Pre-Sturgis Ride

I took a trip to the Black Hills last week to enjoy some great roads before they got clogged up with the Sturgis crowds. I gave the F6B a rest and rode my old Valkyrie Interstate. Until this year I hadn't taken either Valk on a multi day, multi state road trip since 2012, but I've rediscovered what great touring bikes they are. The Valkyrie was a very unusual bike when it was introduced 26 years ago, and practically invented the power cruiser market segment. I can't imagine Honda doing anything that radical today.

I missed a few things from the F6B. I rode over half a million miles before owning a bike with cruise control, but now I'm spoiled. It would have been great on some of those long stretches in Nebraska and Wyoming. I also missed fuel injection. Six carburetors and high speed limits (especially in Wyoming) use a lot of gas. Mileage rarely tops the mid 30s on my Valkyries, but on this trip it was usually in the high 20s. Then there's heat management. The Valkyrie's big radiator dumps lots of heat on your legs, while the twin radiators on the F6B let much of that heat exit to the side. I hit plenty of triple digit temperatures, and the Valkyrie got uncomfortable at times.

In some ways the Valkyrie was better than my F6B. There's a lot more luggage space, so packing is easier and you can organize your stuff better. Radio reception is much stronger with that huge antenna. And then there's the sweet engine sound of the Valkyrie. I can't understand how Honda engineers made the Valkyrie sound so good, while the F6B has that irritating drone.

I took this at Scotts Bluff National Monument. It looks pretty good for a 23 year old bike with 106,000 miles.

http://dchealy.com/valk/scottsbluffvalk.jpg

Great looking bike. I had 3 valkyries over the years and I have fond memories of them. Great post.

Great post. I kind of miss my old Valkyrie sometimes also.

I was just out there a couple of weeks ago. There were not that many people around at all.

I bought a new Valkyrie Tourer in 1998. The following year I rode to a VOA rally in Montrose, Colorado. A BBQ was held in nearby Crawford, where Joe Cocker lived. His wife Pam owned a local restaurant and catered the event, while Joe himself handed out some door prizes. There were several hundred Valkyries parked around the small town, and back at the hotel the parking lot was full of vendors selling stuff to make your Valk even more shiny. It was exciting to own such a revolutionary new bike that truly broke with the cruiser stereotype.

Honda still builds great motorcycles, but as I've said before I can't imagine their corporate culture allowing a radical bike like the Valkyrie to be introduced today. I doubt they'd even build something as unusual as the BMW R18. Times change.

A street full of Valkyries in Crawford back in 1999:

http://dchealy.com/valk/voa99/bikstr1.jpg

http://dchealy.com/valk/voa99/bikstr2.jpg

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Originally Posted by RickW

Great post. I kind of miss my old Valkyrie sometimes also.

I was just out there a couple of weeks ago. There were not that many people around at all.

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June is a great time to visit the Black Hills. Some places feel like ghost towns.

Great looking bike, sounds like a great trip. I am still working on endurance to make a motorcycle trip. I'm only in my upper 50s but max ride lengths have been 3 hrs tops. I do feel a lot better with my F6B and Ultimate seat, maybe one day. soon.

F6Dave, the VRCC held their annual INZANE in Billings Montana this year. Some of the group from Fl. went through the Black Hills and visited Rushmore. You only missed them by a few weeks. They did report that the trip was quite hot and windy.

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Originally Posted by FLsixB

F6Dave, the VRCC held their annual INZANE in Billings Montana this year. Some of the group from Fl. went through the Black Hills and visited Rushmore. You only missed them by a few weeks. They did report that the trip was quite hot and windy.

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I was there in Billings, but only for one night as I had to get somewhere else. I'll agree about the wind. It was horrible. There was a stretch of I-25 north of Cheyenne where I wouldn't dare take even one hand off the grip, and my helmet felt like it was getting ripped off my head twice. I saw some 18 wheelers blown over. Possibly the worst wind I've ever ridden in and it lasted for over a hundred miles. Thankfully it got much better for my ride back. The flooding was at it's peak during the rally, so mother nature was putting on quite a show! There were nearly submerged buildings along the Yellowstone River very close to the hotel.

I rode my F6B to that rally and there were several others. In fact, I think there was at least one of every color Honda made.

Here's some of the flooding...

http://dchealy.com/valk/mtflood1.jpg

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Originally Posted by SpencerPJ

Great looking bike, sounds like a great trip. I am still working on endurance to make a motorcycle trip. I'm only in my upper 50s but max ride lengths have been 3 hrs tops. I do feel a lot better with my F6B and Ultimate seat, maybe one day. soon.

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You have one of the best touring bikes ever made, so go for it!

While on a trip I often think of how nice it would have been to own one of these bikes in my early days of touring. At the risk of sounding like an old geezer telling a kid how tough it was 'back in the day', I'll say that long distance touring has never been better.

When I decided to try touring on my brand new 1976 Kawasaki KZ-900, 55 MPH was the law of the land. That added hours to a 400 or 500 mile day. I logged two 900 mile days in 1978, and they seemed to last forever. Today's high speed limits, especially out here in the west, have made it far easier to cover long distances.

Motorcycle gear has come a long way too. I added a Vetter-clone fairing and some hard bags to my KZ-900, so the basic bike worked well. If you wanted audio Vetter made a 'Cycle Sound' accessory that let you mount a car radio and speakers in the fairing. That worked OK. If you wanted to communicate with other riders you'd mount an automotive CB radio on the handlebars, then get creative with the microphone, speaker, and antenna installation. A state-of-the-art nav system was a tank bag with a map pouch. It took a few years before I bought a proper leather riding jacket, so I made due with a nylon windbreaker over a flannel shirt on cool days. For really cold days I knew riders who made heated vests with several yards of 24 gauge speaker wire.

Most seats were hard slabs back then, so a day's ride could be painful. JC Whitney sold a 'water seat' (water beds were popular then) which consisted of foam rubber in a plastic bladder that you filled with water. It was actually pretty comfortable!

I started touring 3 years before the Goldwing Interstate hit the market. We've come a long way!