I picked up my Electra Glide this morning from Eagle Rider to be my transport for the next three days.

I’ve not ridden a Harley before so what better place to try one than the home of Harley’s.  I opted for the Electra glide as it has luggage and a 12 volt outlet to plug my gps in.

In regards to weather I was told that it was going to be 100+F (38C) and about 117F (47C) at the Grand Canyon.  So it is going to be a warm ride! However the other important bit of information I received was about a likely storm down south of Utah.  Not that I had any rain gear. .!

Leaving Salt Lake City was really hot but I soon got into the freeway groove and maintained a similar speed.

It was nice to get off the freeways and out onto the country roads.

This was a worrying sign.  The clouds that is not the deer sign although I did see one.  Within 10 miles I was in the storm and getting wet.  Apparently a half face helmet and sunnies aren’t the best protection in rain.

By Loa I was starting to doubt my plan and was thinking of another option as I could get very wet this way.  By Torrey it was okay but a really big storm was developing to the north.

So I decided to make a run for it and run the risk of getting wet.  So I headed down route 12.

See that really dark cloud in the distance well it contained enough water and hail to make Noah nervous.

The roads turned into rivers,  the rain was very heavy, and visibility was reduced significantly making it hard to make out the road (not helped by sunnies) and then it started to hail.  The road was quite narrow and there were no safe areas to stop so I just pushed on getting wetter and wetter, until there was nothing dry.

When I was able to stop and the rain had eased I was able to put on a light rain jacket (yes it should have been on earlier) to stave of hypothermia.

After that it wasn’t too bad and I could check out the scenery which was great.

As it was getting close to dark o’clock I decided to pull into a nice little place called Bryce Valley and finish getting dry and warm up.

Days miles – 325

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Thoughts on the Harley.

It’s a very big bike and quite heavy to maneuver at low speed.  But once you are under way it feels quite good and it really eats up the freeway miles.

Although it is 103CI I would have thought it’d have more grunt than it does. To overtake you really need to change down.