Green River to Ely, NV

Ely, Nevada to Reno Nevada

This ride is old hat for us. It’s part of a route enjoyed riding to/from Sturgis from Southern California. Too numerous to count how many times I’ve done it, but always enjoyable.

It started off partly cloudy and the air was crisp as we made our way through Capital Reef National Park and into Torrey Utah, where the next ride started.

As we snakes our way to Bryce Canyon, the day gradually turned to more puffy clouds and when we arrived in Bryce we need to keep moving to keep ahead of some showers

Quick gas and pictures and we were on our way to Ely Nevada to the start of America’s Loneliest Highway, Route 50. We did catch one shower as we approached Beaver Utah but quickly dried off by the time we arrived in Beaver to top off our gas tanks to hit some long stretches in Nevada.

The 150 plus mile ride towards Ely Nevada was a treat. Even though it was about 1 pm, the sky and surrounding mountain landscape felt late afternoon or early evening as we saw dark clouds and showers all around us, but we were feeling drops every once in awhile. We hardly saw any vehicles on this stretch.

By 3 pm we pulled into a Ramada in Ely Nevada only to hear from Rick that his clutch was going under the suspicion of a leaky clutch. We attempted to fill the reservoir with DOT 4 but too much appeared to have drained as we struggle to get it to take more fluid.

We were 250 miles from Reno and 150 plus miles to the nearest dealer. When we went to sleep, the game plan was to ride 170 miles to a small town of Elko, Nevada in the morning to see if they could service the bike. Durning a restless night, Rick researches and decided if he maybe has only a few more pulls on the clutch, we would still do our loneliest ride towards Reno and go to that dealer, as every mile we clicked would be less in towing if he broke down. The bike ran great, it just was iffy if you could shift a lot.

It was a 300 mile stretch through Nevada, so we needed one gas stop and it worked out for the town of Austin Nevada to be right in the middle at 175 miles and it had gas!

In the nervous morning of ours we left Ely and got going on these sweeping long roads towards Reno. The roads had 35 to 50 mph curves in the passes and 70’s mph on the long straights in the basin.

The morning again was crisp as we were treated with beautiful snow capped desert mountains as we passed through numerous passes and large basin areas with zero people around. we reached elevations of 7500 feet to bottom out at about 6000 feet in the basins.

Just when we were about 20 miles from our gas stop at the half way point, I noticed that my bag with my luggage wasn’t on my bike… I left if in the lot at the hotel while we were prepping to leave that morning . It contained my clothes for when we checked into hotels for the evening and my 15 year old laptop. At our gas stop I called the hotel and they had retreated it, so I arranged for them to just ship it home for me.

Rick pulled into the gas station in Austin and kicked it into neutral. It just so happen the gas station was located on a downward slope so when leaving he coasted downhill and kicked it into gear and we were on our way again, me lighter and Rick closer to Reno.

It was a beautiful ride and was peaceful as the planned ride was a success for ride #10 and as we made it the Reno Dealer without a tow.

Rick got his bike checked in as we arrived about 1 pm. I bought a t-shirt and a pair of pants at the dealer and we checked into the Grand Sierra Resort hotel and casino for the day/evening.

Later that day as we relaxed at the hotel, the dealer called Rick and came up with a game plan to get him rolling tomorrow so we can get home. Our last goal for this phase 1 summer ride was #11, but upon review, the road is currently on restricted times to cross that pass as they are busy removing a slide, and it wasn’t really convenient at this time to ride it as most of it would be under a one way lane supervision. So as of now we completed 8 of the 15 needed, and 20 of our plan. tomorrow we should be heading home.

Since I don’t have laptop right now, picture sharing is limited , I’ll update when I get my laptop back.