if you look closely you can see the needle on the right gauge there is at 0.  that is the tachometer and it should read around 5000 rpm.  it stopped working about two days into the trip so the rest of the time i was shifting whenever it felt right.  this is really a better way to ride the bike but it’s also helpful to know what the bike is actually doing.

though they were both technically working, our speedometers were highly questionable.  we usually tried to maintain 60 mph, but we’d stop and i’d ask alex why he was going so much faster or slower than that and he would say his speedometer said 60.  the needle would shake so much that you really had no idea how fast you were going but you could guess that if it was moving between 45 and 55 that you were probably around 50.  maybe…