If you've made it through the last few posts, you know all about where we went on our trip, and what I thought of the bike, but I thought before I was done writing I would take a bit to talk about the gear we used on the trip, what worked, what didn't.
The bikes both had side bags, which held some of our stuff, but we both had a duffel bag lashed to the pillion seat that held most of our clothes. I also had a Nelson-Rigg CL-400 tank bag that I bought specifically for the trip. I have to give New Enough a shout out, because they took care of me on this one. I ordered it early in the week before we left, and had it shipped directly to Wisconsin with the right shipping to get it there in time. However, when it didn't ship for 2 business days (despite saying that it normally ships same day), I called to find out what was wrong. Turns out that because my shipping and billing address didn't match, my order was flagged for fraud review, and the guy that does that had just gone out due to the birth of his child. They got my order out that same day and gave me a free upgrade to 2nd-day shipping so that it would definitely get there in time. Always worth highlighting excellent customer service!
The tank bag was what we used to hold things like camera, toll money, wallets, phones, and other things we needed quick access to. The bag has a detachable clear plastic map pocket that I was able to put my GPS into. This kept the GPS dry and protected, but still let me use the touchscreen. My GPS (Garmin Nuvi 750) has a 3.5" headphone jack, and a SD card slot. I was able to plug in a set of headphones so that I could hear the direction announcements and the MP3s that I had loaded on the card. If you've read my intro post about the trip, you already know how I loaded the route into the GPS.
I used a set of Koss Plug headphones, which are very cheap, but are basically a set of squishy earplugs with a hole through the center. Once they're in your ears, they shut out a lot of the external noise, and so you get good sound without having to have the volume turned up really loud. The seal they make with your ear canal gives good bass response from a set of earbuds, and they are pretty comfortable to wear all day. It makes a big difference when you're riding a motorcycle all day if you can cut out a lot of that constant wind noise, and they made a good substitute for true earplugs, as well as fit pretty well under my helmet. The only time I ran into troubles was if I accidentally tugged on the cord and dislodged one of them, or as I was taking off my helmet, as that usually pulled them loose as well.
I powered the GPS using a 12-volt socket with alligator clips on it which I was able to clip directly to the bike's battery. There was a bolt under the seat that I was able to use as the negative terminal (the battery's negative terminal was impossible to get to) and it didn't interfere at all with the seat once it was in place. The only issue with this setup was that the Sportster's battery cover wouldn't stay closed with the positive clip in place, and we had to zip-tie it closed. This would have been pretty easy to solve with one of those aftermarket Battery Tender sockets, as there are multiple companies that make adapters that have a Battery Tender plug on one side and a 12v socket on the other. My bike has one that the previous owner installed, so if I ever take a trip on my bike, I'll be able to use that, and Chris was talking about installing those for his and Heather's bikes anyway, so either way we're covered.
In terms of gear, I rode with an HJC AC-12 helmet (not the Carbon fiber version linked here), Fieldsheer Mach 7 Jacket, Harley-Davidson FXRG textile riding pants (sorry no link, they appear to be discontinued in favor of leather ones), and Roadgear CarbonMaxx gloves, as well as some Caterpillar steel-toed work boots. None of this was really new for the trip, as that's pretty much my standard summer riding uniform. I have a set of Cortech gloves as well as a Fieldsheer non-perforated leather jacket for colder weather, but I'm a firm believer in all the gear, all the time, so I'm geared up even in the hottest weather.
However, this was definitely an opportunity to test out the long-distance comfort of all of this stuff. Honestly, I have very little in the way of complaints about any of the riding gear that I use. All of it is comfortable and works well, even when worn all day. The pants kept me dry when it rained, and the side ventilation kept me comfortable the rest of the time. The jacket kept me cool (sometimes too cool) and has full CE armor, and once I added the orthotic insoles into my boots, they're comfortable for all-day wear, even if I have to be on my feet for a good portion of the time.
The main things that I noticed:
My gloves really aren't well-suited for the vibration and riding position of a Sportster. I would have liked some gloves with some gel padding in the palms and fingers, because my hands definitely swelled after riding all day, and my palms right near my fingers were sore/numb from holding the grips. By the end of the trip, I had to remove my wedding ring because my fingers were getting so swollen.
Also, this is the first time that I wore my nice polarized sunglasses under my helmet instead of the cheapie pair I normally wear, and I'm not sure if it is just the shield on my helmet, or all of them, but looking through plexiglass shields with polarized shades creates a lot of false-color effects that are pretty annoying and more or less eliminate the benefit of polarized sunglasses in the first place.
Lastly, I'm going to be replacing my helmet, but not because I discovered that I don't like it. On two separate occasions, it fell from chest height off of the bike and onto the ground, and I have a couple of pretty good divots in the top shell. Everything I read says that helmets are sort of single-use in that regard, since any break in the shell makes it weaker overall, and the EPS foam that serves as the impact absorber is one-way crush. I'm pretty annoyed with myself, but fortunately my helmet was only about $100, and I got 2 years' use out of it, so this is a lot less heartbreaking than if it had been a $600 Arai/Shoei. Chris and Heather swear by their Arais, and I have at least one friend with a Shoei, but I simply can't justify the cost. Perhaps I don't know what I'm missing, but since I can buy 3 or 4 helmets for every one of theirs, I'm pretty ok with that.
Since I've had such good luck and comfort with this HJC, I'm likely purchasing another, this time an FS-15, since it appears that the AC-12 has been discontinued. I'm toying with getting a carbon fiber one this time, since the reviews I've read about the carbon helmets imply that the lightness makes a pretty huge difference, and the FS-15 carbon seems to be available for only about $60-70 more than the non CF version, but I haven't decided for sure yet.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Sunday, October 03, 2010
My 969 mile test ride of a Harley-Davidson Sportster
If you've made it through the last few posts, you know all about where we went on our trip, but I thought before I was done writing I would take a bit to talk about my riding impressions after my 969 mile test ride.
Now, I need to start by saying that overall, I had an absolute blast on this trip, and my comments here are in no way intended to lessen that, nor personally malign anyone who has chosen a Harley, Chris and Heather especially (since it was their generosity that allowed me this experience in the first place). To each their own. I am just saying that after having ridden one for that long, it confirms what I had originally thought - it's a nice place to visit, but I'll likely never own one, nor can I understand why they're so popular with people my parents' age who don't have as much tolerance for abuse to their joints. Below are some reasons why this is my opinion.
Chris and his wife both have Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200s. I rode Chris's bike, which is an XLR. It's fuel-injected, has dual front disk brakes, and has the "peanut" tank (3.5 gal). He rode his wife's, which is a Custom. It has single disk front brake and is carburated, and has a slightly lower seat height and the larger fuel tank.
Ergonomics: Riding a bike for 6+ hours a day, or even an hour at a time will tell you a lot about its ergonomics. When it comes to riding position and rider comfort, the Sportster's are not good. I mean, a lot of sport bikes have stiff suspension and punishingly uncomfortable rider triangles, but usually this is because they are more focused on maximum performance (and to some extent with the Italian bikes, styling) and rider comfort is a secondary part of the discussion at best. I know that it's not performance with the Harleys, so I can only guess that it's styling. Personally, I think if I ever bought a bike that was this uncomfortable to ride for any length of time, it would be a Ducati, because at least then I know why I'm being punished.
The riding position is just like most other bikes, in that no one element makes a good or bad riding position - it's a combination of several different things and their relationship to each other. The Sportsters have that standard cruiser feet-forward riding position, which is actually pretty comfortable if you're not doing it for more than 30 minutes at a time. However on this specific bike, for someone of my height, the foot pegs aren't far enough forward for me to have my legs straight out in front of me, and the reach to the bars is too far forward, meaning that you're sitting in this awkward clamshell position with your lower back hunched forward. Even if you had a backrest, you'd be hard-pressed to use it without having handlebars that extend further back, or longer arms. When we were on the highway, we'd occasionally rest our ankles on the foot pegs, which would stretch our legs out straight, but that was really only workable on straight roadway, because this put our feet about 6 inches from the road - not good if you have to lean. Also, because these bikes have no wind protection, the wind becomes the limiting factor in your speed. At 70 mph, no problem unless you're following a truck and getting wind buffeting because of turbulence. But a lot of the highway that we rode the first day had a 70 mph speed limit, meaning that keeping up with traffic meant running at between 80 and 85. At that speed, the wind is literally trying to blow you off of the bike, causing you to have to hang on for dear life, so your hands and arms get tired quickly. But worse than that is the effect on your legs. Because of the wide seat and engine plus the distance to the pegs, you're sitting with your legs in a fairly open position, and the inside of your legs is the leading edge that catches the wind. This means that the wind is constantly trying to force you into a full split. So you expend a considerable amount of effort trying to keep your legs more together, which tires out your thighs and hip flexors.
Even if you put the standard cruiser riding position aside for a moment, I really don't understand why Harley thinks it's ok to equip these ($10K!) bikes with such unbelievably uncomfortable seats, other than to ensure that they sell expensive accessory seats that make it possible to ride for more than 30 minutes without your keister going completely to sleep. With the pegs out in front of you, all of your weight is on your tailbone, so the seat matters a lot. Whenever we were not going to be braking or shifting for a while, Chris and I ended up using the passenger pegs (which happen to be almost directly under the rider like a standard center-control bike) to shift ourselves forward and take some weight off of our butts, as well as use more of the natural cushioning God gave us. This also helps to change the position of your legs and torso so that the wind is not catching your legs as much and you're able to lean into the wind and use it as a support. The main tradeoff is that you can't see out of your mirrors anymore.
Soo... there's a reason why most touring bikes have center controls and then people put highway pegs on, rather than the other way around.
The switchgear and displays are pretty intuitive. This is the first time that I had ridden a bike that had separate turn signal controls on each handlebar (vs the single multifunction turn signal on the left grip), and the fact that the right turn signal was right next to the kill switch had me accidentally almost pushing the kill switch on more than one occasion. The turn signal was a horizontal button, and the start and kill switches were a pair of vertical buttons above it. There was no color or texture difference, so it wasn't something you could tell without looking. I'm willing to chalk this up to an unfamiliar bike and a lack of muscle memory, because for a while I'd hit the horn instead of the turn signal on my bike too.
Engine and transmission: I normally ride a 600cc air/oil-cooled four cylinder that is making around 70 hp, but it makes that at 10K RPM. The Harley twin makes about the same HP, but at 5500 RPM, and it makes nearly double the torque. This is somewhat like the difference between the driving experience in my old Acura RSX Type-S vs my Pontiac GTO - it matters a lot less what gear you are in with the Harley, while on my bike, it likes to be wound out, and has no margin for being in the wrong gear. This makes the Harley a very easy bike to ride - you twist the throttle and it'll go. That said, the transmission on the Harley was smooth, shifted easily, and by the second day I was even able to pretty consistently do rev-matched downshifts. I kept trying to shift into a nonexistent sixth gear, because the bike really isn't geared for cruising much above 70mph without seeming overly busy. That would have improved fuel economy as well, because we noticed a pretty significant drop in mileage when we were cruising at 80+. I will have to say that I was pretty impressed that the bikes seemed happy cruising for more than an hour at these speeds, despite the fact that this means that the engine is turning north of 4000 RPM in top gear (redline is 6K). I guess that I shouldn't complain about the ~100 mile cruising range that Chris's bike had, since that was also about the limits of our cruising range given the ergonomic problems I mentioned above, but it does require careful attention to fuel stops when you're not on the interstate.
The rubber engine mounts work quite well at reducing the vibration, and really the only time I noticed it was at idle or if I was in the wrong gear (below 2000 RPM). The engine throws off a lot of heat, but again, it's only noticeable when you are stopped. The fuel injection makes it so that the bike nearly always fires on the first try, and the only fuel mapping niggle that I noticed was that when the bike was cold, if you blipped the throttle and then let it come back to idle, the FI would sometimes have trouble and would drop the engine to a near stall before recovering and bringing it back to normal idle.
On a related note, these bikes both had stock exhausts. I guess you can file it under more things that I don't "get" about Harleys, but I thought that they sounded great, and were plenty loud enough. Even with earplugs and a full-face helmet, I was always able to hear the exhaust enough for it to contribute positively to the riding experience without it being obnoxious. I was even able to hear the crackles and pops on overrun when I downshifted. I guess maybe if you've been riding for years with an open helmet and no hearing protection, you can't hear it unless it's louder because you're half-deaf already.
Handling and dynamics: While the Sportster does outweigh my bike by nearly 100 lbs, I didn't find that to be as noticeable in terms of the handling as the rake and trail differences, and the differences in weight distribution. The front wheel carries a lot less weight than in a standard or sport bike, and so you don't favor the front brake nearly as much - I definitely tried to lock up the front wheel more than once until I learned this. The other thing that I had to learn pretty quickly was that unlike my bike, the low-end torque is quite capable of overwhelming the fairly skinny rear tire, especially if there is any lean angle. This is an order of magnitude worse if it's wet. So you have to be fairly careful with the throttle lest the bike fishtail or do other scary things. Wet off-ramps or other sharp turns should be high on your list of things to avoid on a Harley.
On dry pavement, it does require more work to get the bike to turn than mine, primarily due to the long wheelbase and the long rake, and so even though it's not particularly top-heavy, it still feels like it's falling into the turn, but once it's in the turn it's pretty stable.
The other learning experience for me was the riding philosophy. If you go into riding a Harley like it's a sport bike, or even a sporty standard (like mine), you'll just be frustrated. As I've gotten more comfortable with my bike's handling limits, I now occasionally drag the pegs when I'm riding close to those limits. With the Sportster, you don't drag the pegs if you come into a turn with too much lean, you drag... the frame! While better than dragging the expensive chrome exhaust, still not something that I want to do on a my best friend's motorcycle, and not too forgiving as a method to warn you that you're being a bit overzealous - my pegs move if I need just a little more lean angle. Frames - not so much...
However, ratchet the riding back a couple of notches, from say 9/10ths to 7/10ths, and it becomes a very enjoyable experience again. Curvy roads are still fun, and actually become relaxing, because you're not concentrating so exclusively on every little bit of your riding technique being perfect, nor worrying about an unknown road or hazard creating a problem that you don't have enough margin left to correct for. You still keep a brisk pace, but you can enjoy the scenery as well!
The one big negative for the handling column, just like in ergonomics is in rider comfort. The Sportster uses a pair of outboard shocks/springs instead of the single inboard shock that is more common in modern motorcycles. I don't know if there's a tradeoff there or not, but I get the impression that the suspension on a Sportster is not really intended for someone of my weight, especially with the extra weight of luggage from our trip. I can't imagine what it would be like with a passenger- maybe that's why the pillion seat is such a joke; it's not actually intended for use. Anyway, as I mentioned before, most of your weight is on your tailbone, meaning that impacts from road imperfections that aren't absorbed by the suspension telegraph directly up your spine, instead of being able to use your legs and butt to absorb some of that impact. Couple that with suspension that was far too prone to bottom out, and things like frost heaves and expansion joints are simply painful.
After doing this ride, I have a lot of trouble believing what I see on motorcycle shows on the Discovery channel where Jesse James and Kid Rock jaunt off to Mexico for several days on one of his rigid choppers, or the Teutols go for a joyride on their latest creation. Quite likely, they ride for 20-30 minutes for the cameras, then put the bikes back on the trailer and head for the next photo op. Based on my experience, real distance riding means wind noise and buffeting, bugs and rocks hitting you (often in the face), and comfort is a big deal. I simply can't imagine doing that ride in an open (or no) helmet and no hearing protection. The amount of bugs on our helmets at the end of the day alone would be a deterrent. Maybe I'm just not hardcore enough. ;-)
Other things I noticed - ride height makes a big difference. I am high enough on my bike that I can at least see through the windows of most SUVs, and I can see over top of many cars. This makes it much easier to see far ahead even when you're following someone in traffic. Not so with the Sportsters, and this makes it quite a bit harder to ride defensively because you can't scan way out ahead for obstacles, curves, etc.
Lastly, I hadn't realized until this trip how much I use my helmet lock. Even if you have an expensive helmet (I don't) that you're not comfortable leaving unattended, it serves as a very useful place to hang your helmet when you need your hands free after you've taken your helmet off. For lack of a better place to set my helmet, I put it on the gauges. It was not a secure place for a helmet, because my helmet fell off and hit the ground on two separate occasions, which translates into me needing to replace my helmet now. This would be a pretty significant annoyance if I rode a bike like this all the time.
So concluding a long post, it's a Harley thing, and I don't understand. I'm glad to have done it, and I think that everyone should ride a Harley at least once in their lives, because it's definitely an experience. I learned a lot about what I personally do and do not want in a bike, and that is definitely going to be helpful as I look for a new bike in the future. There's no doubt in my mind that I'll be doing something like this again, it's just a question of when.
Now, I need to start by saying that overall, I had an absolute blast on this trip, and my comments here are in no way intended to lessen that, nor personally malign anyone who has chosen a Harley, Chris and Heather especially (since it was their generosity that allowed me this experience in the first place). To each their own. I am just saying that after having ridden one for that long, it confirms what I had originally thought - it's a nice place to visit, but I'll likely never own one, nor can I understand why they're so popular with people my parents' age who don't have as much tolerance for abuse to their joints. Below are some reasons why this is my opinion.
Chris and his wife both have Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200s. I rode Chris's bike, which is an XLR. It's fuel-injected, has dual front disk brakes, and has the "peanut" tank (3.5 gal). He rode his wife's, which is a Custom. It has single disk front brake and is carburated, and has a slightly lower seat height and the larger fuel tank.
Ergonomics: Riding a bike for 6+ hours a day, or even an hour at a time will tell you a lot about its ergonomics. When it comes to riding position and rider comfort, the Sportster's are not good. I mean, a lot of sport bikes have stiff suspension and punishingly uncomfortable rider triangles, but usually this is because they are more focused on maximum performance (and to some extent with the Italian bikes, styling) and rider comfort is a secondary part of the discussion at best. I know that it's not performance with the Harleys, so I can only guess that it's styling. Personally, I think if I ever bought a bike that was this uncomfortable to ride for any length of time, it would be a Ducati, because at least then I know why I'm being punished.
The riding position is just like most other bikes, in that no one element makes a good or bad riding position - it's a combination of several different things and their relationship to each other. The Sportsters have that standard cruiser feet-forward riding position, which is actually pretty comfortable if you're not doing it for more than 30 minutes at a time. However on this specific bike, for someone of my height, the foot pegs aren't far enough forward for me to have my legs straight out in front of me, and the reach to the bars is too far forward, meaning that you're sitting in this awkward clamshell position with your lower back hunched forward. Even if you had a backrest, you'd be hard-pressed to use it without having handlebars that extend further back, or longer arms. When we were on the highway, we'd occasionally rest our ankles on the foot pegs, which would stretch our legs out straight, but that was really only workable on straight roadway, because this put our feet about 6 inches from the road - not good if you have to lean. Also, because these bikes have no wind protection, the wind becomes the limiting factor in your speed. At 70 mph, no problem unless you're following a truck and getting wind buffeting because of turbulence. But a lot of the highway that we rode the first day had a 70 mph speed limit, meaning that keeping up with traffic meant running at between 80 and 85. At that speed, the wind is literally trying to blow you off of the bike, causing you to have to hang on for dear life, so your hands and arms get tired quickly. But worse than that is the effect on your legs. Because of the wide seat and engine plus the distance to the pegs, you're sitting with your legs in a fairly open position, and the inside of your legs is the leading edge that catches the wind. This means that the wind is constantly trying to force you into a full split. So you expend a considerable amount of effort trying to keep your legs more together, which tires out your thighs and hip flexors.
Even if you put the standard cruiser riding position aside for a moment, I really don't understand why Harley thinks it's ok to equip these ($10K!) bikes with such unbelievably uncomfortable seats, other than to ensure that they sell expensive accessory seats that make it possible to ride for more than 30 minutes without your keister going completely to sleep. With the pegs out in front of you, all of your weight is on your tailbone, so the seat matters a lot. Whenever we were not going to be braking or shifting for a while, Chris and I ended up using the passenger pegs (which happen to be almost directly under the rider like a standard center-control bike) to shift ourselves forward and take some weight off of our butts, as well as use more of the natural cushioning God gave us. This also helps to change the position of your legs and torso so that the wind is not catching your legs as much and you're able to lean into the wind and use it as a support. The main tradeoff is that you can't see out of your mirrors anymore.
Soo... there's a reason why most touring bikes have center controls and then people put highway pegs on, rather than the other way around.
The switchgear and displays are pretty intuitive. This is the first time that I had ridden a bike that had separate turn signal controls on each handlebar (vs the single multifunction turn signal on the left grip), and the fact that the right turn signal was right next to the kill switch had me accidentally almost pushing the kill switch on more than one occasion. The turn signal was a horizontal button, and the start and kill switches were a pair of vertical buttons above it. There was no color or texture difference, so it wasn't something you could tell without looking. I'm willing to chalk this up to an unfamiliar bike and a lack of muscle memory, because for a while I'd hit the horn instead of the turn signal on my bike too.
Engine and transmission: I normally ride a 600cc air/oil-cooled four cylinder that is making around 70 hp, but it makes that at 10K RPM. The Harley twin makes about the same HP, but at 5500 RPM, and it makes nearly double the torque. This is somewhat like the difference between the driving experience in my old Acura RSX Type-S vs my Pontiac GTO - it matters a lot less what gear you are in with the Harley, while on my bike, it likes to be wound out, and has no margin for being in the wrong gear. This makes the Harley a very easy bike to ride - you twist the throttle and it'll go. That said, the transmission on the Harley was smooth, shifted easily, and by the second day I was even able to pretty consistently do rev-matched downshifts. I kept trying to shift into a nonexistent sixth gear, because the bike really isn't geared for cruising much above 70mph without seeming overly busy. That would have improved fuel economy as well, because we noticed a pretty significant drop in mileage when we were cruising at 80+. I will have to say that I was pretty impressed that the bikes seemed happy cruising for more than an hour at these speeds, despite the fact that this means that the engine is turning north of 4000 RPM in top gear (redline is 6K). I guess that I shouldn't complain about the ~100 mile cruising range that Chris's bike had, since that was also about the limits of our cruising range given the ergonomic problems I mentioned above, but it does require careful attention to fuel stops when you're not on the interstate.
The rubber engine mounts work quite well at reducing the vibration, and really the only time I noticed it was at idle or if I was in the wrong gear (below 2000 RPM). The engine throws off a lot of heat, but again, it's only noticeable when you are stopped. The fuel injection makes it so that the bike nearly always fires on the first try, and the only fuel mapping niggle that I noticed was that when the bike was cold, if you blipped the throttle and then let it come back to idle, the FI would sometimes have trouble and would drop the engine to a near stall before recovering and bringing it back to normal idle.
On a related note, these bikes both had stock exhausts. I guess you can file it under more things that I don't "get" about Harleys, but I thought that they sounded great, and were plenty loud enough. Even with earplugs and a full-face helmet, I was always able to hear the exhaust enough for it to contribute positively to the riding experience without it being obnoxious. I was even able to hear the crackles and pops on overrun when I downshifted. I guess maybe if you've been riding for years with an open helmet and no hearing protection, you can't hear it unless it's louder because you're half-deaf already.
Handling and dynamics: While the Sportster does outweigh my bike by nearly 100 lbs, I didn't find that to be as noticeable in terms of the handling as the rake and trail differences, and the differences in weight distribution. The front wheel carries a lot less weight than in a standard or sport bike, and so you don't favor the front brake nearly as much - I definitely tried to lock up the front wheel more than once until I learned this. The other thing that I had to learn pretty quickly was that unlike my bike, the low-end torque is quite capable of overwhelming the fairly skinny rear tire, especially if there is any lean angle. This is an order of magnitude worse if it's wet. So you have to be fairly careful with the throttle lest the bike fishtail or do other scary things. Wet off-ramps or other sharp turns should be high on your list of things to avoid on a Harley.
On dry pavement, it does require more work to get the bike to turn than mine, primarily due to the long wheelbase and the long rake, and so even though it's not particularly top-heavy, it still feels like it's falling into the turn, but once it's in the turn it's pretty stable.
The other learning experience for me was the riding philosophy. If you go into riding a Harley like it's a sport bike, or even a sporty standard (like mine), you'll just be frustrated. As I've gotten more comfortable with my bike's handling limits, I now occasionally drag the pegs when I'm riding close to those limits. With the Sportster, you don't drag the pegs if you come into a turn with too much lean, you drag... the frame! While better than dragging the expensive chrome exhaust, still not something that I want to do on a my best friend's motorcycle, and not too forgiving as a method to warn you that you're being a bit overzealous - my pegs move if I need just a little more lean angle. Frames - not so much...
However, ratchet the riding back a couple of notches, from say 9/10ths to 7/10ths, and it becomes a very enjoyable experience again. Curvy roads are still fun, and actually become relaxing, because you're not concentrating so exclusively on every little bit of your riding technique being perfect, nor worrying about an unknown road or hazard creating a problem that you don't have enough margin left to correct for. You still keep a brisk pace, but you can enjoy the scenery as well!
The one big negative for the handling column, just like in ergonomics is in rider comfort. The Sportster uses a pair of outboard shocks/springs instead of the single inboard shock that is more common in modern motorcycles. I don't know if there's a tradeoff there or not, but I get the impression that the suspension on a Sportster is not really intended for someone of my weight, especially with the extra weight of luggage from our trip. I can't imagine what it would be like with a passenger- maybe that's why the pillion seat is such a joke; it's not actually intended for use. Anyway, as I mentioned before, most of your weight is on your tailbone, meaning that impacts from road imperfections that aren't absorbed by the suspension telegraph directly up your spine, instead of being able to use your legs and butt to absorb some of that impact. Couple that with suspension that was far too prone to bottom out, and things like frost heaves and expansion joints are simply painful.
After doing this ride, I have a lot of trouble believing what I see on motorcycle shows on the Discovery channel where Jesse James and Kid Rock jaunt off to Mexico for several days on one of his rigid choppers, or the Teutols go for a joyride on their latest creation. Quite likely, they ride for 20-30 minutes for the cameras, then put the bikes back on the trailer and head for the next photo op. Based on my experience, real distance riding means wind noise and buffeting, bugs and rocks hitting you (often in the face), and comfort is a big deal. I simply can't imagine doing that ride in an open (or no) helmet and no hearing protection. The amount of bugs on our helmets at the end of the day alone would be a deterrent. Maybe I'm just not hardcore enough. ;-)
Other things I noticed - ride height makes a big difference. I am high enough on my bike that I can at least see through the windows of most SUVs, and I can see over top of many cars. This makes it much easier to see far ahead even when you're following someone in traffic. Not so with the Sportsters, and this makes it quite a bit harder to ride defensively because you can't scan way out ahead for obstacles, curves, etc.
Lastly, I hadn't realized until this trip how much I use my helmet lock. Even if you have an expensive helmet (I don't) that you're not comfortable leaving unattended, it serves as a very useful place to hang your helmet when you need your hands free after you've taken your helmet off. For lack of a better place to set my helmet, I put it on the gauges. It was not a secure place for a helmet, because my helmet fell off and hit the ground on two separate occasions, which translates into me needing to replace my helmet now. This would be a pretty significant annoyance if I rode a bike like this all the time.
So concluding a long post, it's a Harley thing, and I don't understand. I'm glad to have done it, and I think that everyone should ride a Harley at least once in their lives, because it's definitely an experience. I learned a lot about what I personally do and do not want in a bike, and that is definitely going to be helpful as I look for a new bike in the future. There's no doubt in my mind that I'll be doing something like this again, it's just a question of when.
Friday, October 01, 2010
Motorcycle trip - day 3, Weston, WV to Richmond
The last day of the trip was Monday. We wanted to get an earlier start to the day so that we could get back to Richmond at a decent hour, since I still had to get back to Manassas and we both had to work on Tuesday. So we were pretty much ready to go before 8:00. The complimentary breakfast that the Comfort Inn Weston was meager, but the waffle iron was serviceable (although it required some convincing to release our waffles) so we stuck (ha ha) with that. I think Chris would have preferred that we eat at the Sheetz across the street though.
As we were getting prepped for departure, we were chatting with one of the other guests who was marveling at the Florida plates on the bikes, and so we explained where we were going and why. He related that he has a bike as well, but he doesn't really take it on trips like he used to because it's not so comfortable for he and the missus anymore, but that they were actually on a road trip currently, with no particular route or place in mind, just driving to see what they could see. Reminded me of someone else I know...
Weather reports looked clear, if a bit chilly. It was in the mid-50s and quite foggy, but we decided to forgo the rain gear. That turned out to be a mistake. I had to stop after less than 15 minutes on the road and put on a long-sleeve shirt because the combination of damp and chilly air was really going right through my summer mesh riding jacket. Our route had us on US-119/33 for about an hour. It was good that we were on a fairly straight divided highway, because visibility was very low, less than 1/2 mile most of the time. We even used the flashers on the bikes on more than one occasion. It was damp enough that we may as well have been riding in the rain, as I was collecting every bit as much water on my helmet shield as I was while riding in an actual rainstorm.
Just as we were getting off of US-33 onto WV-29, we rode out of the fog and into a nice mostly sunny day, and it had also warmed up a good bit. Good thing, because WV-29 is a FUN road! Pretty much as soon as it comes out of Elkins, WV, it gets curvy and starts climbing up into the mountains. You pass through a couple of small towns, and then there is a section where the road curves and climbs about 1500ft in the space of 1/2 mile, and then moves into a section of nice sweeping curves, and even some real switchbacks. The road is in nice shape, and there are passing zones every so often so that you can continue at an appropriate pace. From there, we hit US-250, which is quite possibly even better than 29. If you look at it on the map, it's pretty obvious why. This website is where I found the route.
US-250 took us through both Monongahela and George Washington National Forests, and so the road wound through the trees,with an occasional view of the valley below. The elevation was such that we were able to enjoy the slight touches of color starting to show on the leaves, and the sunlight was just slightly filtering through the tree canopy. The temperature was perfect too. I can't think of a much better way to spend a day. It was absolutely fantastic! The roads were curvy, and we kept a brisk pace, but not so brisk as to be challenging on a Harley. The nice thing was that the pace allowed for me to truly concentrate on my lines through the turns, and I started to see what people are talking about when they say that you "string the turns together." You would start to see the line that connected one turn to the next, and could ride quickly, but still very smoothly. I could have done it faster on my bike, but it would have been much more tiring and less relaxing, because I would have been riding much closer to the limits of my skill.
We rode through Staunton, and then headed for Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National park. Skyline has a $10 entrance fee, but it's absolutely worth it. We rode on Skyline for about 35 miles, took some pictures at 3900 feet, and then headed towards US-33 to get us back to Richmond.
We got into Richmond around 2:30, and the final mileage on the bikes read 969.6 for the trip. We (very briefly) considered going another 30.4 miles so that it would be an even 1000, but then decided that it wasn't all that important. Chris and I hopped in his car and headed for Manassas, where he joined us for dinner to wait out the traffic before he headed back home.
All in all, it was a great trip, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Perhaps with a different bike, but otherwise an awesome experience. The roads we traveled, especially on the second and third day are some that I would recommend to any driving/riding enthusiast.
As we were getting prepped for departure, we were chatting with one of the other guests who was marveling at the Florida plates on the bikes, and so we explained where we were going and why. He related that he has a bike as well, but he doesn't really take it on trips like he used to because it's not so comfortable for he and the missus anymore, but that they were actually on a road trip currently, with no particular route or place in mind, just driving to see what they could see. Reminded me of someone else I know...
Weather reports looked clear, if a bit chilly. It was in the mid-50s and quite foggy, but we decided to forgo the rain gear. That turned out to be a mistake. I had to stop after less than 15 minutes on the road and put on a long-sleeve shirt because the combination of damp and chilly air was really going right through my summer mesh riding jacket. Our route had us on US-119/33 for about an hour. It was good that we were on a fairly straight divided highway, because visibility was very low, less than 1/2 mile most of the time. We even used the flashers on the bikes on more than one occasion. It was damp enough that we may as well have been riding in the rain, as I was collecting every bit as much water on my helmet shield as I was while riding in an actual rainstorm.
Just as we were getting off of US-33 onto WV-29, we rode out of the fog and into a nice mostly sunny day, and it had also warmed up a good bit. Good thing, because WV-29 is a FUN road! Pretty much as soon as it comes out of Elkins, WV, it gets curvy and starts climbing up into the mountains. You pass through a couple of small towns, and then there is a section where the road curves and climbs about 1500ft in the space of 1/2 mile, and then moves into a section of nice sweeping curves, and even some real switchbacks. The road is in nice shape, and there are passing zones every so often so that you can continue at an appropriate pace. From there, we hit US-250, which is quite possibly even better than 29. If you look at it on the map, it's pretty obvious why. This website is where I found the route.
US-250 took us through both Monongahela and George Washington National Forests, and so the road wound through the trees,with an occasional view of the valley below. The elevation was such that we were able to enjoy the slight touches of color starting to show on the leaves, and the sunlight was just slightly filtering through the tree canopy. The temperature was perfect too. I can't think of a much better way to spend a day. It was absolutely fantastic! The roads were curvy, and we kept a brisk pace, but not so brisk as to be challenging on a Harley. The nice thing was that the pace allowed for me to truly concentrate on my lines through the turns, and I started to see what people are talking about when they say that you "string the turns together." You would start to see the line that connected one turn to the next, and could ride quickly, but still very smoothly. I could have done it faster on my bike, but it would have been much more tiring and less relaxing, because I would have been riding much closer to the limits of my skill.
We rode through Staunton, and then headed for Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National park. Skyline has a $10 entrance fee, but it's absolutely worth it. We rode on Skyline for about 35 miles, took some pictures at 3900 feet, and then headed towards US-33 to get us back to Richmond.
We got into Richmond around 2:30, and the final mileage on the bikes read 969.6 for the trip. We (very briefly) considered going another 30.4 miles so that it would be an even 1000, but then decided that it wasn't all that important. Chris and I hopped in his car and headed for Manassas, where he joined us for dinner to wait out the traffic before he headed back home.
All in all, it was a great trip, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Perhaps with a different bike, but otherwise an awesome experience. The roads we traveled, especially on the second and third day are some that I would recommend to any driving/riding enthusiast.
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