Lake Michigan Circle Tour by Motorcycle: The Bike
Author’s note: I’m going on a week-long motorcycle trip in June around Lake Michigan with friends and I’m going to document the preparations leading up to the trip, as well as post daily entries from the road as the trip happens! You can join me by following along.
In my last post, I said I’d talk about the motorcycle I’ll be riding for this 1,000+ weeklong trip around Lake Michigan. Anyone who knows even a little about motorcycles probably immediately pictured one of two kinds of motorcycles: a large touring bike with a huge fairing, comfortable seat and lots of luggage; or, a nice rugged BMW or KTM style adventure bike, made to ride on and off road.
I wish!
No, instead, I’ll be doing this trip with my butt firmly planted on my 1994 Harley Davidson Sportster XLH 1200, pictured below. Yeah, it’s not exactly the sort of bike made to go on long road rides like the one I’m planning. Maybe I’m stupid, but to me, this is part of the challenge: ride the bike you’ve got and adapt it to the journey.
The Author's 1994 Harley Davidson Sportster 1200 XLH
There are going to be a few challenges involved riding this bike over a thousand miles. First, the gas tank is fairly small. It holds 3.3 gallons of gas and averages about 40 miles per gallon on the open road. A quick dose of math means that my max range per tank of gas is just over 120 miles. This means I’ll be stopping more often for gas than any of the other motorcycles going along on this trip; about every two hours if you assume 60 miles per hour. Actually, this isn’t a bad thing, as you’ll see.
Second, I don’t have a wind screen. This means I’m going to be eating a lot of bugs! More importantly, it means I’m going to have the full force of the wind directly in my face. That’s a lot of pressure against me, which will cause hand and arm fatigue as I hold onto the handle bars for hours at a time. If it rains, it’s going to be even worse.
“Can’t you get a wind screen for a Sportster?” Yes, I could. Harley even makes a great wind screen that can be easily removed when you’re not going on longer trips. The catch is they cost in the neighborhood of $350. I’m doing this trip on a budget. I may change my mind, but for now I’ve decided this is something I can do without.
This is why stopping every two hours or so isn’t a bad thing. I’ll be fatigued enough from the ride that a stop every two hours will do me good. I’ll be able to get off the bike, rest my arms, stretch my legs and generally take a break. I’ll just have to be sure to get gas when I do it.
The third thing that makes this motorcycle a challenge for long distance trips is luggage. As in, where do you put any luggage? Large touring bikes typically have lots of lockable hard shell saddle bags and other storage that make them ideal for longer trips. Mine doesn’t have any of that.
This lack of storage space, or a place to mount any luggage, is one of the major issues I’m facing in my planning leading up to the trip. My next post will cover how I’m tackling that problem as I kick off the pre-planning of my Lake Michigan motorcycle trip. In the meantime, if you’ve got any suggestions or helpful tips about doing a long trip on a Sportster, or any bike for that matter, please leave a comment below.
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Hope to read more!
My bike has been garaged for months, under repairs. I for one can’t wait for better weather so I can get out on my supercross bike. We have some of work to do on it, and its gonna take some effort, but like we do each year, we upgrade several of the systems, and make our bike better than it was before. Thanks for the article.
Very Nice website I found it on Bing , keep up the good work.