nkdfun
Active Member
I'm planning to go out west next year to the Overland Expo in May with a coworker (and anyone else that wants to go.) He rode there solo last year. So after an all-day bike ride to Tarpon Springs and back one weekend, I decided that I was ready to ride a full tank (200 miles) non-stop. We could have just gone 200 miles and then turn around, but I wanted to test my endurance, so I mapped out an impromptu 400-mile trip to Key West with only one planned stop. This would also be the farthest I have ever ridden in a day. We planned a different route back. Three days later, we were on our way.
We also wanted to test our camping situation so we reserved a spot at Boyd's Campground close to Key West. At about $84 for the night, it was no bargain, but we splurged for the waterfront lot.
I don't have panniers yet, so I Rok-strapped my tent, pad and sleeping bag to the back of the bike. Everything else went into my tank bag. This was a good lesson in packing light since I didn't have a lot of room. I like taking pictures and when we go on vacation, I usually have a full suitcase dedicated to my camera stuff and other electronics. This time I had to cut that down to fit into a tank bag. I still brought my big-boy camera but only one lens this time. It's a 10-24mm wide-angle zoom and it's become my favorite all-around lens. I packed it and a few small items in a small padded bag. My other camera is usually a GoPro but the place I mount that on the back of the bike was now covered by my bed and shelter. The funny thing is that even though I cut back a lot on my camera packing, it still took most of the space in my tank bag. My iPhone served as my snapshot camera.
Since this was a one-nighter, I would bring another shirt and underwear for the second day and go seconds on everything else. Electronics would go into their own small bag. My friend would have the GPS since I didn't have a mount for mine yet, but I brought mine anyway as a spare. All that fit around the camera bag in the tank bag and pretty much filled it up. I also attached a CamelBak to the back of the tank bag.
I also had my bathroom stuff in a small bag that I was able to fit between the tent and pad on the back seat. I also stuffed some small bottles of Gatorade back there too.
The weather was predicted to be clear and 54F in the morning. I have no problem riding to work in that kind of weather. Unfortunately, the weathermen were wrong again; it was 43F. So I wore a pair of unlined leather gloves and put my mesh gloves in my leather jacket pocket. I headed to my friend's house at 5:30am with the heated grips on high. It wasn't enough to stop my hands from being uncomfortably cold. I borrowed a pair of gloves and a neck warmer from my friend when i got to his house.
Long before this trip, we talked about communication options ranging from a FRS/GMRS radio pair to the many Bluetooth offerings. I bought the uClear HBC200 dual set a couple of days before we left. He would borrow the second unit for this trip but my wife would get it afterwards.
Without turning this into a review for the HBC200, suffice to say that it worked well but was slightly muffled for talking, probably because we had to wear earplugs to hear past our own helmet's wind noise. As advertised, there is no wind noise in the transmission itself. A pair of lesser earplugs might have been better. I let him get well ahead of me at one point and could still communicate. We did lose each other from obstructions one time.
So we topped off the gas tanks and headed out at about 6:20am. It was still cold, but better. We took I-4 to the Florida Turnpike and then got off at Yeehaw Junction. From there we passed through Okeechobee and headed around the west side of Lake Okeechobee.
My friend wanted to stop and take a picture of the lake somewhere so we stopped at a boat ramp about halfway around. He got a couple of pictures and updated his facebook page and then we were on our way again. It's not a good picture of the lake but that's one handsome biker and his Tiger 800XC!
We noticed that there were a lot of large smoke plumes and figured that the farmers were preparing their fields for the next crop and were burning the old vegetation.
Our planned gas stop was South Bay. That was only about 190 miles but there wasn't another gas station on our maps for another 60 miles after that. As we got closer to South Bay, the weather finally started getting noticeably warmer. I guess that's where line between Central and South Florida is.
We stopped at The Southern Belle to fill up in South Bay at about 10am and the in-store deli didn’t look appetizing so we settled for a sit down meal at the Subway. Other restaurants were 5 miles out of our way. South Bay is not a great place to stop. There’s not much there. My distance was 189.2 miles on 3.86 gallons.
The GPS said we had 214 miles to go so we were on our second and last non-stop leg of our trip. We took US 27 down to SR 997 and stopped at Dade Corners so my friend could get some 5-Hour Energy drink (so much for non-stop, but he was falling asleep), then down to US 1. To stretch the route to 400 miles we added a side trip toward Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park. There is a dollar toll to go over a large bridge, which was the highlight of that side trip. Been there, done that. We didn’t head into the park, but there is no other real reason to go back that way on our return trip.
I’ve been to Key West several times but not on a bike. Even so, there is always something strange about the trip. Out of the 400 miles, this last 100 miles takes almost half the time of the whole trip. If Key West is laid back, the trip there is too.
Since we were going non-stop, I’ll fast-forward to our last fill up near the campground at around 3:30pm. This time the trip was 218.1 miles on 4.27 gallons. My friend and I began to have a little competition with our gas mileage. He rides a Kawasaki KLR650. He was quite proud of his 50.8 mpg on that trip until he found out mine was 51.1 mpg. He cursed my fuel injection.
We set up the tent at Boyd’s and took some pictures before heading into Key West.
We both wanted to eat but I wanted to get a couple of touristy photos.
We then stopped at my favorite place to eat in Key West: Half Shell Raw Bar. There are plenty of places for motorcycles and scooters to park in Key West. After dinner, we parked on Duval Ave and walked down and back for several blocks, then headed back to the campsite.
We were in a four-person tent but found it difficult to imagine how four people could fit. My tent was probably a good size for one biker and his gear. We weren't spooning, but it was a bit crowded for two. My empty Gatorade bottles came in handy and saved me a trip to the bathroom but a wider top on the bottle would have made for less drippage.
The sky started getting brighter and the roosters were doing there very best to wake everyone up, so I got up and took a picture of the sunrise. It wasn't a great sunrise, but at least this morning wasn't as cold as when we left. I think it in the low 70's.
Our route back had more exploring in mind. We found an old abandoned highway and rode through overgrown bushes on a long-ignored, crumbling asphalt road. The foliage slapped at our mirrors and helmets as I cautiously led the way in first and second gears.
We finally reached the end where a bridge to the next key probably existed at one time, but we couldn't go any further. We took a few shots with the big boy cameras and then turned the bikes around to head back. My friend led us out and I lost sight of him. I did have more confidence this time and made it out a lot faster than it took to get back there.
We also checked out Blimp Rd which near some kind of blimp launching facility. We could see a blimp high above us too. You can't get into the facility, but the boat ramp at the end of Blimp Rd made for another photo opportunity.
We stopped exploring and started making our way through the keys again. Just north of Key Largo, we stopped at a place called Gilbert's Resort to eat, which was recommended by some bikers we met at the South Bay Subway. We missed it on the way to Key West because we took that side trip. It was now around 2pm and we decided to abandon our return route which would have put us through Loop Rd in the Everglades. The tide was unusually high that weekend and there was a bit of flooding in the streets of Key West at the north end of Duval, as well as flooding here at Gilbert's. Although we weren't going through the Everglades this time, Loop road probably would have been flooded as well. We would have had to do some gator jumping and dodging, and we had no puppies or kittens to distract them!
We stopped again near Homestead to refuel, and just south of Dade Corners we stopped again to pick up some raw sugarcane. The place also makes fresh juice drinks, including fresh-squeezed sugarcane juice. We ate an empanada and then continued our trip north.
It started getting dark as we passed South Bay again, this time heading up the east side of Lake Okeechobee. At about the same point as the trip down, we crossed the line from South to Central Florida and it suddenly got cooler. Weird.
We had to stop in Okeechobee to put our warm gear on and clean the bugs from our faceshields. The KLR's low beam burned out and I put us in front of an Auto-Zone so my friend could replace the bulb, but he said it would take too long to replace it and he didn't bring the tools for it anyway. So we had to endure people flashing their highbeams for a few miles. I finally got in front and turned on my dual highbeams, which were pretty impressive. As I dimmed my beams for oncoming traffic, his single high beam didn't seem so bright.
We stopped and refueled at Yeehaw Junction and ate at the Desert Inn which is a historical landmark. We finally made it home around 9:30 or 10pm.
The Triumph performed well, and the stock seat was comfortable enough for me for a day-long trip but only just. I did squirm the last hundred or so miles each day, so I will likely get some seat upgrades. I also found that i will need some type of topcase and/or panniers but i am undecided on those and I'm still shopping. I learned a few things on this trip that will help me get through longer trips. So I accomplished my mission.
We also wanted to test our camping situation so we reserved a spot at Boyd's Campground close to Key West. At about $84 for the night, it was no bargain, but we splurged for the waterfront lot.
I don't have panniers yet, so I Rok-strapped my tent, pad and sleeping bag to the back of the bike. Everything else went into my tank bag. This was a good lesson in packing light since I didn't have a lot of room. I like taking pictures and when we go on vacation, I usually have a full suitcase dedicated to my camera stuff and other electronics. This time I had to cut that down to fit into a tank bag. I still brought my big-boy camera but only one lens this time. It's a 10-24mm wide-angle zoom and it's become my favorite all-around lens. I packed it and a few small items in a small padded bag. My other camera is usually a GoPro but the place I mount that on the back of the bike was now covered by my bed and shelter. The funny thing is that even though I cut back a lot on my camera packing, it still took most of the space in my tank bag. My iPhone served as my snapshot camera.
Since this was a one-nighter, I would bring another shirt and underwear for the second day and go seconds on everything else. Electronics would go into their own small bag. My friend would have the GPS since I didn't have a mount for mine yet, but I brought mine anyway as a spare. All that fit around the camera bag in the tank bag and pretty much filled it up. I also attached a CamelBak to the back of the tank bag.
I also had my bathroom stuff in a small bag that I was able to fit between the tent and pad on the back seat. I also stuffed some small bottles of Gatorade back there too.
The weather was predicted to be clear and 54F in the morning. I have no problem riding to work in that kind of weather. Unfortunately, the weathermen were wrong again; it was 43F. So I wore a pair of unlined leather gloves and put my mesh gloves in my leather jacket pocket. I headed to my friend's house at 5:30am with the heated grips on high. It wasn't enough to stop my hands from being uncomfortably cold. I borrowed a pair of gloves and a neck warmer from my friend when i got to his house.
Long before this trip, we talked about communication options ranging from a FRS/GMRS radio pair to the many Bluetooth offerings. I bought the uClear HBC200 dual set a couple of days before we left. He would borrow the second unit for this trip but my wife would get it afterwards.
Without turning this into a review for the HBC200, suffice to say that it worked well but was slightly muffled for talking, probably because we had to wear earplugs to hear past our own helmet's wind noise. As advertised, there is no wind noise in the transmission itself. A pair of lesser earplugs might have been better. I let him get well ahead of me at one point and could still communicate. We did lose each other from obstructions one time.
So we topped off the gas tanks and headed out at about 6:20am. It was still cold, but better. We took I-4 to the Florida Turnpike and then got off at Yeehaw Junction. From there we passed through Okeechobee and headed around the west side of Lake Okeechobee.
My friend wanted to stop and take a picture of the lake somewhere so we stopped at a boat ramp about halfway around. He got a couple of pictures and updated his facebook page and then we were on our way again. It's not a good picture of the lake but that's one handsome biker and his Tiger 800XC!
We noticed that there were a lot of large smoke plumes and figured that the farmers were preparing their fields for the next crop and were burning the old vegetation.
Our planned gas stop was South Bay. That was only about 190 miles but there wasn't another gas station on our maps for another 60 miles after that. As we got closer to South Bay, the weather finally started getting noticeably warmer. I guess that's where line between Central and South Florida is.
We stopped at The Southern Belle to fill up in South Bay at about 10am and the in-store deli didn’t look appetizing so we settled for a sit down meal at the Subway. Other restaurants were 5 miles out of our way. South Bay is not a great place to stop. There’s not much there. My distance was 189.2 miles on 3.86 gallons.
The GPS said we had 214 miles to go so we were on our second and last non-stop leg of our trip. We took US 27 down to SR 997 and stopped at Dade Corners so my friend could get some 5-Hour Energy drink (so much for non-stop, but he was falling asleep), then down to US 1. To stretch the route to 400 miles we added a side trip toward Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park. There is a dollar toll to go over a large bridge, which was the highlight of that side trip. Been there, done that. We didn’t head into the park, but there is no other real reason to go back that way on our return trip.
I’ve been to Key West several times but not on a bike. Even so, there is always something strange about the trip. Out of the 400 miles, this last 100 miles takes almost half the time of the whole trip. If Key West is laid back, the trip there is too.
Since we were going non-stop, I’ll fast-forward to our last fill up near the campground at around 3:30pm. This time the trip was 218.1 miles on 4.27 gallons. My friend and I began to have a little competition with our gas mileage. He rides a Kawasaki KLR650. He was quite proud of his 50.8 mpg on that trip until he found out mine was 51.1 mpg. He cursed my fuel injection.
We set up the tent at Boyd’s and took some pictures before heading into Key West.
We both wanted to eat but I wanted to get a couple of touristy photos.
We then stopped at my favorite place to eat in Key West: Half Shell Raw Bar. There are plenty of places for motorcycles and scooters to park in Key West. After dinner, we parked on Duval Ave and walked down and back for several blocks, then headed back to the campsite.
We were in a four-person tent but found it difficult to imagine how four people could fit. My tent was probably a good size for one biker and his gear. We weren't spooning, but it was a bit crowded for two. My empty Gatorade bottles came in handy and saved me a trip to the bathroom but a wider top on the bottle would have made for less drippage.
The sky started getting brighter and the roosters were doing there very best to wake everyone up, so I got up and took a picture of the sunrise. It wasn't a great sunrise, but at least this morning wasn't as cold as when we left. I think it in the low 70's.
Our route back had more exploring in mind. We found an old abandoned highway and rode through overgrown bushes on a long-ignored, crumbling asphalt road. The foliage slapped at our mirrors and helmets as I cautiously led the way in first and second gears.
We finally reached the end where a bridge to the next key probably existed at one time, but we couldn't go any further. We took a few shots with the big boy cameras and then turned the bikes around to head back. My friend led us out and I lost sight of him. I did have more confidence this time and made it out a lot faster than it took to get back there.
We also checked out Blimp Rd which near some kind of blimp launching facility. We could see a blimp high above us too. You can't get into the facility, but the boat ramp at the end of Blimp Rd made for another photo opportunity.
We stopped exploring and started making our way through the keys again. Just north of Key Largo, we stopped at a place called Gilbert's Resort to eat, which was recommended by some bikers we met at the South Bay Subway. We missed it on the way to Key West because we took that side trip. It was now around 2pm and we decided to abandon our return route which would have put us through Loop Rd in the Everglades. The tide was unusually high that weekend and there was a bit of flooding in the streets of Key West at the north end of Duval, as well as flooding here at Gilbert's. Although we weren't going through the Everglades this time, Loop road probably would have been flooded as well. We would have had to do some gator jumping and dodging, and we had no puppies or kittens to distract them!
We stopped again near Homestead to refuel, and just south of Dade Corners we stopped again to pick up some raw sugarcane. The place also makes fresh juice drinks, including fresh-squeezed sugarcane juice. We ate an empanada and then continued our trip north.
It started getting dark as we passed South Bay again, this time heading up the east side of Lake Okeechobee. At about the same point as the trip down, we crossed the line from South to Central Florida and it suddenly got cooler. Weird.
We had to stop in Okeechobee to put our warm gear on and clean the bugs from our faceshields. The KLR's low beam burned out and I put us in front of an Auto-Zone so my friend could replace the bulb, but he said it would take too long to replace it and he didn't bring the tools for it anyway. So we had to endure people flashing their highbeams for a few miles. I finally got in front and turned on my dual highbeams, which were pretty impressive. As I dimmed my beams for oncoming traffic, his single high beam didn't seem so bright.
We stopped and refueled at Yeehaw Junction and ate at the Desert Inn which is a historical landmark. We finally made it home around 9:30 or 10pm.
The Triumph performed well, and the stock seat was comfortable enough for me for a day-long trip but only just. I did squirm the last hundred or so miles each day, so I will likely get some seat upgrades. I also found that i will need some type of topcase and/or panniers but i am undecided on those and I'm still shopping. I learned a few things on this trip that will help me get through longer trips. So I accomplished my mission.
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