Preparations
What is it about sitting on a motorcycle for hours at a time? For me it is a lot of things – fun, a challenge, a lot of time to think. You get to see, and feel, the country. So, with hopes of doing a long ride this spring, I planned a tune up ride that would take me down some roads I haven’t ridden before. And this time, I wanted to make sure that it was a certified IBA SS1000. 1000 miles in 24 hours let’s you see a lot of country on a day off.
Kenny is a great friend and riding partner. I thought he might enjoy telling the story afterwards so I asked him to join me. I ride a Harley Ultra Classic. I’m a big guy and the bike fits me. Kenny is on his dream bike, a Heritage Softail. While he and I have ridden together long and often, his longest day in the saddle has been about 600 miles. This ride will be a challenge.
We’ll be riding in Texas in early April so that means be prepared for everything. The weather report is sunny and warm for the start. We’ve been in a drought but we’ll still bring rain gear and our coldest weather gear. This is NOT going to be a race. If we finish the distance in 23:59, that will be fine with me. While we are challenging ourselves the joy remains in the journey.
Both of our bikes got some attention this week. The coolest new toy is the AT-X5 GPS tracker from US Fleet Tracking that I installed on my bike. It sends a signal to the Internet every 10 seconds so our friends and family will be able to check in on us through the whole trip. When it is over, I can go back and see and print our route. That is awesome! My wife is totally supportive of my love for riding but she does get nervous when I’m gone. This time she is on vacation with a friend in Mexico but, even from there, she can check in on us the whole time.
Other preparations are just common sense. We don’t need to pack much, just the basics. We plan on one four hour motel stop (if we can find a room, we’re not making reservations.) I’m bringing the normal tools, tire kit, etc. that I always have with me. We’ll carry all the food and water we’ll need. I use a tank bag on long trips for easy access to food and water. A Camelbak is a requirement for me. And I bring one bag to use as a backrest.
Our route will take us from Houston to Columbus on I-10. Then we’ll take US 71 to Austin, I-35 to Fort Worth, I-20 to Big Spring, US 87 to Eden, US 83 to Junction, then I-10 back home. New roads for me will be the swing from Fort Worth to Junction. This promises to be some long, lonely, boring, desolate country. Which, ever since seeing Easy Rider as a kid, I count as some of the most beautiful ways to ride. I love mountains and twisties and trees…but I also love the middle of nowhere. For me, that is the point.
We plan on leaving at noon. That gives us a lot of sunshine to work with and it means we are sleeping in deer country. Again, this isn’t a race. We plan on about 18 hours of riding time and six hours of rest time. We’ll ride the speed limit +3 the whole way. The kicker will be speeding Kenny up through gas stops…the dude does love to linger. And, of course, we don’t want to have anything big go wrong. If it does – flat tire, broke down bike – getting home safely trumps getting home within 24 hours. We can always ride again.
The Ride Begins
Once Kenny got to the house we went across the streets to the tennis courts of my subdivision. We asked a guy to sign our start witness forms. Once he realized we weren’t asking for money he seemed pleased to do it. Then we rode a couple of blocks to the Exxon station, our official start.
We left at 11:47 AM. I had thought through the route (with one big mistake that I’ll get to later) as that seemed to give us the most daylight riding. You have to ride after dark for part of a SS1000 but I wanted to minimize it as Kenny hates to ride in the dark. His night vision is a problem. I always lead and he follows so that helped.
I know that the key to long distance riding is planning and minimizing stops. But we were limited by Kenny’s bike to somewhere around 150 miles for gas stops, and this was going to be tough for him. So I planned a loop that required a bunch of extra gas stops at each of the corners. We ended up with 11 total gas stops, once for some rest at a motel, and once at a rest area. Other than that, we rode.
Most of the first day was uneventful. The traffic wasn’t bad on I-10 to Columbus. It was great to get off the interstate on US 71 between Columbus and Austin. But I-35 was jammed all the way through Austin and most of the way to Fort Worth. We couldn’t reach all the way to I-20 so we got gas at Grandview on I-35 and then just 32 miles later once we got to I-20 West. On we rode to Abilene and Big Spring.
We made a lot of gas stops so we tried to keep them short. As close to ten minutes as we could. Bringing our own food and water to eat on the bike made that part much easier. We saw the spring wild flowers in the ditches but this ride gave no time to stop and smell the roses.
I had thought we might get to Big Spring by 11:00 but we got there over an hour early. It was after dark. That was my mistake. I should have ridden the other way around the loop. As it was, the country that I wanted to see is what we rode through in the dark. I didn’t see a thing except how cool the red lights on top of the windmills look. Oh well, I’ll have to do it again.
We had ridden about 600 miles by the time we hit Big Spring. It was dark and getting cold. But we decided to push on a bit farther to make the next day easier. I felt fresh and ready to go which makes me feel better about the BunBurner and the Four Corners rides I want to do in June. But I also realized that Kenny wasn’t going to enjoy riding in the dark, in strange country, without being able to see well. So we headed to San Angelo hoping to get a motel room.
The Texas Oil Patch means that the old days of always being able to find a Mom and Pop motel in a small town are over. The first place we stopped in San Angelo was full as were three other places I called. We decided to just ride on, maybe just stop at a picnic area to get some sleep. As we headed out of town I saw the Econo Lodge and gave it a try. Bingo! Their last room was a smoking room with one bed. At that point, who cares? We were in the room at midnight with the alarm set for 4:00 AM. Kickstands up at 4:30 AM.
The Ride Ends
It was dark and chilly in the morning when we left. I was in a hurry to ride so I forgot to get a receipt from the motel. I hope that doesn’t hurt us with the IBA fact checkers. The road was deserted and a fine road for riding. I guess the oil industry encourages quality roads. We got gas in Eden where we had to turn from US 87 to US 83.
The road from Eden to Junction was terrifying. Fortunately Kenny couldn’t see the deer but I could. Over those 53 miles I saw deer on the side of the road at the tree line every few minutes. Constantly. US 83 was a two lane for most of the way so there wasn’t any room for error. I just kept to the speed limit and hoped it wasn’t our time. Again, I regretted not doing the loop backwards – we would have been riding in the dark on much more familiar roads. Lesson learned.
We cranked up the speed on I-10 out of Junction. With a speed limit of 80 I knew we would make good time…and sacrifice gas mileage…so we just kept to the speed limit. It was cold! I had a warmer jacket and warmer gloves on the bike but not on my body. So I just suffered rather than make an unscheduled stop. I was foolish to leave without them so I deserved to suffer. What will guys do to protect their pride? Freeze.
Usually people take the 1604 Loop around San Antonio rather than fighting the bizarre twists in I-10 through downtown but I wanted the extra miles and had the time so we just stayed on I-10 all the way through. Our final gas stop was in Seguin and then we rode on home. We left San Angelo at 4:30 AM and arrived back at the Exxon in Houston at 10:58 AM. Roughly 390 miles in 6 ½ hours. Not bad. 70 mph average. That is the benefit of Texas roads with speed limits of 75 and 80.
We got our last gas receipt (where we asked a stranger to take the one and only picture of our trip) and then went over to the fire station by my house for our final witness. Then off to Denny’s to celebrate with real food.
What did I learn? This kind of riding is about the challenge. I love that. I don’t much care to stop and take pictures of everything. I take pictures in my mind and turn them into stories. I prefer hours of thinking. We have great roads in Texas. There might not have been much in the way of hills and curves but I also appreciate smooth and well maintained. And you just gotta love those speed limits.
I like long rides. They are mentally challenging. They get painful. But they also have their own reward. I’m encouraged by how well things went. The BunBurner I’ll start my ride with in June (1500 miles in 36 hours) will be a piece of cake. Kenny and I made 500 miles in 8 hours with too many stops that took too long. That same pace on a BunBurner leaves room for 8 hours of sleep. Maybe I’ll try for the BunBurner Gold. I can’t wait until June.
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