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Just got back from my first Iron Butt ride (officially documented) and I'm proud to say I did it on my 78 XS11 !! A friend on a Honda PC went with. We took off on Thursday morning about 4 am from St. Paul, MN. Our route took us down to Kansas City and then across Kansas to Colorado Springs. It all went well until about 9 pm in Limon, CO where we stopped at sundown for some dinner. While eating, it began to rain and as we were heading out the door the guy behind the counter warned us that the 2 lane road we would be taking for our last 70 miles was known for a lot of deer and elk. That was a long slow ride in the rain, doing about 30-50 mph with eyes wide open for the wildlife. Only saw one deer and he stayed put on the side of the road. We got into Colorado Springs at about 11 pm with 1050 miles under our sore butts.
After a good nights sleep, we went over to the entry to Pikes Peak. There we were warned that it "might not be such a good idea to go up on motorcycles today" due to the rain and mud, along with the cloud cover coming and going at the peak. Been up there before, so we decided to skip it. We took a drive through the Garden of the Gods area, very nice dramatic rock formations. Then we took the drive from hell up 25 through Denver at rush hour. Traffic went from 0 to 85 and back again, over and over. In the rain. Along the way, the core of my header megaphone fell out. I noticed the sound building up and then get really loud. I never went back to look for it, figuring it had to have been run over multiple times. After riding the rest of the way up to Cheyenne, Wyoming with an open pipe, I knew I had to do something about it or go deaf before I got home.
I found a Cenex station where the very helpful mechanic drilled about 10 holes for me around the end of the pipe. Then we got a package of course steel wool and stuffed it up the pipe, lacing up the end with mechanics wire to hold it in. It worked like a charm, dropped it down to very close to pre-problem sound levels. Crude, but it worked. The rest of the trip on Saturday, Sunday and home on Monday went smoothly. Most of it spent running through the twisty's in the Black Hills. The mileage total came in about 2500 miles altogether, with the first 1000+ on the first day.
Now, I need to fix the exhaust in a more official manner. I'm just happy it got home with nothing major. By the way, my gas mileage averaged about 33 mpg, running between 70 and 85 most of time. Also, used about 3 quarts of oil along the way.
After a good nights sleep, we went over to the entry to Pikes Peak. There we were warned that it "might not be such a good idea to go up on motorcycles today" due to the rain and mud, along with the cloud cover coming and going at the peak. Been up there before, so we decided to skip it. We took a drive through the Garden of the Gods area, very nice dramatic rock formations. Then we took the drive from hell up 25 through Denver at rush hour. Traffic went from 0 to 85 and back again, over and over. In the rain. Along the way, the core of my header megaphone fell out. I noticed the sound building up and then get really loud. I never went back to look for it, figuring it had to have been run over multiple times. After riding the rest of the way up to Cheyenne, Wyoming with an open pipe, I knew I had to do something about it or go deaf before I got home.
I found a Cenex station where the very helpful mechanic drilled about 10 holes for me around the end of the pipe. Then we got a package of course steel wool and stuffed it up the pipe, lacing up the end with mechanics wire to hold it in. It worked like a charm, dropped it down to very close to pre-problem sound levels. Crude, but it worked. The rest of the trip on Saturday, Sunday and home on Monday went smoothly. Most of it spent running through the twisty's in the Black Hills. The mileage total came in about 2500 miles altogether, with the first 1000+ on the first day.
Now, I need to fix the exhaust in a more official manner. I'm just happy it got home with nothing major. By the way, my gas mileage averaged about 33 mpg, running between 70 and 85 most of time. Also, used about 3 quarts of oil along the way.
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