WARNING: This is Part 1 of a VERY long ride report.
There, you’ve been warned. Don’t
complain later.
I. love. reading. ride. reports. I do. Sometimes when I have the morning off
and I’m sitting out on the patio with my iPad I just lose myself reading about
the biking adventures other people have taken.
I love them. Especially the kind
of report that I am going to post here.
This will be the kind that I like – LONG, full of helpful tidbits of
information that I may or may not incorporate in my own adventures. The only pictures I really care about are
those that include the writer and their bike.
I like to imagine who I am reading about.
Recently I posted a question on the email list of the Iron
Butt Association. (You get a
membership number in that organization when you complete one of their certified
rides. That put me on their list and it
has cost me a lot of money as I have followed various suggestions I have found
there.) Anyway, a guy I only know as
Brian from Austin wrote back. Now HE can
write a ride report. Click here to
read a great one.
So, eventually, I’ll get around to my ride report
from my 50CC. In the meantime...
Setting the Stage
This past Friday I got home from a few days in Big
Bend National Park. My Harley had been in the shop
getting a 10,000 mile service and a new stator.
It had almost brand new tires on it since I was planning a trip to
Wyoming and Colorado….that didn’t happen.
As soon as I got home I went and picked up the Harley.
Later that night I was sitting on my chair when I shared
with Kelley a thought that I had on the drive home from the park. We were planning on spending a week in
Arkansas, trailering a bike, riding around a bit, etc. Kelley had work to do so she was planning on
working at the hotel during the day while I was out riding. I was having second thoughts about that.
I love Kelley and I love spending time with Kelley. But when it comes to motorcycles, I like to
ride. Ride, ride, and ride. Some guys like to putter around from here to
there, stopping to look at antique stores, drinking coffee in small out of the
way diners. Other guys like to bar
hop. I like to ride. So if Kelley is going, I want us to spend our
time riding – I don’t want to leave her behind in a hotel. So I thought about doing a 50CC instead.
It was 8:30 PM when I shared my thoughts with her. “I think I would rather do a 50CC” was all it
took. “Do it!” she said. She knows what this means to me. She knows me.
She loves me. I love her
too. So I grabbed the laptop and did the
math.
The 50CC
is one of the certified rides of the Iron Butt Association. It requires riding
from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean (or vice versa) in 50 hours or
less. Thus 50 (hours) CC (coast to
coast.) The certification basically
means you have proof that you did it in the form of a cheap certificate, a pin,
maybe a patch you can sew on your riding gear, and, if you want, a license
plate holder from the IBA. Frankly, I
can’t remember what you get – you don’t actually get it, you have to pay for it
– but there had recently been a conversation going on the email list about
sending in the information to certify rides and I was in the mood.
Like many people who love to ride long distances on
motorcycles, I have done plenty of them without sending in the paperwork. Long before I knew anything about the IBA,
when I was in college I rode my 1973 Honda CB750 from college out to Conway, WA
via Casper, WY, Salt Lake City, and Portland.
I just reconstructed that ride using Mapquest in three minutes. 2739 miles.
Here it is:
I did it the first week of May. I had to head south just before Billings because a guy came into the rest stop bathroom where I was trying to wring out my socks and warm up told me that the pass on I-90 had been closed due to a blizzard. I had NO motorcycle gear other than a helmet. I wore hiking boots. A football practice raincoat over a winter
coat over my letterman’s jacket. I had
clothes in a duffle bag tied to my sissy bar with rope. I started each day by
adjusting my chain. I broke 16 spokes at
some point in Wyoming and had to limp into a Honda shop in Rock Springs to buy
some. I had next to no money. It was a glorious trip!
The last leg (note that I had no money) was non-stop from
Twin Falls, ID to my dad’s place in Washington.
Mapquest just told me that leg was 785 miles. I slept for awhile on a picnic table between
Portland and Seattle because it was raining and I was exhausted. But I did it and it was wonderful. On a 1973
CB750!
BTW, I consider a “non-stop” trip one that is not broken by
spending a night camping or sleeping in a motel. When I rode to the six farthest corners of
the United States it was a 14,500 mile trip but only the end, the last leg, is
what I consider a non-stop trip (from San Diego to Brownsville, TX, to
Houston.) That was my previous record, 1,954
miles. That was my certified Bun Burner Gold.
I didn’t certify the first SS1000 (1,000 miles in 24 hours)
ride I did with a couple of friends of mine but I did send in the paperwork for
the one I did with Kenny. I once rode
non-stop home from Durango, CO, on my Goldwing.
At the end of the Hoka Hey, on my way home, my last leg was nonstop from
Cheyenne, WY. My sense is that many
members of the Iron Butt Associate take most long rides just because they is what they like to do to get from here to there but they seldom do a “cert” ride on purpose.
But sometimes you get the urge to do one of those too.
Still Friday night
I started by googling the rules. Simple.
Find a starting spot and an end goal.
Get to the start. Get a little
bottle of sand/water. Find a police officer to serve as a starting
(and later, find another officer at the end) witness. Keep gas receipts
and log the ride. Simple. I ran over to church so I could print off the
required witness report and ride log. (I actually have a ride log form that I
have used for the past certified rides I’ve done but I don’t have a printer at
home.)
The easiest way to get a sense of a long ride is to use the
Internet. There are lots of programs out
there to do that. I’m no expert and
don’t care to become one. I used to do
this with paper maps and I still begin dreaming of rides using my Harley
Davidson Ride Atlas of North America. On the computer I use
Mapquest because it is so simple to do what I want.
Mapquest told me that it was 871 miles to Jacksonville and
1470 miles to San Diego. That would be a 2341 mile ride, straight down
I-10. Boring but it has been done many
times. It is the easiest route. I’ve thought about doing it many times. I told Kelley that I was going to do it. Done.
Time for bed.
Saturday morning.
I got up on Saturday morning and started loading up for the
trip. In the kind of excruciating detail
that I love in the ride reports I read, I’m going to tell you all about
it. I have read many stories where
people spent weeks plotting and planning and preparing. Good for them. I got up on Saturday morning and started
loading my bike for a ride I had decided to do the night before.
I’ll start with my bike.
I ride a 2010 Harley Davidson Ultra Classic Limited. It had 64,890 miles on it that morning. Like most Harley owners, I bought it and changed it
immediately, adding this or that for this or that reason. But here are the essentials for riding long
distances. In no particular order
because I think they are all essential.
A Russell Day Long Seat.
I wrote about this seat in another post on this blog. It has
revolutionized my riding and I will never have another bike without one. Anything else is not as good. You can bet your life the V-Strom will have
one as soon as the “factory” (basically a really nice guy in a very small
upholstery shop in Lake Shasta, CA) has time in his schedule to make one.
Ape hanger handlebars. I used to get a
terrible pain in my neck and upper shoulders when I would ride all day. My hands were too low. I don’t have the kind of handlebars that put
your hands high above your head, just those that put your hands at the level of
your shoulders (or as close as I can get since my seat now has me 4 inches
higher.) If you don’t ride a Harley, put
risers on your handlebars but you will still suffer. I don’t suffer.
A big tank
bag that attaches magnetically to my gas tank. I know Harley guys scoff at sport bike riders
with huge bags on their gas tanks but they don’t realize what they are missing.
Mine has a map holder in which I put my ride plan. (I’ll share that below.) Two
zippered compartments on the sides. (on the left side I put my tracker, lip
balm, little flashlight, etc. and on the right I put my phone, wallet, iPod,
and whatever.) But the kicker in the big
compartment where I keep a 100 oz. Camelbak of ice water, apples (I require
those for long rides), sunflower seeds, beef jerky and protein bars (required
to balance the blood sugar after eating apples.)
GPS,
hardwired to the bike. Yes, there
are people who use their phones or GPS units designed for cars. The problem with those is that my phone gets
too hot when it is in direct sunlight and the car GPS units are unreadable in
direct sunlight. A hardwired GPS is
expensive but it is wonderful. I don’t
like following a GPS for a motorcycle ride, that isn’t why I have one. I have one so I can always know how far to
the next gas station, or the next rest area, or the closest Best Western. Today (I’m still in San Diego and I’m writing
this by the hotel pool, very nice) I needed to go some places in town. I just dial it in and go. I love getting lost on strange roads back
home and just keeping “Go Home” dialed in.
When the arrival time equals when I want to get home, I start following
the purple line. You can ride anywhere
without a GPS but I love having one.
That’s why I bought a mount for the V-Strom and hardwired it in so I can
just swap the GPS between bikes.
A DeLorme Inreach Explorer tracker. Lots of people use SPOT
trackers too. While you are away, loved ones can keep track of you. When you get home, you have a record of your
ride. I can always use Mapquest to
reconstruct old rides but nothing gives me more peace of mind than knowing I am
giving Kelley peace of mind by knowing where I am. It is expensive (the SPOT is
cheaper) but it allows me to send text messages to her when I’m out of cell
coverage. That was VERY important on my
50CC ride…which I will eventually get to…
Back
Support. I don’t have a backrest on
my seat and I would hate to have one. It
is hard enough to swing my foot over it when getting on and off without a built
in backrest but I require back support for long rides. I have a T-Bag
that I fill with the stuff I want in a motel room and enough extra stuff that
insures that I have the cushion I need. I put it on the seat behind me and
attach it with two bungee cords that take literally two seconds to hook.
Improved
lighting. I would say “auxiliary
lighting” if I had it but I don’t. What
I do have is improved lighting. I
improved my lighting with HID lights that are better than stock but they still
aren’t as good as they need to be. I suffered with them on this trip. I will
have auxiliary lighting for my next trip that requires me to ride through the
night!
Cruise
control. I list this last because,
if you don’t have a bike with electronic cruise control then I feel sorry for
you. Your only option is some kind of
throttle lock. I’ve never had a Kaoko
throttle lock (the V-Strom will get one before too long) but nothing I have
tried thus far has worked. For me, in my
truck or on my bike, I have no personal interest in being responsible for
maintaining my speed. I suck at it. I think too much and slow down. I listen to
the wrong music and speed up. I hate
twisting my leg in my truck and being forced to keep it in one position and I
hate holding my right hand on the throttle constantly on a motorcycle. HATE IT.
I use my cruise control constantly.
Anyway, that’s pretty much it for the bike. Since it is already set up for me, and since
I had just picked it up after being serviced, I didn’t have to do anything to
it to be ready for a 50CC.
Equally important…stuff for me and my body…
I CANNOT say enough good things about LDComfort shorts, shirts, and socks. I learned about that stuff from the Iron Butt
email list and bought everything for a long
ride I took around the country.
Prior to buying their riding shorts I ALWAYS suffered from a common
biker affliction known as “monkey butt.”
I remember years ago, riding home from Cape Hatteras National Seashore
on my Goldwing, when I developed the worst rash I’ve had “down there” in my
life. It was horrible! Years later, anticipating another long ride,
Kelley suggested that I use baby wipes at every gas stop. It worked.
Now I always wear LDComfort shorts when I ride and I have no problem.
Since I can wear black shirts as my “uniform” in my job I
have taken to wearing the LDComfort zip mock turtle neck shirts just about
every day in the cooler months of the year.
I was thinking about cutting a slit in one so I can wear my white
plastic power tab on occasion but Kelley drew the line against that one.
I DO wear the black socks every day of the year. Exclusively.
(Except for golf where I wear the little white ones.) When we are invited to a fancy shindig I wear
my LDComfort black socks with my black suit.
I even wear them with my gray suit.
I just pretend I’m President Bush having a bad day. If you want to ride long, wear LDComfort
stuff. Period.
For boots, I wear Sidi On Road Goretex boots. They were very expensive but are worth every
penny. 100% waterproof! They have NEVER leaked on me. They are reasonably comfortable to just walk
around in but I reserve them for really long rides. I know, when I leave the house, I won’t be
wearing anything else for however long I get to ride.
Since you will be likely riding through the desert at some
point, I think that some type of chiller
vest is required. I have one like
this (click
here). It a wasn’t very expensive
and I keep in rolled up in my saddlebags all summer long. You just soak it in water, wear it over your LDComfort
shirt, with or without a well ventilated jacket over both, and you are riding
in air conditioning between gas stops. I
think it is a must.
That’s pretty much it for that. I wear blue jeans, boots, and LDComfort
stuff. I use sunscreen for my face and
Chapstick for my lips (which never works) but I don’t have to worry about
sunburn anymore with the long sleeves. I
have Harley rain gear and ALL of my cold weather stuff in my saddlebags (that
stays in there all year). I bring my
camera, iPod, some CD’s.
Here’s the important part for a certified ride: I have a three ring binder that fits in my
topcase. In it I print out my ride log
and my witness forms, both available with the rules for the
50CC, on heavy card stock paper. I
put them in a thin 3 ring binder. I also
have a pencil case that clips into that binder to hold my pen and receipts.
At every gas stop I follow a strict routine. This is important as it insures that you
don’t forget something. Some people
actually print out a checklist but a routine works for me. Here’s what I do:
·
When I pull into a gas station I look for a
shaded pump where the sun won’t blind me as I read my odometer and write in my
log.
·
If Mother Nature is absolutely insistent I take care of that first, otherwise I take
care of business, leave my bike where it is, and take care of that later.
·
I read my odometer, then zero out my A
tripmeter. I AWAYS use my A tripmeter to keep track of miles between fuel
stops. I use the B tripmeter to keep track of miles between oil changes. I don’t trust the gas gauge on my or any motorcycle. For the 50CC I planned
on getting gas around 180 miles as often as possible. More on that later.
·
I take out my log and record my odometer
mileage.
·
I use my debit card to pay for the gas. I always have three cards ready to go in case
I get the dreaded “See Cashier” code because of the diligence of my bank’s
fraud division. This trip I had already
dealt with my bank and warned them that I would be all over the place during my
vacation…but only after I got the dreaded “See Cashier” code in Alpine and had
to call them.
·
After filling my tank I WAIT until I see the
“Would you like a receipt?” message BEFORE putting the pump handle away. If you don’t do that, you will miss the
chance to get a receipt at the pump, you’ll have to wait in a long line to talk
to the cashier, and it will frustrate you.
Just wait.
·
When I get the receipt, then I go to my
log. I use a Word log template instead
of what they show you on the IBA website so I have numbered lines waiting for
my entries. I NUMBER my receipt and I
put the mileage number on it.
·
In my log I put in the local time from the
receipt, checking to make sure that there isn’t a huge problem. That happens but usually the time stamp on
the receipt is either right or close enough.
For the location, I just enter the basics (e.g. Van Horn, TX) as I will
transfer the complete information later from the actual receipts when I prepare
to send my information in for the certification.
·
I put the receipt into the pencil bag and the
log back into my top case.
·
Then I take out my phone since my DeLorme
Inreach has a phone app, and I enter a waypoint for that gas stop, numbering
them as I go so I have that record as well.
·
Then I’m ready – if need be – to go into the
station to buy water, food, take care of business, etc.
·
On several gas stops during the 50CC I never did
anything beyond what happened at the pump.
My goal is always less than 10 minutes at a gas stop.
Having a plan like this to keep track of what is required
for certification is really helpful. For
my first attempt at a SS1000 I just put receipts into my wallet. They were a mess. I learned my lesson.
I also brought my laptop, iPad, and the thing I have to keep
all of the charging cables and such in order.
Off to Florida
A goodbye kiss and I was off. This trip wasn’t very complicated. Go east on I-10 until it ends. I planned on doing what so many others do,
cross the country from Jacksonville, FL to San Diego, CA. At 9:45 AM or so, I was off.
People complain a lot (rightly) about Houston traffic. It is bad and getting worse. Houston is poised to soon pass Chicago as the
3rd largest city in the United States. But the roads aren’t complicated and I-10 is
plenty wide. I never feel like I am really
leaving town when I head east until I get to the Baytown exit (on the west side
it isn’t until I pass Brookshire) but I know to prepare for what comes
next. What comes next is chaos.
From Houston to Lake Charles, LA on a motorcycle on I-10 is
basically a crude game of Survivor. I
suppose you could hug the right lane and just take your medicine but who does
that? On this bumpy chunk of road, the
best way to do it is keep up without being the sorry soul that got stopped by
the trooper. Mostly people just roar along, all frustrated by the tour bus that
hogs the fast lane, or the jerk in the white Ford who is talking on his cell
phone while holding up a line of three dozen cars. I flew low on into Louisiana.
The first time it hit was just before Baton Rouge. They have been working on I-10 in Louisiana
since the week after Napoleon sold it to President Jefferson. What totally
sucks is the lack of provision for alternate lanes. Traffic just stops. And thus it stopped, leaving me to bake from
the heat of 1700 cc’s of V-Twin between my thighs, not to mention the thousands
of other cars on the road on a Saturday.
It happened again on I-12 between Baton Rouge and
Slidell. BTW, “Baton Rouge” is a French word that refers to the color of one’s
unmentionable due to sitting on the freaking freeway going ZERO miles per hour
FOREVER.
That’s when I started thinking about the nine people shot at
the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston.
On Friday night, after I decided to do this ride and before
we were ready to go to bed, I checked my email.
I had been ignoring email for the week that I was on vacation. I saw the
plans going back and forth for how we at Faith Lutheran would be remembering
this latest senseless loss of life due to the wicked combination of readily
available guns and seriously distorted ideas filling the brain of an otherwise
unremarkable young person.
Our bishop had sent out a video of Pastor Pinckney
that I had watched Friday night. He was
a gifted leader and exactly the kind of person with the style and vision to
make a powerfully good difference in the world.
I imagined what it would be like at Faith Lutheran Church if
I, along with Pastor Junfeng Tan, and seven other key beloved members of our congregation
were shot to death at an evening Bible study.
I can’t imagine how painful that would be and how long the pain of that memory would
last.
So I sat there in line on I-12 and decided two things. I don’t have it so bad right now. I’m not like those truckers with deadlines or
those families with little kids in a hot van.
I’m on vacation! And I decided
that I would start my 50CC from Charleston rather than Jacksonville. In the wider scheme of things, that means
nothing. To me, it meant something.
After far too long of just sitting there, turning the bike
off, starting it back up, being polite, inching forward, I went against the
grain of my character, hit the shoulder, and got to an exit that I knew would
take me to Gause Road and allow me to make some forward progress.
 |
| The I-12 speedway |
Soon I rode past the church where I made the biggest mistake
of my short tenure of working for our bishop in our synod office. I had some bad background stuff going on in
my life, I was in a horrible mood, and I took my frustrations out on the
wonderful little group of people trying their dead level best to be the church
under the challenging circumstances of life in Slidell. I gave them one of the worst sermons I have
preached in my life. Yuck.
I got down to the interstate and saw the traffic was just as
bad there so I decided to find a back road.
I stayed on Gause until my GPS invited me in search of wild geese
through a pleasant neighborhood that I hope to never visit again. Back again on Gause I turned east and
followed a taxi into a gas station.
That’s where, for the first time (I’ll get to the other) a good idea
turned into a bad time.
After I checked with the taxi driver to make sure that I
knew where I was going, and after I had filled up with gas, I went into the
store to get more ice into my Camelbak.
As I got a large bottle of water it occurred to me that my son loves
these over priced Monster energy drinks.
I thought, “I wonder if that might help?” So I gave it a shot.
$3.99, gulp, for a big old can of the green stuff. I poured it into the Camelbak and filled the
rest of the space with water. I thought
that cutting it might help. I went back
out to the bike, stuffed the Camelbak into the tank bag and started putting on
my gloves and helmet. As I sat on the
bike I noticed liquid running down on my tank.
Yes, I had failed to fully secure the screw top on the
Camelbak and, when I squished it into place, I had squished wet sticky crap
over everything in it. Everything came
out. The water I had left became rinsing
water rather than drinking water and I learned another life lesson.
Down Gause to Military and eventually I was on 190 – the old
highway before the interstate. For 20
minutes or so I got to enjoy the kind of motorcycle road that I like. Up close and personal rather than the
detached sense you always have on the interstate. Eventually I cut back over to the main road
and I was trucking down I-10.
Not much to say about the rest of the trip to Charleston
except for two things.
There are only two good things about interstate highways and
motorcycling. If you are in a hurry to
get from point A to point B, you can’t do better than the super slab. And if you have to ride at night, they are
great. They are safer. Gas stops are plentiful and often open 24
hours. They provide a buffer against the
ditch rats that might ruin your day. At night, with those reflector things
built into the white line, it is flying down a runway.
The traffic thinned way down once I got to Florida. Soon, I started feeling hungry for real
food. Here’s what I mean by “real food”
on a motorcycle trip.
I’m not a foodie.
Many people who ride motorcycles are.
They will ride 500 miles to have BBQ in Kansas City. Kelley is a foodie. Earlier this year, on our way home in the
truck from North Dakota, she handled the in-motion internet duties in looking
up the best places to eat BBQ on our way home.
I’m not that way.
For me, the ideal real food on a motorcycle trip is
purchased at a diner connected to a truck stop that has been there forever. My waitress is named Marge, or Madge, or
Kitty and she’s worked there since high school.
She calls me “Darlin’” and never lets my coffee cup get empty. At the end of the meal, I will tip her $10
regardless of the price of the meal. The
food – usually the biggest breakfast item on the menu so that I can have plenty
of protein to cancel out the sugar from the apples and other stuff I eat on the
bike – is inconsequential. I also like
gas station hot dogs.
Speaking of coffee, I love coffee. I have a bad habit of refilling my travel mug
at every gas stop. That is fine for
having something other than water to drink for the 50 miles that it remains
drinkable but it is DISASTROUS on a long certified ride that requires you to
ride into the night. It will result in
the most INSISTENT and FREQUENT needs to stop that you have ever
experienced. Trust me. Even though I knew that, I experienced it
again early Sunday morning as I passed from Florida up into South
Carolina. For the rest of my trip it was
one cup in the morning and nothing but water and/or my new fangled
Monster/Water cocktail.
I followed Hwy 17 into Charleston hoping that it would take
me to the ocean. Sure enough, I saw water and boats and what looked like water to me! And right by the water I saw a gas station with a Holiday Inn just up the street. Nirvana. But first I set the GPS for Mother Emanuel
AME and spent an hour in vigil with those outside. I want to write more about that but not here.
 |
| May God comfort these people in their loss and encourage the rest of us to work hard toward a better world. |
Back to the Holiday Inn.
I got a room and then started running down the list of the final
preparations. (Mind you, I had just
ridden 1,175 miles through the night and I was a little bit punchy. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing.)
Final Preparations and a Practice Run
As I walked back to my bike from dropping my stuff off in my hotel room, an awful
thought occurred to me. The spirit of
the 50CC requires traveling from one ocean to another, getting gas receipts
from the closest gas stations to said oceans.
The water I was looking at wasn’t the Atlantic but the Charleston harbor
and marina. I needed to find a
beach. So I went over to the gas station
that was no longer going to be a good starting point to get some help.
They directed me to Folly Beach, 9 miles or so from downtown
Charleston. Thus, my starting
point. But first I had to run to a CVS
to get two bottles to hold sand/water, more water, more Monster drinks, and
more tank bag snacks. That done, I
headed to Folly Beach.
As I got there I saw the Kangaroo Express gas station that
would become my starting point. I also
noticed that it wasn’t open 24 hours so my idea of sleeping awhile and leaving
at midnight to avoid traffic in Atlanta went out the window. I rounded the corner, parked illegally, and
ran out to the edge of the water to get my sample. I asked the closest person to take a proof
picture for me and my deed was done.
Now I needed a police officer to sign my first witness
form. The IBA rules says that no one has
a problem finding a willing police officer to do this. But I was in Charleston on Sunday morning,
now about 10:30 AM, with half the force already down at a church hoping the
crazies wouldn’t show up. A quick prayer
and the idea came, use the GPS to find a police station.
As I left Folly Beach I did so mindful that this was to be
my route in the morning. I realized that
the road would probably be packed later on Sunday night so maybe leaving in the
morning was overall just a better idea.
As I was thinking about this, I got confused by a right turn and took
the wrong one. Quick u-turn and I was
back on track. I think it is important
to practice those little details.
The GPS took me back downtown, right past my hotel, to the
headquarters of the Charleston police force.
As I pulled in to the parking lot, a police officer was pulling
out. I waved and yelled and asked for a
minute of his time. He couldn’t have
been more gracious. I had my first
witness and everything ready for the 50CC.
Back to the hotel for the rest of the day. I slept immediately until I woke up. That’s when I realized I might do well with
just a LITTLE BIT more planning for my ride.
So I headed to the hotel computer.
Using Mapquest and paper, I figured out the following.
The trip would be roughly 2500 miles. I used the Mapquest estimates to gauge the
time between various checkpoints that I randomly picked. Since I don’t have an auxiliary gas tank, I
planned on aiming at 180 miles per tank, with 15 minutes per stop. That would make 14 gas stops total. That left me with plenty of wiggle room. It said that I would get to Ocean City beach
in San Diego with 2.5 hours to spare.
Every minute I saved with steady riding and quick gas stops to get ahead
of schedule would be available for sleep.
It was a good plan.
I plugged all of that into a spreadsheet and printed it
off. For all of you engineer types out
there, here is the plan that I put in the map visor on my tank bag.
I’ll admit. I’m
terrible at math. And the whole time
zone thing utterly baffles me so I made one column for local times (as the IBA
requires) and one column for Central Time as my pea brain requires…and so does
the clock on my bike which doesn’t update automatically. (I never wear a watch on a motorcycle
trip. No matter what.)
Here are my thoughts on estimating gas stops.
The vagaries of estimating mileage on a motorcycle are
immense. Yes, over the long haul, I know
that my bike averages somewhere between 38 mpg and 42 mpg. But on any given tank, I might get as bad as
32 mpg (because of the West Texas winds) or as much at 48 mpg (because you just
don’t go fast when cruising through the Black Hills during Bike Week.) Plus it is a real pain to top off my gas tank
on the Harley without splashing gas all over.
On one leg on the way to Charleston I tested the system. I’ve done this before but you never know how
things will go as the miles get piled on a bike. I made sure to completely fill the tank to
the bubbling over brim. Then I rode at a
normal pace, keeping up with the traffic on I-10. I ignored the tripmeter mileage and just
watched the “Estimated miles to go” number.
The reserve light came on with 33 miles to go. At 10 miles to do, the countdown gave up on
my and just said “Fuel Lo!”. I hit the
next gas station.
I put 5.6 gallons into my 6 gallon tank. I had ridden 225 miles. Thus I knew that 180 would be a safe distance
regardless of conditions and that, on the actual ride, available gas stops
might mean riding longer than that (except in West Texas where I get gas at
every available opportunity.)
The old pros who check their bike mileage will tell you that
they bring a gallon of gas and just run the bike until it runs out of gas. I’ve never done that. I’ve also, knock on chrome, ever run out of
gas on a motorcycle or a car in my life and plan to never do so. If you have a dollar in your pocket you are
just stupid if you ever run out of gas in the United States.
My mind at ease, a little quick dip in the pool, a final
check in and phone call with Kelley, and I was ready to go to bed with plans to
get my first gas receipt at 6:00 AM (Eastern Standard Time.)
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