Day 3 – On the Road to Bishop CA
I had originally planned on staying the first night out on the road in Barstow CA, and then I asked myself why? Why not just head up to Bishop CA? Good idea, a few words with my Garmin and off we went!
Hit some rain on I40, but not bad. We actually made good time to Kingman where we gassed up and after paying a short visit to Hoover Dam, we then headed up 93 to Las Vegas where we picked up 95. 95 runs parallel to the slanted side of Nevada and is nearly as straight. It is a two lane road posted at 70 MPH. The traffic was actually pretty light and I had Bettie cruising along, shall we say, “Nicely” š An interesting Factoid, a Chrysler 545RFE automatic will shift into 5th gear at 113 MPH, and then pulls nicely up to 5840 RPM where the computer redline is… jus’ say’in…
We stopped for gas at Beatty NV on 95, which was good since there wasnt another gas station for the next 208 miles in Big Pine CA. The fun part of the drive came when we turned off 95 and hit 266 and then on to 168. This is one sweet drive if you like your two lane fast, tight, twisty with a lot, a LOT of dips. I am sooooo glad I put heavier front springs in Bettie prior to this trip, I took some grief for her 4 X 4 stance from some of my friends at Flagstaff, but had I not done it, we would be still crawling along 168 today instead of heading up 395 toward Klamath Falls OR.
As it turned out, Bettie’s highspeed performance driving gas mileage is 14 mpg down a bit from her normal 18-20 mpg, also due to the design of her gas tank, it goes from full to half in about 40 miles. Her gas gauge displays a low fuel warning when the fuel level drops below 10% which caused the beautiful Miss Michelle no small amount of angst worring that we might run out… Not being totally sure how large Bettie’s tank is or actually how much can be drawn from it I have been using 225 miles as my fuel mileage limit based upon 15 mpg and 15 gals. This time I think I came close… when we got to Big Pine where 168 meets 395 I had driven 208 miles and took 14.7 gal to fill her. The orignal Dodge tank was supposedly 17.5 gals, I am not sure how much my aluminum one with an internal pump is. I am thinking we might have had a couple of gallons left.
When we got to the motel in Bishop, after we had parked; we had a couple of interesting conversations with five motorcyle guys, who were also car guys and actually understood and appreciated what they were looking at. They all had pegged it as a Dodge and half of them got the year right. They all wanted details about the build. Four of the guys rode Harleys, the 5th was on holiday with his wife driving an SUV. He told me that he has put over 100K miles on each of his past past two Hayabusas. He is currently awaiting delivery of his next one that is low mileage with all the extras. He was born in 1956Ā so he really appreciated the Dodge and he lovedĀ Bettie’s image and the fact that she was the December Playboy Centerfold in 1956.Ā Bill is one cool guy,Ā he is still riding on the street one of the highest performance bikes that you can buy, and he is an avid bicyclist as well. He rode from Newport Beach to San Diego and back on a weekend, pretty damn good for 58 yrs old!