June 2011: Salt Lake City to St George- across to Yosemite, and back along Hwy 50 to Salt Lake. Worth the trip across the desert to get on those high Sierra passes. Winding roads for hours of grins. We lucked out and had cool tems the whole trip, unusual for this time of year.

Very few mods for more comfort:
* Spencer seat mod- very good and no sore butt until the last hour of the last day. I'm sold. Worth the $75.
* Alaskan sheep pad- ok. Would be good in hot weather.
* 1" bar risers and 1" drop on the pegs. Probably worth it- but not necessary.
* Throttlemeister- must have! Only think better would be electronic cruise control.
* Large Rapid Transit tank bag. Just right. Held all the connections/power for radios, etc. Too big for normal riding- trips only.
* XM Radio- works great and won't leave home without it. Turned it off in the twisties.
* Garmin GPS- of course.
* Motocom FRS radio set up. Had radio with the other bikes and chase vehicle. Excellent.
* New rear Pilot Road2. No problems and showing very little wear after 2200 miles, even with the extreme cornering of Hwy 108. Pilot road on the front will be replaced with PR2 in a few days.
* Zero Gravity sport Touring wind screen. I thought we would have rain and wanted to try it, but we were dry every day, a better choice would be the Puig Double bubble.
* On the last day I started to hear some noise in what seems to be the clutch. Everything works fine, but something is not right. Time to pull the clutch and check it.
* Average mileage was 48.7, seemed to like about 80mph for best mpg.

* Last updated by: nummawon on 6/21/2011 @ 3:34 PM *

Way cool, that was probably me in the group. We had 7 bikes, mostly harley types. What a great place to ride.

Good for you guys. I would love to take a long cross country trip on the 14. Have to save that for some other year. Looks like each of you guys had a wonderful adventure. That is what it is all about, owning a bike you love. Getting use out of it which means putting miles on but more important, having all the experiences you dream about .

Right your are Rook- using the 14 is what it's about for me. I would consider myself an expert on long distance ZX14 riding now- HA! Hoping my list of mods helps out a fellow rider someday- kinda like some of the posts did for me. This was the perfect travel use of the 14 IMO- a chase van to carry luggage- so no problem in the most challenging of the roads we found. If I did a trip where I needed to carry all my gear- I may choose another bike. I could pick up a good used bike with bags for about the price of adding hard bags to the 14!!!

Erik- I agree with you. Your cases look great and you need to tell us how they worked out on your long trip...

And everyone should look at the background in your first picture (over the seat) and you'll see the endless miles of Nevada roads- straight as an arrow, and lightly patrolled...

But my idea of another bike is good- HA- can't have too many! Just picked up this old beemer for not much more than luggage