I hope you enjoy my ride report below.
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On Saturday, 19 November, I had the pleasure of leading an Iron Butt Saddlesore (1,000 miles in 24 hours). This will be my fourth one and I had one first timer with me. He was on a Harley Davidson Road King and I was on my Kawasaki Ninja 250. I wanted to do this ride mainly to find out if both the bike and I could ride that long and not break down. The other rider wanted to join because he had wanted to do one for some time and was happy to join with me since I have done this before.
We started out in Virginia Beach and would end the ride at the same location. I had arranged for an Iron Butt certified rider to be there to witness the start and finish. My wife was the second witness. The route I chose was one that that I have rode a previous Saddlesore ride on - 1,000+ miles all in the State of Virginia.
We left at 5am and the temperature was 34 degrees. By the time we got to Emporia (stop B), the temperature had dropped to 27 degrees. I removed my First Gear Katmandu jacket (with cold weather liner) and put on the upper piece from my Frogg Toggs rain gear under my jacket. That helped to break some of the wind; however we were still very cold. When the sun started coming up you could see the frost lifting off the ground. By the time we got to Staunton (stop C), I was pretty much cold to the bone. We spent about a ½ hour there just walking around and stomping our feet to get the feeling back. I had a 16 ounce cup of coffee that I could only fill 3/4 of the way up because my body was shaking so bad I was spilling the coffee. The ride from there down to Bristol got progressively better as it started to warm up. When you got to Bristol, we stopped at the Black Wolf Harley Davidson shop (stop E) to pick up a quick souvenir and get a receipt. We departed their location to look for something quick to eat. Of course I would pick the direction that had nothing so we had to back track and go the other way to find a McDonalds. After a quick bite and a bit of a break, we were rolling North up I-81 to Front Royal. We got gas (stop G) just before turning east on I-66 towards the Capitol Beltway. Even though Google Maps says the distance is shorter if you take 17 from I-66 to I-95, we did not go that way. We rode all the way until we hit I-495 south to the “mixing bowl” in Franconia where we picked up I-95 south. As we were coming east from the mountains and making our turn south, we could feel the temps rise just a bit, really just enough so that we weren’t completely miserable like we were that morning. Once on I-95 south it was a simple manner of just picking up I-295 south, to I-64 east and then back to the starting location. My GPS said that we completed the whole trip in 18.5 hours and the actual mileage was 1,036. My odometer said 1,043 so that wasn’t too far off.
Other than that, the ride was pretty uneventful except for the start. We weren’t 20 miles out and I saw a 2X2 lying in the road. I swerved to avoid it but just caught the edge of it with the left side of my front tire. That caused the board to jump up and whack my foot on the underside which drove the top side of my foot into the shifter hard enough to bend it. I thought about bending it back but given how cold it was, I figured I would break it and then my ride would have been done. As it was it was workable so we pressed on. I do have some bruised toes though from being pressed hard enough to bend the shifter. For a moment I thought my toes might have been broken. Luckily it was cold enough to keep the swelling down… :)
That’s it. Technical details follow if you are interested.
Technical Details:
I did some mods on the Ninja for comfort and cruising, they were: a Zero Gravity Double Bubble windshield which provided some protection from the wind but not much; handlebar risers from Roaring Toyz; a Corbin saddle (just the rider); Cortech Saddlebags and tail bag; generic tank bag; Grip Puppies; mirrors designed for a Ninja 650 so I could see something other than my elbows; integrated brake/turn signals and removed the stock turn signal stems so the saddlebags would fit; changed the front and rear sprockets (one tooth up in the front and one tooth down in the back); temporarily wired in power to the tank bag to run a GPS (moving average, overall average, distance completed, distance to go, etc); and STOCK air box, jets, and muffler. Everything worked well. Changing the sprockets allowed me to cruise at the posted speed/traffic flow while maintaining around 8000-9000 on the tach. Going up hills on I-81 was a bit hard on the Ninja. It did better if I laid my chest on the tank bag and tried to tuck up under the very small windshield. My normal gas mileage was down (55-62 MPG) for this trip, varying between a low of 42 to a high of 49 depending upon location and temperature. The other rider on the Harley was experiencing poor (or should I say less than expected) gas mileage. Overall, the Ninja did a really great job and other then a couple of bulbs burning out in the dash panel (odometer and gas gauge, which shouldn’t have happened on a bike less than a year old and only 3,000 miles), it did very well running at Interstate speeds. I am impressed and now thinking about stepping up to some multi-day long distance riding with this bike. It should do it with no problems.
Gregg A. Lenentine
Virginia Beach, VA
gregg.lenentine@gmail.com
IBA #37350
3 X Saddlesores, 100CCC Insanity, 48-10
