to spend 10-15 minutes riding through pretty solid rain north of Vancouver. It wasn't all that terrible, since it was brief, and it even had the nice side effect of washing the bugs off my face shield. By the time I arrived in Hillsboro, it was five minutes to nine. My total transit time (including one gas stop, one stop to make a phone call and two stops to stretch, which totalled less than 45 minutes) was six and a half hours. That was pretty ridiculous, considering it's normally a four hour trip plus whatever breaks I take. The trip back
The ride back seemed perfect for the first few miles, but I soon realized that I was facing a stiff headwind, which ended up being a gruelling fact of life for the entire ride. I'd guess the wind was 10-15 MPH, so that my perceived speed was almost always 10-15 MPH faster than I was actually going. It got pretty tiring after the first hour. Wind aside, the ride back was quite nice. I ended up diverting off highway 12 onto 122, following a sign to Ike Kinswa State Park, intending to stop there for lunch. I eventually found the park, but there was a $5 parking fee, and I only had $1 on me. I was dissappointed, but the park was pretty crowded (it being Fathers Day, and a sunny Sunday), so I wasn't that sad to skip it. My goal on these rides is never to spend excess time with random people. I kept going on 122, and eventually found a small driveway on the lake side of the road, and parked in the shade of a pine tree.
I got back on the road around 4:30. 122 continues parallel to 12, so I just kept going, and rejoined highway 12 about 20 minutes later. I'm glad I strayed onto 122, it was much more enjoyable than highway 12, which is kind of straight and boring. I decided, even though 161 had been a horrible nightmare on Friday, to give it a try on the way back. It was Sunday, so there'd be a lot less traffic, and it was less likely the construction crews were working on the road. My wager paid off, and I had smooth sailing through Graham and into the stripmall district on highway 161. I stopped for a moment in a parking lot and tried to call up a traffic map on my somewhat-Internet-enabled cellphone, but it didn't work for whatever reason, so I took a leap of faith and headed up 167, retracing my route down. 167 was fine, but my choice to continue on I-5 instead of going across to 99 was rewarded with a solid 10 minutes of traffic where I had been expecting to get on the express lanes. Once I got through, I saw that they were doing something to the southbound lanes of I-5, and if I'd been going that way, it would have taken me far more than 10 minutes to get through the traffic jam. I arrived at home around 7:20, making the transit time for the return leg just under 6 hours. At least this time, the long travel time was by choice rather than being forced upon me. To some extent, I was going slower on the way back, because of the headwind (taking I-5 from Longview to highway 12 was extremely tiring). I also stopped more, and for longer periods of time. Both trips were equally enjoyable in the immediate assessment, the trip down marred by traffic, and the trip back smeared by the insistent headwind. Long-distance trips and the sidecar
It was great having all the storage available in the sidecar. I was able to carry a full-size microwave, several power tools, two full jugs of water, my clothes for the weekend, a spare pair of shoes, a small cooler full of snacks, and a few other odds and ends. There was plenty of room left over. It's a pretty radical change from the Le Mans, where I would have to consider whether I could afford to bring the extra shoes or not, and microwaves and coolers would have been absolutely out of the question. I think with a small fairing or windshield, the Goldwing will make a fine distance rig. It currently pulls a little bit to the right at speed, which suggests the geometry needs to be adjusted. I imagine taking the fairing off affected that, since it was so heavy, and also produced aerodynamic drag which balanced the sidecar side. The Goldwing felt a touch underpowered at a few points during the trip. Particularly with the headwind, it felt like it was laboring at freeway speeds. Some of that was me being unwilling to give it gas (trying not to waste gas needlessly), but to some extent the Goldwing is not as powerful as it ideally should be. It definitely felt happier going 45-60 MPH than over 60 MPH. I still saw a top speed of over 75 MPH, so it's capable of the speed, even if I don't like how it feels. StatsI was paranoid about how much gas I was using, since the Goldwing is still a new bike to me. However, it did pretty well:
I could have gone much longer between fill-ups, since the rig holds nearly 11 gallons all told. Keep in mind, the above numbers are based on the bike's odometer, which reads about 12% high. The corrected average mileage is more like 32.25 MPG. Still, not bad for a big bike and a big, heavy sidecar. The fuel gauge reads about 1/4 full when the rig needs 5 gallons of gas, and it only needs 6.5 gallons when the needle's at the top of the red reserve range. I'm guessing I could let the fuel gauge drop all the way to E, and it would still have 3 gallons left. The GPS, meanwhile, recorded the actual mileage I rode:
I did some driving around in Portland, which is why the total mileage number isn't closer to the 440 miles I've recorded previously on this trip. I didn't include the top speed, since it's a completely non-sensical value (172.3 MPH). GPS isn't infalliable. (If this rig can go 172 MPH and I went that fast on this trip, then I was seriously not paying attention.) Lessons learnedWind protection is a good thing. With the Le Mans and particularly the Ninja, I had been thinking that their little fairings didn't offer much wind protection. I mean, just compare them with something like a Goldwing fairing, or any other touring bike. Of course, on this ride, with the returning headwind, I learned that even those little fairings offer significant protection from the wind. I was impressed. Even the Goldwing sans fairing has a small amount of wind protection with the sloped top of the instrument cover, so I can't imagine what that trip would have been like with zero wind protection. The sidecar definitely needs more, though. Carrying capacity is cool. I loved having the huge cargo capacity the sidecar offered on this trip. It was really nice to be able to think of something I might want to bring, and throw it in, just in case. Don't underestimate "a little wind." I had noticed the wind report in the weather prediction I'd looked up before the return leg, but I'd discounted it. There's always wind. I should have noticed the direction it was coming from. I couldn't have really done anything about it, but at least I would have known in advance. Rides are better when time's no factor. I've discovered this before, but this ride really reinforced it. On the way down, I was concerned because my parents were waiting for me to arrive to have dinner, and I felt the need to be rushed after the horrible traffic getting out of the Seattle area. The way back was far more enjoyable because I knew it didn't matter when I got back. Created by Ian Johnston. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net. |
