Thanksgiving Weekend - Olympic Peninsula, Washington, USA

My family and I have been spending Thanksgiving at La Push on the Quileute Indian Reservation on Washington's Olympic Peninsula for over thirty years. Some of you may have read Steak's report of our annual New Year's Day Ride to Neah Bay - same part of the country. Beautiful scenery, awesome roads, and very little traffic. There are cops out there, but the radar detector did its job for me this time.

Of course, this time of year the weather can be a real factor as it is usually cold and wet. This year before heading out I had Steak come over and check my TBs and Beetle's map as the bike had been idling way too high. He worked his tweeky magic and managed to sort everything out for me and I had a great ride out on Thursday. It rained most of the way, but my gear did a good job of keeping me dry. I ride alone on these Thanksgiving trips and Esther takes the car loaded with food, supplies and dogs. She's definitely a keeper.

So the re-installed map worked wonderfully though I did notice a couple of things; one, at certain speeds/rpm I could hear a high-pitch whine. Couldn't put my finger on it and it wasn't consistent. It was almost like a vibration hum, but as I said, high-pitch. Of course I wear earplugs so I took a short ride without them and didn't hear it at all. Hmmm. And two, while it started right up, on Saturday morning it was so friggin' cold that the bike took a long time to warm up and when I tried to rev it a little before it was fully warmed up, it bogged down and died. Restarted right away and I just let it idle until it was warm and then it worked flawlessly all day. I'm sure the oil was just thick and cold. There was ice on my gas tank and seat. That's pretty damn cold. In fact, I went out with it to check on the road conditions and to get somewhere where I could get a weather forecast and found that they were predicting even lower temperatures for Saturday night - down into the low 20s. So at that point I decided I'd head home on Saturday instead of waiting until Sunday. Esther and the others on four wheels came home yesterday as planned, but I figured if the roads were icy on Saturday, they'd be even worse by Sunday. I took the South 101 route as we've encountered bad road conditions in the past going the other direction around Crescent Lake, both on 101 and 112 when the weather gets dicey. If you look at a Google map, you can see that the Olympic Peninsula route is a big loop and you can get home by heading north or south. There was snow on the sides of the road all the way to Ocean Shores and some of those perpetually shady corners looked a little scary. I kept it down close to the speed limit (I know, that never happens), and even waved a couple of cars past me (horrors!). Stopped in Aberdeen for a late lunch and got to Olympia just before 4:00 PM. That's when things really got weird. I-5 was PACKED and there was black ice on several of the bridges/overpasses. There were four accidents between the Tacoma Dome and South Center Mall alone (a span of about 25 miles)! It took me two full hours to go the sixty miles home from Oly to Seattle on the freeway. And of course, the last hour was in the dark which made it even spookier. Anyway, I made it home safely and I'm glad I left a day early. Everything here is pretty iced up. Here are a few pictures, enjoy.

GRiSO ROSSO at Pillar Point (Hwy 112 - Strait Of Juan de Fuca Hwy.):
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Cabin 32 - La Push Oceanside Resort:
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Cabins - La Push Oceanside Resort:
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Tsunami Hazard Zone: (In case of earthquake, go to high ground or inland)
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Foamy surf:
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Olympic National Park:
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Snowflake of coldness:
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Ice on tank:
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Treacherous conditions - Quileute Airport Road near La Push:
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Top ride report!

Ice on tank= Brrr! Good cold weather test of the map.

the Olympic Peninsula  certainly is beautiful , its been too long since i have ridden it..
Nice write up Street ..brings up some great memories.

Too cold for me!!! Negative ghost rider, the pattern is full...

Thanks for sharing the trip Peter. Reloading the map wasn't so necessary, but a re-balance of the TBs and then re-setting the CO to -3 to address the high idle seems to have done the trick. Might need to look into tweaking the map a bit for sub-freezing temperature start-ups. Or just live with the extended warm up times.

I had the same issue with the Mistral High Pipe map on Sunday night. Really friggin' coldness made for a slow warm up, but it finally got there.

Are you ready to go back out there again on 1/1/2015?

Do you think the long warm is an issue, or is it something you can live with? It will never get that cold here for me to test. As long as the engine starts without having to over crank it, I'm not too concerned.

Good looking bike. Nice pics too.

You are one hardy sonofagun.  With that forecast, I'd have rolled over, cancelled my reservations, and ordered turkey pizza!  

Oh, I forget.  PNW.  That's always the forecast.    

Seriously, very nice pix.  Especially like the ice on the tank.

And, maybe I need to drink less coffee in the a.m., but the sea foam and black flotsam makes me see a polar bear's head here.  


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Thanks for posting.

Bill

P.S.  Red Grisos rock.  They are the "Real SE's."  

Can't see it I think maybe less a.m. coffee.

Ouch. Nice ride; hurts just reading about it. Your oil cooler cover cracks me up.

I must admit, I'm kind of surprised at the reaction to my oil cooler cover. I thought it was brilliant! I guess my aesthetic sense is different from regular peoples'. Oh well, fuque 'em. My bike, my louvers.

In answer to other questions/comments:
1. Steak, yes, I'm always up for Neah Bay on New Years' Day! LOVE my electrics!
2. Beetle, I don't think the slow warm-up is necessarily a problem that needs fixing. On most cold days I'm taking the bike out of my heated garage and it warms up normally. The situation over the weekend was unusual in that the bike sat outside in the cold and wet over night. Just had to give it time to get its circulation going. She started with no difficulty so I'm pretty sure I can live with it.
3. Bill, is this the polar bear hallucination of which you speak?

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What cracks me up is the vaguely coal-burning look of it, as if your cooler was the firebox of a steam engine. There is definitely a rustic genius to it.

Good story. I see the Polar bear, but facing the other direction.

I think more than coffee is being drunk around here!

Street - you are a strong man riding in those conditions! I think putting an orange light behind your cover would complete the "Brazil" (the movie, not the ountry) effect. I like it!

I'm sure I have no friggin' clue what you guys are talking about...

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Bwahahahaha!

If I may make a slight modification to "keep it GRiSO":

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Now yer talkin'!

tocino - methinks thou art even more daft than I.

Street wrote:

I'm sure I have no friggin' clue what you guys are talking about...

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You should totally do that. I mean, like, you just HAVE to.

Nice thread and some good laughs! Glad you and yours had a nice time. I like traditions! BK

Street wrote:

I must admit, I'm kind of surprised at the reaction to my oil cooler cover. I thought it was brilliant! I guess my aesthetic sense is different from regular peoples'. Oh well, fuque 'em. My bike, my louvers.

In answer to other questions/comments:

****

3. Bill, is this the polar bear hallucination of which you speak?

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Yes!

I had been wondering if I had a drop or two too much grappa with my espresso.  

BTW, I like your grill mod.  That said, I've not had the warping happen to mine and I've ramped it up on some hot days.   As mine is a 2010, isn't likely mine's a "new, improved" version, either.

Best,

Bill

In freezing temps over night even a stock bike will be shy at warming up so I don't think Beetle's map is really the problem.
When really cold, you sure don't want to miss the first crank up. Batteries have a way to be unforgiving in those scenarios...

smoking a bit

If that was a question for Bill I can assure you a man less likely to 'Smoke' you will never meet!

Pete