100K + mileage bikes....

[GsxrBots]

Ok, so most of you know I've had some "time off" from the internet.. I've been doing some thinking lately. The year before last was the most I've ridden any motorcycle since I was like 17. I think I put on about 12K miles on the 'ol girl before I put her away for winter. This got me thinking. There are several people out there that have close to or over 100K on their busas, and I'm wondering how you do it?

Granted I live in Wisconsin where I only get about 8 months of riding in, but I don't understand. I have a full time job, a wife, now a boy and I can't see how some of these guys are racking up this much mileage.

Also I've had (in my short mileage) an oil filter blowout, plenty of near misses, old ladies opening doors into my bike, etc and we never really hear bad stories about some of these high mileage guys..

Like SleeplessRed, let's hear some stories! Surely you've had blowouts, near misses, etc.

Heck some of the guys I've seen claiming outrageous mileages don't even seem to own luggage. I don't get it. I don't know how you could supposedly ride your bike EVERYWHERE and not have saddlebags.. I'm not calling BS (yet) on any of these claims, I'm just wondering how it's supposed to happen.

I go on a 3 hour tour (admit it, you just sang the song) and I need somewhere to put something. That's why my Bus has hard luggage this season. How do you put on 50K or more per season and not have luggage?

Someone enlighten me, am I doin' it wrong?

 

[GsxrBots]

What brought this up was a video BigE sent me last night about this couple here:

They've seen all kinds of stuff happen and their bike looks like it's been through hell in only 30K miles..

 

[VaBusa]

That video is so cool...can you imagine riding for that long and all they've seen? They even have their own web site to post up travel adventures along the way. I need to check it out.

I know some of our friends that are avid riders, and I know they all have stories of breakdowns and incidents in all of their miles. I'm certain of one thing - if you do manage to put those kind of miles on a bike, you'd better know how to work on problems along the way...ask semi! Shoot, ask any of them...you don't just hop on and go without something going wrong at some point. In my relatively few miles, I've had two flat tires...can't imagine what you'd have once you're getting over 100k...

 

[GsxrBots]

I remember BusaWhipped accident last year too, he's had his fair share of "incidents" and Lucy is gettin' long in the tooth too...

 

[VaBusa]

I remember BusaWhipped accident last year too, he's had his fair share of "incidents" and Lucy is gettin' long in the tooth too...

Yeah, those two have had they're share of miles and stories, as well as captain, twotonevert, LCB and I'm certain Pashnit would have plenty...

I've put in some long trips, luggage in tow, but I've been lucky. What I haven't done is put tons of miles on my Busa consistently, and I know I wouldn't be prepared for the mechanical failures if I were out riding alone.

I'm honestly not sure what it takes to put those kind of miles on a bike. My Mustang is 19 years old, my daily driver, my favorite toy that I prefer to take most of the time, and she's just turned over 200k. I'm not sure how you get that many miles on the bike that's only been around for just over a decade (mine anyway)

via Samsung Galaxy SIII

 

[black diamond busa]

Last summer took a trip up north and the bike died. Left me stranded in a parking lot for two hrs. Pissed be right off until I finally found the loose wire going to the fuel pump

 

[BusaWhipped]

I remember BusaWhipped accident last year too, he's had his fair share of "incidents" and Lucy is gettin' long in the tooth too...

Yep, sheet happens when you are on 2 wheels all the time. Luci and I have had 2 crashes on the street and too many close calls to count. Seems like there's always someone out there trying to take us out. I've been lucky with tires, only a couple of flats and none that left me stranded. I had a rectifier failure but was able to limp home. A radiator hose that managed to find the exhaust header is the only time Luci didn't get me home, well except for 1 of the crashes. Keeping up on the maintenance minimizes the incidents on the road.

Her odo shows almost 96,000 miles, but it clocks slow. She has over 100,000 actual miles. A lot of them were racked up commuting 100 miles a day even though I try to spread those miles across several bikes so I don't wear any one out too quick. Luci has a lot of touring miles as well with tires touching 21 of the states, many more than once. I started touring wearing a backpack. My last trip before getting the Ventura system was over 1500 miles wearing a 30# backpack. We've also had some fun times on the back roads, a dozen+ track days, and a day on the strip. We've made many great friends and memories on the road. I don't think about putting miles on the bikes, I just do it.

 

[Blanca BusaLess]

What have you done with the real Bots? This can't be him because he swore he was taking a year offline?
Hasn't even been a month?

 

[pashnit]

Let's ride Steve!!

 

[pashnit]

Steve, you asked about near misses, so here's a little bedtime story for you. In the last hundred thousand miles of leading tours, yes, there are quite a few good ones.

This is likely 5+ years ago, but I can recall every minute detail. This is what a near miss is.

I was leading a tour out of Taft, which is wide open country, oil country in central California. I had about 15 motorcycles behind me, and we were heading into heavy fog on Highway 167, which is the main highway for trucking and such. We were headed uphill & the fog got so heavy, could not see hardly anything. So slowed the group way down, we were probably riding about 40-50 mph in a staggered formation. It was misty, it was wet, and about to start raining as we went over the pass.

Then directly in front of me, out of the thick fog appeared a car parked squarely in the middle of the road perpendicular to the group. There was no time or space to swerve or go anywhere. It was directly in front of me. We were so close, my brain simply committed to t-boning the car directly in his driver side door. I slammed on my brakes, but the road was wet and there's only so much grab without locking up the wheels on wet road. The rider kitty-corner & on my right in the split second was directly beside me also braking. Nowhere to go. The riders in the back of the group could not even see what was happening. Pile up. Everyone crashes into this idiot.

My first thought was not for the harm or injury that was about to befall myself, but rather for the Hayabusa. I simply thought to myself, this is really going to **** up my bike. But I'll probably live, if I go flying over the top of the car. Broken bones likely. Funny what the brain thinks in that split second.

Just then, he began to move slowly. He was making a U-turn in the middle of the highway going right to left directly in the path of the entire tour group of motorcycles. He moved about 2-3 feet, and I then committed to hitting his rear door. Then he moved a bit more, and my brain committed to hitting his rear quarter panel. I thought I could fly over the trunk through the air, and be okay. But so much for the bike. Bent forks, it would be toast.

Just as the tour group reached him, he moved just enough out of the path of the bikes, and I missed his rear bumper by mere inches. The whole time hard on the brakes. He completed his U-turn in the middle of the highway and drove back the opposite direction.

It happened so fast, the tour group never even saw what was happening way up front in the group since we are pretty well spaced out in the fog. They simply saw all the bikes at the front of the group slam on their brakes all at once. When we got to the top of the pass, we descended down the other side, the sun came out, it was a bright sunny day-no fog. Like it never happened.

It was such a scary experience for that near miss, when I got home from that 1000-mile ride, I parked the Hayabusa and did not ride for six months.

 

[VaBusa]

Wow, Pashnit, that's the most intense non-incident I've ever read about...I'm not so sure I would have been able too make that journey back home

So glad nothing happened, but wow!

via Samsung Galaxy SIII

 

[GsxrBots]

These are EXACTLY the stories I wanna hear!

 

[Twobrothersbusa]

Well, it's like this...we were at a Bash and I was moving my son's CBR...I think you know how this one ends don't you.

 

[BusaWhipped]

Here's one of my incidents. I was leading the group so I had the front camera turned off. I wish it had been running to get the whole thing. From when I saw it I knew I wouldn't be able to stop. The thought running through my mind was to try to hit it square so it wouldn't deflect me off the road into the brush.

 

[VaBusa]

Here's one of my incidents. I was leading the group so I had the front camera turned off. I wish it had been running to get the whole thing. From when I saw it I knew I wouldn't be able to stop. The thought running through my mind was to try to hit it square so it wouldn't deflect me off the road into the brush.

Yikes! I had something similar happen on a charity run, only we were in a long line of hundreds of bikes and going pretty slowly. The deer ran out between the bike in front of me and my front tire, and I only heard/saw him just as he cleared my Busa. My friend riding behind me asked when we stopped "How in the world did you NOT hit that deer?" Dumb luck...I'll never forget the sound of his hoof on the pavement because that's all I heard

 

[semi]

there have been plenty of near misses from other drivers either stopping in the middle of the road to answer their cell phones, pulling out in front of me, or swerving into my lane; flat tires; a wheel bearing that failed in Pennsylvania on the second day of a 5000+ mile trip; a battery failed in New York; went down in a patch of gravel scattered into the road in Arkansas; multiple near misses with deer, dogs, an armadillo, semi tire pieces that have blown out, and a mattress that flew off a truck and tried to take me out; rode between two tornadoes coming north out of West Memphis; ridden through deserts, swamps, mountains, horizontal rain, snow, hail, sleet, from 5 degrees to 105 degrees...this has all just been on Lucy, it isn't always fun but you have to go through the bad weather/situations to get to the other side...i've also been run off the road by a dump truck and tumbled down an embankment, high sided a '68 Triumph chopper in some gravel (picked rock chips out of my shoulder for about three months), and low sided an old Honda back in the 80's

thanks, now that i've thought about all this, i think it's time to sell the bike and hang up my leathers...............NOT! the trick is what you focus on, i am constantly aware of and on guard against all of the things that can go wrong but i can't wait to get to that next corner, top the next mountain pass, ride down into the next sweeping valley, see the sun rise or set in an explosion of beautiful colors...to me, it is worth every sore muscle, heart stopping near miss, broken relationship, and even the occasional wreck...just get on and ride