Day 7

To use one of the segments from Sesame Street, the word for today WIND! The weather forecasters were calling for wind and they were right. Yesterday’s wind was mostly a tailwind, but today was stronger and had a lot of headwind component to it. The scooter was running well, but even going down a 6% grade it couldn’t reach the cruising speed s from yesterday. Trying to maintain a decent speed was a challenge as the cylinder head temperature would climb higher than I’m used to running. While it was still a relatively low number, I’m not all that sure the reading is accurate so didn’t want to damage the engine due to overheating. Oh, and there was some decent hill climbing as well that required third gear. Third gear would probably have been needed without the wind. It’s supposed to be windy again tomorrow, and we’ll be climbing over 9000 feet. I had considered changing to a smaller jet in the carburetor but decided to stay with the one currently installed, feeling that it’s safer to run a little rich than try for a bit more power. It’s also our longest day at 380 miles. I hope I can get in before it gets dark.

Even if you’re not curious, I’ll post pics of the official route handbook for today.

Front page, also has my fuel consumption data (sorry for the blurred picture)