Brother Bill and I decided to take a little trip last Friday and Saturday. My Roadstar is a 2000 with 19,000 miles on the odometer. I bought it in July of 2009 with 9,000 miles on it. Brother Bills is a 2002 that he bought last spring and I think it has about 20,000 miles on the odometer. I run Amsoil and Bill runs Mobil 1 V-Twin. Back to the trip, we live in the panhandle of Nebraska at about 3800 ft above sea level. We took off to Colorado, rode to Estes Park, through Rocky Mountain National Park, to Granby Colorado and headed north to Walden Colorado. Spent the night in Walden and left the motel at 6:30 A.M. Temperature was 33 degrees, headed north to Pathfinder Dam in Wyoming, wandered around the dam and Fremont Canyon and then rode on into Casper. The trip back home was on I-25 with lots of new HOT black asphalt. Once we got to Guernsey,WY the temperature on the local bank said 103 degrees. Point of the story is this, we went from 3800 feet above sea level to 12,000 feet above sea level and no problems with the bikes. We went from 33 degrees to 103 degrees and again no trouble. Also, if you are ever in Colorado, the ride from Granby to Walden Colorado is well worth the trip. It's about 50-60 miles and the first 30 are nothing but turns. What a hoot.

By the way, we were on the top of the park and believe it or not, we had to stop and wait in line for construction, at 11,000 feet above sea level.

Sounds like a great ride! How would you even try to pack for weather extremes like that??

Funny you should mention the packing. We had a pretty good idea that it would be "cool" in the morning in Walden. I was layered with about 4 layers and I think Bill had on a heavy leather coat. However, all I had was my riding gloves which are nice for riding but have no insulating properties, in other words, for about the first 30-40 miles, my fingers were numb. I took turns sitting on my left hand or holding it down by the rear cylinder. Once it got warm, I would set my "cruise" and put my right hand down by the rear cylinder. All in all, it was still a great morning and great two days.