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FALL 2016 ISSUE 02 / VOL. 01
On the east side of the Cascades, near Mazama, fertile fields roll up to the foothills.
Inset: For being such a large bike, the Rocket III’ s chassis handled the small roads in the mountains quite well; no complaints.
Ninety-nine percent of the traffic goes on the new Interstate 82 to the east, so the twisty old byway was all ours... and it is high on my list of must-ride roads. At Yakima we headed west on U. S. Route 12, a trans-Cascade highway going over the 4,500-foot White Pass. Fortunately there was a spot of construction early on, and we eased our way to the head of the long line— which meant we had no traffic problems for the next 40 miles.
At Randle, Carl headed home to Olympia, while Bob and I went south on forest roads. Rocky’ s suspension felt darned good, and I never bottomed out while bouncing through all the serious depressions in the pavement. Looking at my riding tactics in his rear-view mirrors, Bob commented,“ Surfing down those roads with you in my wake was like being chased by an Exxon supertanker.” We had originally intended on crossing the Columbia River at Cascade Locks and going down the east side of Mount Hood, but the smoke from forest fires was so thick we gave it a miss, heading along Interstate 84 to Portland and then down I-5 to Bob’ s house.
Next morning, reading about the continuing triple-digit temperatures in the inland valleys, I passed on going to Crater Lake and Lassen Volcanic National Parks and headed back to the coast instead. To my thinking, it is obvious that the Rocket III was designed in the British Isles, where the temps rarely go over 85 degrees F. I found that at about 90 degrees, the heat from the exhaust side of the cylinders warmed up my right inner thigh more than was comfortable. But that is the only complaint I have with the machine.
Good trip, great roads, even turned a respectable 36 mpg over the 3,000 miles. Only problem is that I need an excuse to go back there and ride some of those roads I did not get to. Before the whole range blows up.