Long distance riding - suggestions

[hirubhaiambani]

Hello fellow Ninja riders,

So I am planning to attend reunion with my old college buddies in New Orleans towards the end of September for a weekend. I checked tickets to NOLA from STL and being a poor graduate student, I cannot afford them. So the thought of riding my 2008 Ninja to NOLA from STL on a Thursday and back on Sunday crossed my mind.

I have about 600 miles riding experience in the past 2.5 months. I'm not sure if I am skilled enough to handle long distance riding. So I wanted to ask you experienced riders to share some tips and/or experiences of your first long distance ride on the Ninja250R.

And if somebody has done a STL > NOLA trip before, I will be most eager to hear about it.

Thanks a ton!


Hirubhaiambani

[Indy250r]

Where to where? How far is it?

(Welcome to ninjette.org!)

[xSean13]

Sounds like a pretty fun & long trip. I have not done any long-distance riding, but a 15T front sprocket should help reduce the rpms for highway riding, and it's cheap pretty.

[Fijilight08]

The longest i've done is 40 miles on the highway. How far is the ride for your reunion?

[FrugalNinja250]

Originally Posted by hirubhaiambani

Hello fellow Ninja riders,

So I am planning to attend reunion with my old college buddies in New Orleans towards the end of September for a weekend. I checked tickets to NOLA from STL and being a poor graduate student, I cannot afford them. So the thought of riding my 2008 Ninja to NOLA from STL on a Thursday and back on Sunday crossed my mind.

I have about 600 miles riding experience in the past 2.5 months. I'm not sure if I am skilled enough to handle long distance riding. So I wanted to ask you experienced riders to share some tips and/or experiences of your first long distance ride on the Ninja250R.

And if somebody has done a STL > NOLA trip before, I will be most eager to hear about it.

Thanks a ton!


Hirubhaiambani

Ride some long rides first, at least 250-300 miles. That'll give you experience and will help you to identify what your problem areas will be for the ride. From St. Louis, MO to New Orleans is around 680 miles, that's a fairly long ride. The biggest problem for many is the seat. There's a reason why many long-distance riding events use phrases like "bun burner" and "saddlesore". Being a few hundred miles into a ride and discovering that it *is* possible to go to eleven on a ten point pain scale can really put a crimp in things.

http://www.ironbutt.com/about/default.cfm has lots of tips and info.

I can relate my experiences to you. My first long ride was about 200 miles down to Austin, TX from Dallas, It wasn't too bad. My next long ride was 240 miles down to Houston just a few weeks later. It was a nightmare. At about the 210 mark my butt-pain level reached unbearable levels. I had real doubts I would make the last 30 miles, the pain was at the "please dear God, take me now and I will be forever thankful" level. I spent the last twenty miles alternating hanging one or the other butt-cheek off the bike, and also standing on the pegs as best as I could.

A few months after that I decided to tackle an 800+ mile ride, and I got lucky and scored a Corbin saddle. I did some other things to the bike, such as changing sprockets to get engine RPM down (and thus vibration), and most importantly, I got a tall tank bag that I stuffed with rigid water bottles and towels. This configuration allowed me to lay on the tank bag with my helmet and my chest, taking weight off my butt. I also worked hard to completely relax my body while riding, maintaining just enough grip on two fingers of my throttle hand to maintain speed.

I planned on doing the ride in one day, but set up my schedule so that I could stop halfway and spend a night in a hotel just in case I couldn't do the whole thing in a single day. Luckily, the changes I did allowed me to do the entire ride in a single day, 824 miles in thirteen hours flat. I stopped for fuel every 180 or so miles, and took the opportunity to walk and stretch for a few minutes.

Since then I've done several more of those trips over 800 miles, and either this year or next I'm going to tackle an IBR qualification ride (1,000 miles in less than 24 hours or less).

Some other things to consider are luggage (strongly recommend against a backpack, strap it to the tail instead), hydration (specially this time of year, it's easy to lose a quart an hour through sweat, or more), fatigue, etc. Also, gas mileage drops rapidly with speeds above 60-70mph, and with stock gearing (at least on the pregen) that keeps the engine above 10K RPM oil consumption becomes a problem.

Also, make sure that all service interval maintenance is done before leaving, especially the valves. Look at tires and try to judge if you have enough tread for the trip, and take some chain lube with you to hit the chain a couple times during the trip.

[alex.s]

practice makes perfect.

[mustang5.0]

depending on the speed limit, it shouldnt be too bad...