2023 Pinnacles National Park Trip - Statistics

Total Trip

Total Days	10
Days on the Road	10
Total Miles	2530
Average Miles/Day	253
Low Mileage Day	161
High Mileage Day	328

Gas and Mileage

Total Gas Stops	19
Total Gallons	72.239
Total Gas Cost	$374.84
Average Miles/Gallon	35.023
Average Cost/Gallon	$5.188
Low Cost/Gallon	$4.55⁹ - Biggs Junction, OR
High Cost/Gallon	$5.89⁹ - Crescent City, CA

General

Total States Visited	3
Total National Parks Visited	4
Total National Monuments Visited	0
Lowest Temperature	53.2°
Highest Temperature	94.7°
Lowest Elevation	-22'
Highest Elevation	5,936'
Days with Rain	1
Nights in Motels	9
Average Cost/Night	$155.88
Low Cost Night	$105.50
High Cost Night	$223.02
Wireless Connections	9
Wired Connections	0
No Connections	0

Web Statistics

I don't usually look at the website statistics since I don't share the links with anyone and don't usually complete all of the pages until after we returned home. These pages are really for our own use anyway so I'm not that concerned with how many people view or follow our pages anyway. That being said I did take a screen shot of the new Google GA4 Analytics for our pages.

Final Thoughts and Future Plans

First of all - the trip. Our plan was to stay off Interstates and major highways as much as possible and we did pretty well. We were only on I-5 for 5 miles. Because of that we probably had the lowest average daily mileage of previous trips. We were okay with this and just not up to 400 - 500 mile days any more. We also tended to get to our destinations around 4:00 PM each day which gave us time to rest up, maybe hit a hot tub, and find a place to get dinner. We used to ride until we were tired and then look for a hotel but, after getting burned a few times, we generally plan the next day's trip and then make reservations ahead of time.

We also tried to stay away from fast food and that worked out fine. We only hit a Subway one time because there just wasn't anything else very close. In general temperatures were not too bad, we put our vests on several times but never had to plug them in for added comfort. We also got about 20 minutes of rain, it rained very hard for those 20 minutes but we had time to put rain gear before it hit. We really have been fortunate relative to rain in the past few trips. This also seems to be a pretty good time of the year to travel since schools are back in session in most parts of the country and most folks are done with their summer travel. That and the fact that we weren't on major roads made riding pretty nice. We would sometimes go miles without seeing or passing other cars.

We did notice that everything is getting more expensive. We spent more for gas and hotels than we have in any previous trip. It's also difficult to get dinner anywhere for less than $40.00 or $50.00. We stay at hotels that have breakfast buffets for the most part although, where almost all hotels had free continental breakfasts, it's a little harder to find them. We still do the same thing we have always done for lunch. We stop at a grocery store either the night before or in the morning and purchase sandwiches and fresh fruit. Then we stop at a park or rest area along the way to eat.

Now some of the negatives. In the past I have usually included a statement about how the bike and our gear performed well and we had few problems, unfortunately that was not the case this year. Although none of them were game changers, they were inconvenient. Here are some of them:

Right from the very start of the trip, my microphone did not work. I assumed it was problem with the cable connecting my headset to the bike and, since I always have spare cables, I just assumed that I could replace it down the road. Unfortunately that was not the case and we ended up doing the entire trip without easy communication. I just had to lean back and shout.

The clamp that attaches Linda's headset wires to he helmet kept coming loose. This has been somewhat of a recurring problem with these clamps. Linda has suggested that maybe we need to start over. Our helmets are much older that they usually recommend using them and the headsets themselves have to be 30 years old at least. We'll have to see.

Sometime on the third day, the speedometer cable apparently broke. Knowing the current speed is not a significant problem since the tach still works and you can convert tach rpm's to speed without too much of a problem. Unfortunately the speedometer also controls the self canceling turn signals, the automatic volume control for the audio system, and the cruise control which was the real problem. When you are doing 300 miles a day, especially on winding roads, constantly winding the throttle can get old and tiring.

Another problem had to do with the data logger I built. It has been very reliable for many trips but suddenly stopped working. In the end I was able to cycle the connector that connects the logger to the main board several times and, I assume, that cleaned the contacts because it worked fine for the remainder of the trip. There were several positives that came out of this issue and I'll detail them below.

We like to listen to music during the day while we ride. Previously we had an XM Radio but the cost for only a week or two was ridiculous. So lately we record long sessions of XM Radio broadcasts on a PC and download those files to my phone. Since some of our routes were detailed since we wanted to stay off freeways, we were using Google maps to navigate. Unfortunately when we had navigation, UltraGPS, and music playing at the same time, the music would suddenly stop. When we used just the UltraGPS app and music, the music never stopped. It would be nice if we can figure this out in the future.

A minor detail, but we had a rattle that was annoying and it turned out to be a chrome plated plastic piece that covers the front forks. It's merely decorative and doesn't serve any real purpose other than aesthetics. The mounting holes were broken and a new one from Honda is over $250, but I can get one on Ebay for about 10% of that.

I mentioned GPS and logging on my phone versus my logger. A GPS unit generally outputs a reading once per second but my logger just writes the position every 10 seconds. At that rate a 6 hour ride would produce about 2,000 points and, at 60 MPH, that would be a new position every 880 ft. However the phone has a smart algorithm and records new position data every time the direction changes slightly. So, if you are going in a perfectly straight line, you would only get a very few points but, if you are on a curvy road, you would get more points and, in fact, a typical 6 hour ride might produce close to 20,000 points. The track would be way more accurate. Even if you used a program like GPS Babel to reduce the number of points, the track would still be more accurate than with my logger. Since I don't really need that kind of accuracy. I will probably still continue to use my logger but will also use the phone GPS as a backup in case there is a problem with the logger.

We used Google Maps navigation most of the time and it worked pretty well. We told it to avoid highways and, for the most part, it did a pretty good job. It took us on some roads that I don't think we would have ever even found - which was good and bad. Some of the roads needed a lot of work. I'm not sure exactly how their algorithm works but it does get you where you want to go. It even displays your current speed and usually the current speed limit, although it sometimes didn't know it and sometimes was a little off.

Like I mentioned earlier, we tried to stay at hotels with free breakfasts and we only missed once. Most of the breakfasts were pretty good. I like cereal and one of them only had Frosted Flakes and Cocoa Puffs and another one only had Cheerios but we survived. They all had juice, yogurt, bagels, fresh fruit and coffee or tea. Two of the hotels had yogurt machines. You put your cup under the nozzle and pressed a button and the machine dispensed a dollop of yogurt and, each time you pressed the button, you got another dollop. There was also containers with granola, raisins, craisins, and even cookie chunks to mix into the yogurt. I think we need one of these at home.

One of things that continued to irritate me was the gas nozzles in California. They all have this spring loaded sleeve around the nozzle that's supposed to seal against the gas intake pipe to prevent vapors from escaping but I'm assuming that they eventually have to go somewhere. This just doesn't work on a motorcycle. On most cars the gas intake pipe is probably one to two feet above the tank where, on a motorcycle, the pipe is directly on the tank. The only solution is to hold the sleeve back with one hand while squeezing the handle with the other. The spring can be pretty stiff and the process is messy and a pain.

Finally a note about cameras. We have a Nikon Coolpix S7000 that we have used on trips for years and it's convenient and can take decent pictures. Our phones take much better pictures but just aren't convenient for taking pictures from the back of a moving motorcycle. We may have to at least investigate a new camera for the next trip. Maybe we'll look for one with a built in GPS to improve the geocoding process.

We haven't planned next years trip yet but may have to go to White Sands National Park in New Mexico since that's one of the few we have missed since it was only designated in the last few years.

8/22/23 Update

My speedometer problem is now fixed. After doing some research, it appeared that the problem would be either the speedometer cable or the small gearbox on the front wheel or both. I started with the cable first since it was definitely bad and it was also the cheapest part - but not the easiest to replace. I had to disassemble most of the front end and dashboard to get to the speedometer end of the cable. I got the cable replaced but the speedometer still didn't work so the next step was to disassemble the front wheel to check the gearbox. The gearbox was also bad - the teeth had been completely ground off the nylon gear. With both the cable and the gearbox replaced, everything worked great. It was surprising that my local Honda shop had both parts in stock. I could have gotten after market parts on Amazon for a lot less but I didn't think it was worth the chance. You never know about parts that have a questionable provenance.