How many miles can you ride in a day?
Last year, I cranked 500 miles in one day on a Harley 883 coming home from Virginia Beach (the rubber-mounted engine.. you know the vibration it makes).
I am 27 and I could ride, as they say, like the wind, but it was the wind that broke me down doing this ride. Definitely, if I had a proper touring motorcycle, it would have made this journey a piece of cake but back then, I wasn't as rich as I am now (ROFL). I thought I would share my thoughts on how many miles you can plan on covering in a day. Maybe it will influence your planning. Maybe not.
1: Age
Like I said above, big miles should not be a big deal for me. That’s not the case anymore. After substantial scientific study and close observation of my rider buddies over the last year, I developed a graph showing the relationship between age and how many miles you can reasonably ride in a day. The graph is taking into consideration that you are riding a touring motorcycle for max comfort.
Like it or not, when we get older, it gets harder to rack up big miles.
A serious scientific study went into the above, so if you want to debate my conclusions, bring facts. I want to hear them.
2: Weather
Weather plays a big role in how many miles you can ride in a single day, and I heavily rely on the road surface & weather apps before leaving on any ride. This would enable one to be in the correct mindset of how to tackle a particular weather situation. Back last year, when I took a ride with the group to Lake Erie, it was raining heavily to a point that we had to ride 25MPH on a 40MPH road. The reason was we wanted to make sure everyone in the group is comfortable at that speed & as everyone had a different sort of ride, we wanted to make sure that they can easily maneuver their bikes without any issues
3: Roads
The kind of roads you plan to ride makes a huge difference. If it’s all freeway, you’ll be bored but you can rack up huge miles. If it’s surface streets (and a lot of us do everything we can to stay off the freeway), you won’t cover as many miles unless you’re riding in Baja, where you can run 140mph+ on the long straights south of Valle de Los Cirios. If it’s in the mountains, it will be less, unless you’re posting about your skills on Facebook/Insta, where the folks who post are world-class riders (to hear them tell it). The same holds true for riding in the dirt. You just won’t cover as many miles.
4: Headcount
This is the big one
Maybe I should have listed it first. If I’m riding by myself or with one of my motorcycle buddies, I can easily do over 500 miles a day. Throw in more people, and…well, read on, my friends. The number of riders in your group has a profound impact on how many miles you can ride in a day. In the math world, we would say that the miles per day are inversely proportional to the number of riders in your group.
As a starting point (and after extensive research and mathematical modeling), the technical staff here at ExNotes developed Formula A:
A) Miles per Day = (M)/(N)
where:
M = Miles you want to ride N = Number of riders in your group
What the above means is that as the number of riders in your group increases, the number of miles you can cover in a day decreases. That’s because with more riders you’ll start later in the morning, you’ll be stopping more often, and you’ll take more time at each stop.
5: Your Ride
Ahh...Finally. There are several motorcycle factors that play a huge role in how many miles you can ride in a day. In the old days, a motorcycle was a motorcycle and people did it all with a single bike (touring, off-road, canyon carving, adventure riding, etc.). Today, you gotta get specific:
ADV-style bikes are actually pretty comfortable and the ergonomics make sense. 500-mile days are easy.
Standard motorcycles are also relatively comfortable and you can probably do 500 miles in a day, but you’ll feel it, especially if your bike does not have a windshield.
Cruisers look cool in motorcycle ads and they complement do-rags and tattoos nicely, but they are less comfortable on long rides. I’ve found I can reasonably do 350-mile days on a cruiser without needing to see a chiropractor. Go much beyond that and you’ll feel it.
Sportbikes ... all I would say is schedule a visit to a chiropractor well in advance.
Classic bikes generally require shorter daily riding distances, I would not prefer them for longer rides
Beyond the style issues outlined above, there are other motorcycle factors to consider:
Bigger motors generally mean more miles in a day, but bigger motorcycles can slow you down if they suck up too much fuel.
Daily mileage is independent of displacement at 400cc and above (as long as fuel economy is not VMax nutty). Below 400cc, it gets harder (I think) to crank big miles.
Seats can make a big difference. But, be ready to spend some $$ on it.
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