More Detailed Ride Review

So ... yesterday I left the house at about 8:30am to head for Ormond Beach, planning to take it easy and arrive around 11-11:30am. I did take it easy, and I also took two wrong turns, but still arrived about noon.

My original plan for getting there was to take State Road 20 through Hawthorne (last trip, by SUV, I took State Road 100 through Melrose) to Palatka, then 100 on into Ormond Beach. I forgot to bear right and ended up taking State Road 100 all the way to Palataka again. Then I forgot to bear left at San Mateo and ended up taking US 17 to Barberville and State Road 40 into Ormond Beach. Not really a problem. The original route to Palatka is pretty nice, and I got to see some new terrain on the second wrong turn. It added about 20 miles to the out-bound trip.

I spent about six hours helping my friend and his wife assemble furniture, etc. (with a lovely lunch of tilapia and broccoli risotto as reward), and decided on the fly to come home via State Road 40 through Ocala. On the last trip, I evaluated that road as more bike-friendly than I had expected. If everything went well, I'd get home about 9pm. A little bit of riding in the dark, but not a lot.

Everything did not go well. Just as I rode into Ocala, a torrential thunderstorm hit. I had planned this trip around the weather. Which, at the time I departed was "possible scattered thunderstorms in the evening." Usually that means "15 minutes of rain." This was two hours of rain ranging from light to torrential in unpredictable increments, with accompanying winds that didn't look like a good bet for a light motorcycle on a wet and fairly busy road.

So I stopped at a pizzeria, ate a light dinner, then sat on their covered porch until 10pm (the place closed at 9), talking with a couple of the employees. Or not exactly employees -- guys on "work release" from a nearby correctional facility who had until 10pm to leave and chose to spend that time smoking and joking instead of back in stir. About that time, the rain went to "mostly off, occasional drizzle, not very windy."

In theory, I was about an hour from home. But I spent some time getting on my rain gear, then I stopped to fill the bike with gas, then I took it slow, including a stop to ask the clerk at a convenience store if the turn I thought I was about to make was the correct one (it was). I pulled in at almost exactly midnight.

Three extra hours (two sitting, one riding more slowly with more frequent stops) seemed -- and still seem -- reasonable to me from a safety standpoint. Before last night, I'd probably spent a total of 30 minutes on the bike in rain and/or darkness (it gets very dark on rural Florida highways, and there are lots "I'm just gonna keep my brights on, fuck  the ability of oncoming motorists to see anything" drivers) and zero hours, zero minutes, zero seconds in rain and a bit of a breeze and darkness.

As for the bike, it performed well. Since I haven't installed the new front sprocket yet, it still tops out at about 60 miles per hour, but I was mostly on four-lane road. When there weren't reasons to push it, I kept it at 55 miles per hour or less, setting 50 as my target (there were lots of 45- and 35-mph speed zones as well).

It carried me and probably 20 pounds of gear (30 pounds after the storm -- my saddlebags weren't as water-resistant as I expected) without complaint or malfunction.

One on one stretch (40 west between Barberville and Ocala) it got 106 miles per gallon because I was able to settle in at 50mph without a lot of variation for 5-10 miles at a time. On the other legs between fill-ups -- the legs with lots of small-town speed zones, some city streets, etc. -- it ranged from 76 to 86 miles per gallon.

I haven't done a close post-trip inspection, but on a quick look the bike is none the worse for wear. So now I know I can do 250 miles in a day without hurting it. Eventually, we're going to see if it can do 500, but I would expect that to be a 13-hour affair (average of 50 miles per hour, but with 20-minute breaks instead of 5-minute fill-up stops every 60-80 miles).

As for how I came out of the trip: Tired and with a sore ass from 250 miles on a motorcycle seat. That's how it goes. I'll be looking into aftermarket seats or cushions to reduce that a little, but two wheels and one rear shock have predictable consequences that I'm not inclined to complain too much about.