The Not The Mt Gambier run.

Driving Highway 35 through Texas the limit was 85mph. I sat on about 90 keeping up with the traffic. Plenty going past at a great rate. Sure helped get from A to B in a hurry :)
 
Travelling through the freeway in San Francisco in the just picked-up Ford Explorer I was surprised that we were being passed by most doing 80mph plus. Heading from Salt Lake City over the Serra Navad Range racing to beat a Blizad with the roads white with Snow the Semis Motorhomes and Massive Utes towing really long trailers hitched from the middle of their beds were all pretty close to THE TON. If there was speed enforcement on major Hwys in Cal Nevada or Utah we didn't see any.
 
78jotadave said:
Diablo, wow, I did not realize the fuel quality was so bad in rural Oz it makes it very mechanically risky for older Laverda hi compression engines, probably disastrous with the original ignition system. What is your bike CR?
Years ago for the South America trip, I prepped my standard 3C (compression ratio 9.0) engine for shit fuel by adding additional base gaskets, a total of 3). My bike ran trouble-free even at high altitudes with fuel I pumped from rusty 44 drums at dubious truck-garages
Is fuel an issue in other regions of OZ?

Thanks for sharing your ride with us, Cheers Dave🍻
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CR is more than 10. Red told me what is was but goldfish memory. Definitely pinging on 91. Still not sure of the benefit of octane booster, it might be the placebo effect but I was very gentle, no lugging, moderate revs unless I had 98 or 95 in the tank.

A lot of outback fuel here is low aromatic (I guess not in the smell sense but the cyclical hydrocarbon sense) because of petrol sniffers. This is a long term problem with remote communities. Most sniffers graduated to aerosol spraypaint cans, the worst "chroming" by spraying chrome paint into a plastic bag into inhale. So the hardware stores lock them up. So then they graduated to aerosol perfumes and the state gave up.

Earlier this year after floods in QLD, fuel from 2 servos were bad but cleared after coughing and spluttering for a bit, Probably as the water was run through.
 
Vince said:
the Semis Motorhomes and Massive Utes towing really long trailers hitched from the middle of their beds were all pretty close to THE TON. If there was speed enforcement on major Hwys in Cal Nevada or Utah we didn't see any.
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That is what is known as a 5th wheel trailer, legally if your towing any type of trailer 65mph is the limit but if you are driving 65 you are obstructing traffic
 
There used to be an 80kph limit here in Tassie for cars towing trailers, but it was rescinded around 30 years ago because it was stupid and created problems with traffic flow on highways. There was also an 80kph limit for motorcycles carrying a pillion passenger, but that rule went out the window at around the same time as the trailer speed limit.

There was never any statistical evidence or research that supported or recommended a lower speed limit for such vehicles. So it must have just been a random idea that came out of the head of some shiny-arse pencil pusher in a government office somewhere. I suspect that's where many laws come from - the "seemed like a good idea at the time" school of thought.
 
We I think still have a 90kph limit for L plate Motocylests and having travelled with a few on expressways that have a general limit of 110, it's bloody scary and fully stupid to force learners to travel 20ks slower than everybody else.
 
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