Author Topic: 1800 Clicks in Three Days!! (Read 4823 times)

jbrough7 · « **on:** April 27, 2006, 07:40:31 AM »

Just got back from a conference on my now no-so-new 650. Rode exactly 600k. yesterday to get home and it took me exactly six hours. I made good time when I was riding but stopped a lot for breaks/smokes/ walk arounds.

The weather was wet for most of the 1800 k. and it was pretty much freezing cold. Most mornings started out at 5 C and the temp never got above 9 C! I was pretty dry and pretty warm except for my fingers. I think I have to put on heated grips or something since I seem to want to stretch the season all the time.

Nice trick to warm up was get off and push the bike! Works geat!

Another trick was put my gloves on the engine so when I started out again they were toasty warm.

Bike performed great all the time. Can cruise all day at 108 km./hr on the back road twisties and it isn't even breaking a sweat. I found a sweet spot at about 138 km./hr. on the big four lane highways where it seems to like to cruise.

When I stopped for breaks on the smaller two-lane highways, invariably a guy would stop in a cage to see if I was all right. Then we would get to talking and he would tell me tells about when he was biking! Kinda cool! Even had offers to go in people's houses to warm up! Awesome. I guess they didn't see the axe tied up on my pack....

I'm 225 lbs. and my pack tied on the back was about 40 lbs. and the little bandit didn't even seem to feel the weight.

Most pleasureable on the trip was getting stuck behind 10 cages/transports on a little country two-laner on a steep hill and just zinging her and getting by everybody in no time flat.

Gas mileage is way better now (she has 2400 km. on her) as I can go 350 km. between stops.

Only downside I can think of is I'm 6'4" and above 125 km./hr/ the fairing doesn't do anything. Yesterday was a windy, buffety kinda day and I felt that all the time. Need an extension or something on the windshield.

One thing I noticed was that when cages saw me coming, they would slow right down so I would pass them...then they would all follow me 35 km. above the limit...I guess they thought it was okay to sacrifice me to the police gods. But the bike seems as invisible to police as it does to ordinary cages! No tickets yet!

Love the bike!

Jim

Red01 · « **Reply #1 on:** April 27, 2006, 09:55:17 AM »

Sven · « **Reply #2 on:** April 27, 2006, 10:23:28 AM »

Jimbro, congrats on the trip...anytime you come home safe and happy, it's a great trip.

I've been trying to convice a friend to go to Mesa Verde this summer (she would trail in her Jeep since she doesn't ride)...I really want to ride up the Mesa!...but for now my only long solo trip planned is a run over to Atlanta Memorial Day week to visit several friends. That's 625 km each direction, which can be done in about six hours, but I don't think I'll put another 600 km on for in-and-around, so I won't quite measure up to your standard!

I am interested in your repeated use of "clicks" for kilometers. I know from movies set in the Vietnam era that a click is a km, but I didn't know anyone still used it. I also thought it was spelled with a leaing "K". So I looked it up at Wikipedia, and they prefer the K but say the C is an OK alternative, but what I found really amusing is that they said this was fairly common use in Canada. If so, I guess my online chats with our Northern Cousins hasn't included enough talk about distance. (We're usually talking a certain sport...)

Hey, what do people say where gas is sold in liters (or litres) and distance is measured in kilometers...I haven't noticed anyone using a term other than "mileage"...does anyone say "kiloage" or something?

Red01 · « **Reply #3 on:** April 27, 2006, 10:41:40 AM »

What I've seen in metric-speak when it comes to ecomonly is how many litres it takes to go 100 km, expressed like: X.XL/100KM - but I've never noticed any print copy call such a figure kiloage or kilometerage.

mike · « **Reply #4 on:** April 27, 2006, 03:51:59 PM »

Good ride J. Good for the soul, good for the mind, and you learn alot too on what works for you to make the next one even better. Awesome, congrats on the safe return.

P.S. Those cages irritate me, they did that to me all the time on rural highways. Some I could even see the facial expressions (frown, angry face) and a daeth grip on the wheel. Guess they have other issues in life, and the two wheeler happens to be the one they vent on at the moment. It got to where I used to screw with them. When they tail gated and looked angry at me for no reason. Let hem catch up, get close, accelerate to 120ish, put a 100 yards between us, then slow down to let them catch up. Work them into a frenzy speeding faster and faster. Then speed off out of sight, pull off the road, hide, and wait for them to speed by. Then show myself as they sped by. I even told a cop at a gas station where I puled over once(luckily I was looking for a opull off instead of running by at 130, or I woulda been cop toast), a car was chasing me to run me down... When he sped by, the cop took off after him. Then I rolled by at the speed limit as he was pulled over by the law and waved.I laughed my head off about that for ages.

Cargo7 · « **Reply #5 on:** April 28, 2006, 01:21:07 AM »

OK, let me speak for the Canucks here - in the West anyway. Kilometers is tough to say - so we say clicks. Most of us "older timers" still go with miles per gallon. Keep in mind we used Imperial gallons which are 20% bigger than US gallons. I havn't found anyone that really understands "litres per 100 km". "Clicks per litre" would have been just as good. New car window stickers in Canada show a MPG number for city and highway.

We've been on the metric system since 1977 but most of us still seem to have to be conversant in both systems to some degree. Most of the construction industry is still in feet and inches and we still buy 2x4's. Bullet velocity is feet per second. Recipes are cups of milk. The list actually goes on and on. I'm in Engineering and contend with conversions almost every day. (But boy can they play online games!)

My 3 boys use metric a lot more but they couldn't care less about cars or bikes and wouldn't know the difference between MPG and a sparkplug.

Sven · « **Reply #6 on:** April 28, 2006, 11:34:52 AM »

Quote from: "Cargo7"

Kilometers is tough to say - so we say clicks.

New car window stickers in Canada show a MPG number for city and highway.

Here, they still attempt to teach kids the metric system in school, but I was horrified to find they were teaching them to say "kill-uh-meters" instead of the "kih-LOM-miters" I learned from watching BBC programming on Public TV!

I wish we would just go ahead and convert and be done with it...not that the US manufactures much, but it would help to be on the world standard. But at least we can buy our booze in liters and our sodas in half-liters.

Funny--they sell cars with MPG stickers, which your country officially uses neither miles nor gallons! Great new twist on deceptive marketing.

jbrough7 · « **Reply #7 on:** April 28, 2006, 06:32:11 PM »

Yeah, we converted more than thirty years ago when I was in grade 7, I think. It's actually been good as we understand both, I think.

Our government's reason for converting was that all europeans were metric ; yet, who was our biggest trading partner (and is) by far??????? The US - imperial all the way.

I caqn't believe our government actually made a mistake!!!

Jim

Red01 · « **Reply #8 on:** April 30, 2006, 01:21:50 PM »

Before you guys went metric, you fluid measurement was still different than ours though, so there was still conversions to be done between Imperial gallons and US gallons.

jbrough7 · « **Reply #9 on:** April 30, 2006, 05:39:53 PM »

Yeah, you're righ - our gallon was always 1/5 bigger approx. I made me feel good because our cars always got better mileage than yours! Na-Nah!!!

Jim

stormi · « **Reply #10 on:** May 02, 2006, 07:14:47 PM »

Quote from: "Sven"

Quote from: "Cargo7"
Kilometers is tough to say - so we say clicks.

New car window stickers in Canada show a MPG number for city and highway.

Funny--they sell cars with MPG stickers, which your country officially uses neither miles nor gallons! Great new twist on deceptive marketing.

Actually they post it in both l/100km and (English) mi/gal. (and both are woefully optimistic

) Neither is exceptionally useful to most of us who understand mpg, since most people I know, base it on the US gal.

I have the window sticker here for my ranger, it claims 10.0L/100kms or 28mi/gal for highway and 14.1l/100k, and 20mi/gal for city. So mpg in US gallons is closer to 16-23mpg.

And usually, I call "kilometers" K's. for instance, I drove 850k on my last trip to Calgary.

jbrough7 · « **Reply #11 on:** May 02, 2006, 07:21:26 PM »

Just bought a ford f-150 truck and it said, "17 mpg to 23" on the government mpg sticker so, like an idiot, i thought 20 mpg average ain't bad for a full size pickup! I'm getting 16 mpg!!! Where's the 16??? 16 ain't between 17 and 23!!!!

Jim

stormi · « **Reply #12 on:** May 02, 2006, 07:31:55 PM »

Quote from: "jbrough7"

Just bought a ford f-150 truck and it said, "17 mpg to 23" on the government mpg sticker so, like an idiot, i thought 20 mpg average ain't bad for a full size pickup! I'm getting 16 mpg!!! Where's the 16??? 16 ain't between 17 and 23!!!!

Jim

It is in "advertising speak".

when you multiply your litres to get gallons, what do you multiply by? 3.78... for the US gal or 4.54... for the UK gallon?

17 - 23 imperial gallons works out to about 14-19 US gal. You're right in the middle. :)

jbrough7 · « **Reply #13 on:** May 04, 2006, 05:58:00 AM »

Naw, I'm talking imperial all the way...imperial advertized on the window and my figuring...I do have a teenage son who drives it occasionally and when he pulls away I can hear those dohc on that sweet ford v8 working doubletime, so maybe it ain't that bad after all.

It is a gorgeous truck, other than the lousy gas mileage and i shouldn't complain. the only reason i could afford it was they gave me such a great deal cuz of the high gas prices, nothing on the lot was moving.

just they should give a real mile figure and not get your hopes up...somebody said earlier just use the city figure and that's pretty accurate - what i should have done.

BTW, I loked the ranger 4X4 also, but it's gas mileage with the v6 was only 19 and 26 on the window so I figured the v8 wasn't too far off that. Ford trucks suck gas, anyway...but I still love 'em....

jim

stormi · « **Reply #14 on:** May 04, 2006, 03:49:48 PM »

Quote from: "jbrough7"

Naw, I'm talking imperial all the way...imperial advertized on the window and my figuring...I do have a teenage son who drives it occasionally and when he pulls away I can hear those dohc on that sweet ford v8 working doubletime, so maybe it ain't that bad after all.

It is a gorgeous truck, other than the lousy gas mileage and i shouldn't complain. the only reason i could afford it was they gave me such a great deal cuz of the high gas prices, nothing on the lot was moving.

just they should give a real mile figure and not get your hopes up...somebody said earlier just use the city figure and that's pretty accurate - what i should have done.

BTW, I loked the ranger 4X4 also, but it's gas mileage with the v6 was only 19 and 26 on the window so I figured the v8 wasn't too far off that. Ford trucks suck gas, anyway...but I still love 'em....

jim

I mentioned your milage to the other half, who has a 97 f150 with the 5.4L, and he goes,.. "well,.. tell him to keep his foot out of it, it'll get that milage."

Here's an experiment, you drive it with one tank, without your son driving. Do the math,.. then let your son drive it. See if there's a difference.

Of course, if I drive slow or fast, my ranger gets the same milage( almost exactly 8kms/l everytime) The other half seems to think that's the computer adjusting to my driving.

Yeah,.. I think that advertising speak, and wildly optimistic numbers just set people up for disappointment, which hurts the company in the end.

I had a F150 RC with a 5 speed, and the 4.2 L engine, it got 14mpg, using the imperial system. I traded that one in, cos they couldn't fix it.