Thanks to Rita

[robywan_kenobi]

Well thanks to hurricane Rita, I just got to make the longest trip ever on my '81 XS1100 H. We here in Wharton, TX were under mandatory evacuation and the initial reports were not good for my area. I'm thinking if my house is gonna get blown over I'm not leaving my bike. So, we load up the SUV with all the important stuff and the wife and kids, I get on the bike and we head for my brother's house in Fort Worth, TX. Twelve + hours later we arrive at my brother's house. This is usually a 5 hour trip at best. And if that isn't bad enough, we had record breaking temperatures that day. The thermometer in the SUV read 108 degrees at one point. Funny thing is, we ended up not even getting any rain in Wharton. Seems the hurricane decided to move up the coast while we were stuck in traffic. Oh well, the trip home yesterday was a lot better. No Traffic. Ya know, I'm kinda tired of hearing "better safe than sorry".

[D. P. Larmee]

Wow, twelve hours in stop and go traffic in 108* temps. I start to get worried in city traffic as my bike tends to heat up pretty quickly to the point where I see the heat waves radiating off the engine. Did you have any overheating problems or have I been being needlessly overcautious?

Glad to hear that there was no damage!

[robywan_kenobi]

Bike did seem to get a little hot from time to time, but since the traffic was stop and go, I just shut the engine off from time to time. Traffic was so backed up that I could shut the engine off for 10, 15, sometimes 30 minutes before traffic would move. I occasionely just pulled off on the shoulder and shut her down and walked around for a while, once I walked back to where the wife was and climbed into the SUV for a little air conditioning.

[xs650mike]

In California we don't have to put up with that stop-and-go. We just lane split, it's slow but at least you're moving! Glad your home was OK!