When I was younger (mid 30’s) I did two sort of endurance rides. Neither was specifically planned to be an endurance ride. I simply wanted (needed?) to see if I could get somewhere which happened to be fairly far away, in as little time as possible. I was not trying to set any speed record, though. Just wanted to get there without lallygagging.
The bike for both rides was my old R100/7. No windshield other than a small home-made fairing from the headlight nacelle ending just over the top of the instruments. A period photo of the machine is shown at the top of this email and here (dry-stored in the basement today, near our clothes washer and dryer). This bike started out as an ‘RS’ but shortly after I purchased it from its original owner in about 1981, I converted it to a /7 naked bike and sold its fairing and everything else that was ‘RS’. I still have this bike and would guess it has about 100-150K on its odometer (which was not working for a few years, twice). It has the RS’s bigger 40mm exhaust and a few other ’RS’ items. With the help of an extremely talented friend, and over the course of several winters, I hot-rodded it the way I wanted (at that time…): /2 ‘high’ handlebars, Kehin ‘slant slide’ pumper carbs, high performance cam, bigger pistons, mono lever swingarm, oversize Heinrich tank, frame stiffener bars, extra holes in its cast aluminum airbox, drilled-out straight-through mufflers, lightened flywheel, special clutch, etc. It made 68HP on a dyno, which is a lot for one of these, and would wheelie on the throttle in 2nd with only a light effort. Which stock versions of this bike won’t do. It’s a tank, but back-in-the day was still a lot of fun to build and ride.
One of my two quasi-accidental endurance rides involved two back-to-back 900-mile days riding home from Bike Week in Florida to Duluth Minnesota. What made it an endurance ride wasn’t the distance, though. It was the low temperature. The second day it was below freezing the entire time. When I reached my residence, it had gotten down into the low twenties, I think. There were quite large snowbanks on the sides of the roads from Chicago north, but the road itself was dry all the way. In my driveway when I got home there was about a foot of accumulated snow. I was so tired I ploughed into it as far as I could and then just left the bike on its sidestand right there, surrounded by great clouds of steam coming from the hot engine melting the snow. Then I staggered inside leaving a trail of shedded gear all through the house like a three-year-old and slept for ten or twelve hours. Woke up famished but alive.
The other long-hard ride was the year the BMW National Rally was in York PA. I rode there from Duluth in one very long day and when I pulled up at the gate at three or four AM wanting to camp, the entrance security would not let me in, so I got back on the bike and rode down to somewhere near the shore of the Chesapeake Bay, where I watched the sun come up over the water, then turned around went back to the rally site, got right in, set up my tent and slept until noon. I think the total miles of that ride was about 1,250-1,300 and the total hours was around 22 or 23.
I don’t consider myself an endurance rider, but for most of my years when riding on road trips a good day is around 750 miles and an easy day is around 500-600. Today at age 68 I’m satisfied and comfortable with anywhere in the 3–600-mile range and have nearly zero interest going for more. The well-known cliche: "The older one gets, the faster one was” is sometimes true, but both hard-ride accounts are as close to accuracy as I can remember them.
Famously, whatever doesn’t kill you hopefully makes you stronger. What were some of your hardest/fastest/longest rides?
- Mr. Subjective, 11-21
When I hit 50 gas hit $3/gal for the 1st time in my remembrance and I made the naive assumption that a motorcycle’s fuel economy would result in a cheaper form of personal transport. Of course, I now know the truth but that misconception, quite surprisingly, introduced me to a new passion.
With 5 whole months of riding experience I left MI, solo, for a business training course in Miami, FL. My bike was a yellow, 2006, Sportster with the 3.3 gal peanut tank.
The trip down is a blur with the exception of my stop at The Dragon but that’s another story.
With the training ending on the Thurs before Memorial Day weekend, I made plans for my return, only to find out some good friends were coming to MI for the holiday. Wanting to miss the least amount of the reunion I quickly put together a Saddlesore 1000. If I was going to attempt a max effort ride I might as well get a formal “notch” in my riding belt. It was way too late for buns-of-steel but I still had a chance for an Iron Butt!
I used Thurs evening to position myself in White Springs, FL, the closest hotel I could find to the magic 1000 mile starting line. The plan was simple, buy 2 footlong, tuna subs, get a good night’s sleep, launch on Friday, get ahead of schedule and pull into a hotel for a quick couple of hours of sleep. There are no extra points for ending in 18 hours vs. 24 hours so a nap and sliding in just under time limit made sense.
No GPS, nor smart phone but navigation was simple; I-75 north.
At first, I thot the small gas tank was going to be a drawback but, after the second fill-up, it was clear I didn’t want to be in the saddle one mile more than the 140 mile range would allow!! At each of the eight fuel stops I’d eat a quarter of a sub, drink a Gatorade and muster the courage to get back on The Yellow Peril.
There was little construction that year but somewhere enroute an accident jams things up and everyone was getting off the interstate and clogging the two-lanes. I take this delay as a good time to pit, realizing it could preempt the nap for which I was longing. Meanwhile, I see a guy fueling his mower and assume he’s local. He may know a work around. I ask him how to get around the snarl and he gave me directions which included 8 turns/intersections but he knew the name of only one road. The rest of the directions were “turn left at the silver painted rock” and “turn right at the red barn, not the 1st red barn but the big red barn.” Unconventional, but he nailed it and I was soon back on track.
Just south of the Ohio river valley, rain hits me from the southwest with more severe weather behind. Clearly, pulling over for a couple hours of sleep was not going to add value so the new goal was to out run the precip.
Fog slows me down in the Toledo area but, after 19.5 hours, at 2:30 am, I pull into a gas station near my home to have the attendant verify my arrival time and date. Predictably, it was not busy but the clerk, whose first language was not English, made it clear “I’m not signing nuttin!” Fortunately, for me, the bar across the street was still letting out and there was a fight in the parking lot which drew the attention of the police. After a 20 minute wait I got a signature.
I receive the award, the trip was memorable and I “saved” much of the holiday weekend but I’m not looking to do another. My real joy in riding is the freedom of movement, looking around, trying an interesting looking eatery and/or exchanging riding stories with fellow riders.
Today, shorter distances have a greater appeal; specifically, 2 tankfuls/day. This allows for a slow morning, a relaxed lunch, a few pictures and, most importantly, a desire to get on the bike the next day!
Ride safe everyone and have a Merry Christmas!!
In Response to mark riermaier: Yeah, I liked the rounded valve covers better, too, and switched them out. This bike has lots of small detail changes besides those listed, but other than the very expensive gas tank (expensive when bought in primer then expensively painted using the correct BMW gold Glassurit paint) there are not a lot of super-costly items. For example, those rounded valve covers can be modified to have a neat oil filler cap added if cost is no object. And there are several higher oil capacity cast aluminum (magnesium?) oil sumps available for these engines that are as expensive as they are gorgeous. In hindsight the only ‘mistake’ was choosing a bit too much cam. If I were doing this bike today and with the benefit of hindsight, the only thing I’d change is its cam would be less so it would idle a bit better. It idles good enough, but not as smoothly as it did with its stock cam. – Mr. Subjective
My first Iron Butt Association saddle sore award was sort of by accident as well. I had found a buyer for my non-ABS Honda ST1100 in Milwaukee and a friend from the very active ST online group located a newer ST1100 with ABS near him just north of Chicago. We arranged to meet at the dealership and I rode the candy red ST into the back of a U-Haul, not wanting to chance any problems on the way. (And never having ridden more than about 350 miles at any one stretch)
Arriving the next day at the dealer, I unloaded the bike and of course, it would not start… Bought some overpriced spark plugs from the dealership and they let me use their tools to replace my burnt ones. Started and ran fine, sold it to the fellow who also brought a trailer with him from Milwaukee and I turned around and purchased the ‘new’ ST with ABS brakes.
Deciding to ride straight home was not really a conscience one I think. I just headed west on I-90 and took a left on I-35, down into Texas. Had to stop every tank of gas and just lay on the ground for a few minutes, but I managed to get home, 1037 miles in 23 hours or so. Since then, did several other 1000+ mile trips around the country, but that first one was a challenge.
I was in VA for a training class during hurricane season. They dismissed us a day or two early and I shot to upstate NY on my KLR as quick as I could to outrun the first wave of wind and rain. I cut it a little close and couldnt take more than 10 minutes or so at each station, or else the rain would catch up to me. Its not a highway cruiser at all, but with the extra tooth on my front sprocket, I could stay at 85 (5k)
Traffic leaving was chaos, as is the norm for evacuation areas. But there was an internal sense of danger and adventure that I WAY overplayed in my head. Looking back, I felt like I was dodging meteor strikes on a disaster layden highway. In reality, it was a little wind and rain. I’ve had way worse. But, when I tell the story to someone new, that looming storm cloud I was running from seems to get bigger and darker each time.
I had a slash 7 and my longest ride was about 750 miles from Chicago to Front Royal, Virginia.It was around 1979.I remember walking around a bit that evening and my arms wanted to rise up to the riding position.I’m indifferant to extreme distances now.I go until I’ve has enough.These days it’s 350 to 450 miles.I like the rounded valve covers which I believe only were used till 1976.You may have switched yours out.The round ones look better.
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