My dad started talking about the IBA several months ago. After some background information I realized that I was interested in what it was all about, I love riding a motorcycle and to me, it's more about the journey than the destination.
After some debate, we decided to plan two routes, one that would provide a saddlesore 1000, and one that would provide a bunburner 1500. We chose a turn off point that would allow us plenty of time to decide which one to finish on. Oh yeah, did I mention that we wanted to complete both inside the state lines? Yes, Texas is a big place...
Here is the route we ended up taking...
Both start and finish was Corsicana, TX.
We decided to leave at ~5am and travel the southern portion first. Both my dad and his friend were very experienced long haul truckers and they thought that IH10 at night would be dangerous due to the abundance of deer in South Texas.
I rode to my parents house from Huntsville TX (about 140 miles) and slept there the night before the ride. After going to bed at 9pm, I awoke at 330AM and decided to go ahead and get up to eat breakfast instead of tossing and turning until the scheduled 4am wakeup time.
After a quick shower we were ready to rock! Our starting point was at a gas station about 20 miles from my parents house, so at 445am we loaded up and headed to town.
That's me and my vulcan 900 classic at 506am. Notice the smile, you'll see less of those in the future!
The ride from Corsicana to Austin was uneventful. It was cool and there was little traffic due to it being an early weekend morning. I did learn how nice a backrest is, for the trip I would be carrying a duffel bag on the pillion and it doubled as a nice backrest. I'll be investigating retrofitting a true backrest after this ride.
We made our first stop in Austin, about 150-160 miles later. We were limited to that distance due to my dad's friend's 4 gallon fuel tank.
After Austin it became apparent that we were riding into rain. As we pulled into San Antonio it did begin to rain. My dad and I didn't prepare for rain...we just figured we'd buy rain gear if we needed it...MISTAKE!!! Luckily I saw a billboard advertising a yamaha dealership at the next exit, wow! what luck!!! When we pulled into the dealership parking lot we noticed that it was closed, but it would be opening at 9am. We parked the bikes at the front of the shop and stood in the rain talking. It was 8:45am. I noticed movement in the store and realized that there were employees inside who appeared to be having a meeting of some sort...they let us stand in the rain! Wow. I got a little irritated at this so we decided to hell with it and rode on.
Before the next entrance ramp I saw a Honda dealership, we whipped in there and even though they weren't open they let us in and sold us two rainsuits. WOOHOO!
We donned our new rainsuits and jumped back on the interstate.
Within 2 miles it stopped raining.lol
Because SA was a 'corner' on our circular route, we needed to obtain a fuel receipt somewhere on loop 1604 or close to it. We stopped just off 1604 on IH10, filled up, removed the rainsuits and ate a McDonalds breakfast sandwich.
As we pulled out of SA we were feeling good, despite the delay due to us being unprepared, we were making good time. That would soon change...*cue ominous music*
Just outside of SA there is a town called Boerne, TX. Somewhere along that stretch of IH10 there was a sign that said Welfare, I know this because at that point it started raining again. lol
My dad was in the lead and he quickly took the next exit so we could once again don our raingear. As we scrubbed speed exiting the freeway I suddenly realized that we were going too fast on the exit ramp...at the end there was a 90 degree right turn onto the service road! Within milliseconds of that thought my dad locked the rear tire of his new heritage softail classic. He began fishtailing wildly.
I would like to say I saw the whole wreck but I didn't. Obviously I was in trouble too. I tried to apply more brakes, but quickly locked my back tire too. I had a little more time to react than my dad and decided that the better of my two options was to unlock the rear wheel and try to keep it upright when I inevitably went into the ditch. I caught flashes of my dad continuing the fishtailing into the muddy ditch until eventually the bike went over, caught on the left handlebar end and pirouetted to a stop facing the opposite direction of travel. My dad was thrown and slid a ways but by the time I was able to stop he was standing by the bike looking disgusted. I quickly jumped off my bike and helped him pick up the beautiful HD. After a quick damage check we saw that the only real damage was a bent set of bars and a broken clutch lever.
Before we could get out of the ditch we had to straighten the bars, but I assure you, the bar end was touching the first bend!
We ended up having to straighten and tighten the handlebars as well as reattach the windshield which caused us to lose about an hour. Notice in the picture that the clutch lever broke off leaving about 2 fingers width of material to clutch with! This was at mile ~300!!! Not only that, but even after straightening the bars as much as possible, the left side was still about 2 inches lower than the right, not a comfortable riding position!
Here's a pic of the offending exit ramp. While we were doing repairs, 3 cars exited the freeway there. Of the 3 cars, 2 slid off the ramp into the ditch just like we did...that puppy was slick!!!
Of course, by this point it had stopped raining!
As a side note:
My father and his friend are both very experienced motorcyclists. I am fairly experienced. It's obvious in retrospect that we were traveling too fast for the conditions, but the one thing I learned through this is that it is very easy to get into trouble VERY QUICKLY. Respect the road and your bikes folks.
After the incident the weather improved dramatically. It made for a VERY pleasant ride into west Texas. One thing I didn't realize though, the speed limit changes to 80MPH once you leave the populated areas. Combine this, nice hilly terrain and nice sweeping turns and you have the ingrediants for a nice ride! I thoroughly enjoyed that leg of the trip.
Our route had us turning north at Fort Stockton TX. This road was horrible. Long, straight, flat and boring! Nothing to look at but sagebrush, cacti and rocks! Thankfully it was only 50 miles or so to Pecos, then I'll get some relief...
Wrong!
The one nice thing about IH20 is the continuation of 80MPH speed limits, otherwise it's long flat and boring, but at least you can soak up the miles.
Here is a picture of us eating a disgusting cheeseburger at the Dairy Queen in Big Spring TX, we were all pretty wore out by this point.
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, DFW traffic can be hairy even at 11pm! We got our final receipt at 109am making our total trip time a touch over 20 hours. That's a long time to be on a bike!
I learned that I need more comfort equipment to ride long distance on the vulcan:
lower fairings
engine guard/crash guards
highway pegs
driver backrest
bigger saddlebags
throttle lock
a better seat would be nice
a light bar for improved night lighting
Otherwise the bike performed well. The engine revs a little high at the higher interstate speeds, but never was out of breath. I would have loved an extra gear on the top end provided the little engine could lug it.
My butt was very sore and I had to change postions about every 30-40 miles. Unfortunately my knees were hurting as well as everything else making every position change a contest over which body part could scream the loudest!
I definately plan on doing more endurance riding in the future. I had a great time despite the minor inconveniences. I've forgotten a ton of small details, like the fact that I lost my earplugs in Sonora TX, making me half deaf by the time I got home.
The pain is quickly forgotten, the good memories live forever!