I'm headed out to Las Vegas to spend a couple of days with the relatives, and the GPS says that its about 1300 one way. the bike has new tires on it, brakes are only 6000mi old getting a new chain and sprockets before we leave. Right now I can't think of too much that i will be forgetting(I know it will be something I need to)...... Does anyone know if the hurricanes act up with the altitude changes, here we are 1000ft above sea level, I'm curious to whether the mountains are going to give me a problem or not. Thanx for the feed back and anymore info that you guys might have

 

I have had mine up Mt. Washington in New Hapshire six times. At 6,288 ft I have not noticed any loss in power.

 

This is a heavy bike. Ihave had the front wheel bearings replaced twice and the bike has only 28k miles. They failed once during a road trip butI was fortunate to find a Honda dealer in Connecticut that had them in stock and was willing to stay open after normal hours to make the repair.I recommend checking the front wheel bearings before a long trip. In lieu ofvisual inspection, you can put bike on center stand and weight the back end to get the frontwheel off ground. Check for "extra play" by holding forks and rocking wheel side to side, spin wheel to ensure smoothnessand listen for abnormal sounds.

If you are very conservative you may also wantto consider carrying a spare regulator/rectifier asI have read posts on this forum by people who do carry a spare due to the inherent failure of the regulator/rectifier. Mine had failed once while on the road andI am considering carrying a spare.

Otherwise enjoy your ride.

Silver 1990, 28k miles.

 

I've had my bike up to 6000 feet a few times, our country has a flat plateau at that height where Johannesburg is situated. Contrary to what TimBucTu expressed, I definitely felt a loss of power at altitude, around 10%, but you'd have to stay there and ride for a day or two for the power loss to be really apparent. The bike started and ran well, no problems, no need to rejet as I wasn't staying more than a few days, and rejetting a California is a real pain in the butt ! TBTu was coming down the mountain afterwards, so probably wouldn't have noticed - our "inland" bikes have way bigger air correction jetting than the coastal boys, I believe some bikes have sensors which correct injection at altitude, but am not sure of this, and minimise power loss. Anyway, you shouldn't be concerned, the bike will just be a wee bit sluggish, that's all.
Enjoy !

 

Shadow1, you are correct. There is some loss in power at 6,000ft but you do have to search for it under normal riding (normal riding is the key here). I also went back are re-read tomih84d post where he is starting out at 1,000ft; I thought he was traveling to 1,000ft. My guess is that he will be traveling up and over a pass between California and Nevada. If so he will be at 12,000ft. I drove a 1968 Plymouth up Pikes Peak (12,110ft) in first gear with the pedal mashed to the mat and could hardly get to 20 MPH. He would be better off as the power to weight ratio is better in the bike. He should feel a big loss in power on the climb up laden with luggage but I doubt that he would have problems other than that.

For what I understand, fuel injected cars are tuned to a range of altitude for the area of the dealerships. In other words a car bought at a coastal dealership would have more loss at altitudes than one bought in the mountain areas. I don’t know if this is true in bikes.

 

I worked in the mountains for 2 years at over 10000 feet, in the Kingdom of Lesotho (where the Roof of Africa Rally is run)and yes, our injected cars were bought from high altitude dealerships and while there was a definite improvement when returning to the coast, it wasn't as bad as with carbs.Thanks for the info TBT.
I must also agree with Paul6585 on the regulator - I've blown 5 in the past 3 years, finally traced to a stator problem, and I still carry a spare when on longer trips. A front wheel bearing check is always a good precaution.......