We took off Thursday midday from San Diego and zigzagging back and forth across the desert and coast all the way up to Redding in norcal.

1,000 miles in 24 hours and 1,800 miles in all over 4 days. My superhawk was the least comfortable bike of the crowd, plus it was loaded up with gear, so it was not so easy to move around on. Other riders were on a Suzuki Bandit 1250 and a Ninja 500. We had just done a 400 mile ride 3 days before, and a 100 mile ride the night before.

1pm... Met up and left Escondido after scrambling all morning getting bike packed up with saddlebags and camping gear. So much for a good night's sleep or a full breakfast. The g/f's helmet radio decides to quit working, great timing, so I made a quick side trip for earphones.

3pm... Missed the gas stop in Barstow at 150 miles, so I thought I could nurse it 28 more miles with the reserve light on. I drafted about 4' behind a big rig at 55mph the rest of the way and made it to the next station! Had maybe 5 more miles left in the tank. I hate following trucks close, because they can run over debris or throw tire treads at you. But it was a shiny gas truck, great if you like checking yourself out while riding.

7pm... Cutting across Maricopa and Cuyama valley to the coast and it starts to get dark and rain after a quick food stop. Those double yellow lines are slippery when wet! My credit card company also decides to freeze my account due to "fraudulent activity". Apparently normal people don't buy gas in 4 locations across the state in a matter of hours. I guess spending 10 minutes navigating through your credit card co's automated phone menu is never fun, but I'd rather not be doing it at a gas station in the rain while the clock is ticking.

10pm... Made it up 101 and PCH to Cambria. Learned how to give myself butt-massages one cheek at a time while riding, and various other riding positions I never knew existed. When the trip started, I was praying all the lights would stay green on the surface streets. Now I'd kill for a red light just to catch my breath for a bit.

130am... After 650 weary miles we're past Fresno and heading into Modesto, it starts getting hairy, everyone is tired, its dark, pouring rain, and with the spray from the trucks you really can't see ****. We stop at the nearest motel and get maybe 3 hours of sleep, the desk clerk lets us park our bikes on the sidewalk under the canopy. In the morning I checked the weather on the lobby computer and it's snowing on the pass to Tahoe, plus we're running behind now, so we change our route to take the superslab up to Redding and double back to Sacramento.

630am... Back on the highway after a continental breakfast... ugh. The roads are still soaked but at least the sun starts poking through the clouds.

11am... Split lanes through Stockton traffic (stockton has traffic?) and hauled *** up to Redding. There are cops everywhere! We made a quick gas stop and headed back.

1230 am... Stopped short of Sacramento, we stretched it to about 1080 miles just to compensate for any odometer error. We took a nap in the grass behind the gas station until it started pouring rain again then took a long lunch. I don't care what food it is as long as they have padded chairs.

After the rain stopped we rode through San Francisco and split lanes for another 25 miles to stay at a friends place. Never invite bikers over to your house. When we left there was empty wine bottles and leftover turkey everywhere, blood stains on the carpet from wrestling, and a smelly bathroom. Rug burns are a bitch. We were up till 2am, but the "friend" wasn't all too happy when she woke up and saw our mess, she kicked us out at 8am.

We killed some more time cruising around Monterrey, and sleeping in the grass again. The homeless guys had all the good spots staked out already.

Took PCH all the way down, nice ride, but too many damn cars. I may have broke the law a few times there. We pulled into a cold windy campsite on the beach outside of Santa Barbara at about 9pm and setup camp in front of the headlights on our bikes. My friend told me about a great hot spring nearby, so we put on our swimtrunks and sandals and went for a walk. Turns out it was 2 exits up the freeway, so we went back and rode the bikes up there, squid-style. Finally found the trail and hiked about 1 mile to the spring, the trail was lined with poison oak and creepy animal sounds.

So now we're soaking in a luke-warm sulfer smelling pool in the pitch darkness. Ahh, this is the life. The rug burns on my arms and shoulders finally quit stinging after reaching my pain threshold.

Where are my pants? Unfortunately you have to get out of the pool at some point. Another freezing *** ride back to the campsite, but finally a well-deserved nights rest. We woke up in sweat with the sun baking on the tent. Relaxed on the beach for a few hours. When the other two started eating seaweed, I figured we needed to head into town for food. Note to self: check boots and riding pants for spiders before putting on. The park ranger / SWAT wannabe thought we were trying to sneak out without paying so they circled our bikes and blocked us in as we were gearing up. I guess they don't see much action around there. I'm still not sure why we had to pay for 3 parking spots when we only took one.

We detoured through some twisties in the Santa Monica mountains, but I was just too tired to enjoy it. This put us in the thick of Easter weekend traffic, 405 was blocked for a short time, and we split lanes at 40mph from LAX down to Irvine. Stopped for food and split lanes again from San Clemente down to Oceanside and got in about 11pm last night.

I have a nice bug collection now. The Superhawk also ticked past 32,000 miles on the ride home.

Here's some photos... didn't take any on the 1,000 mile portion due to time constraints and lack of finger strength.











Now I have to get all my gas receipts together and send it in to the iron butt association. All that for a pin and a license plate frame. Yeah, so I'm sharp as a marble.

I need a vacation!

 

Whose wind screen do you have & how does it work (how tall r U)? What tires R U running?

Good brief account!

Do you have a Sargent saddle & NEP throttle lock (or CrampBuster)? They help a bunch. Spent 1 yr in SF & 9 yrs in SD but sadly left in 1980.

 

looks like a zero gravity touring windshield. How do you like it versus stock?

 

Awesome ride. I am planning hopefully to go on a long ride within a year. The credit card hold is funny as well, that happened to me on a 400+ ride one time. What kind of helmet radios do you use, how do they work. And I agree with the damn parking thing too, why the hell if you get 3 bikes into 1 spot do you have to pay for three vehicles? cool write up.

 

Windscreen is zerogravity. fit and finish was pretty good, just a small spot where it's not flush to the plastic. I painted the front part black on the inside to match the stock screen, otherwise some of the guage wiring is exposed. I don't like the look but I just wanted something to keep me out of the wind and rain better. The noise even with earplugs is overwhelming otherwise.

For radios I have a cardo scala, but my g/f tried plugging her mp3 jack into the power port by accident and that killed hers. Same with the other guy. I've done the same to mine but it still works. Other than that it's proven reliable. No way I could stay awake on a ride like that without some music. I used it maybe 50% of the time and the battery lasted for 12 hours at a time.

I still have the stock seat. Bleh. It felt like sitting on a cinder block after about 400 miles. Throttlemeister helped though for resting hands at least.

 

hell yeah!! sounds like a ton of fun. I plan on riding from Denver to Yellowstone on my stock hawk this summer. Is there anything you would do differently next time?

 

Nice write up. You 've got some great pics as well. I just got back from a 1500 mile trip on my hardtail custom. Let me suggest one thing to you for your next trip......big thick gel pad! It helps a LOT.

 

I'd like to find a pad for the front of the tank actually so I can lay on it without poking my ribs. That ledge by the gas cap is very uncomfortable. I can wedge my hand in there, but I don't like riding one-handed for long distances, it wouldn't be safe if I had to make an evasive maneuver.

Another guy in our group had custom earplugs made to fit his ears. That doesn't sound like a bad idea, the other ones never seem to fit or stay in properly.