Completed the Moonshine Curt Gran Memorial SS1K Wednesday night at 9:21 pm CDT. Temperature at start, 03:45 CDT, was 35F, 50's and 60's most of the day and evening. First time I have ever used heated gear, very nice.
Learned a few things:
1. Food. Cereal bars are not food! Not sure what they are, but the FDA should take a look at 'em. Hell, Homeland Security should look at 'em. After realizing I was not going to achieve a planned BBG pace, I stopped at a Mickey D's for a plain fish sandwich(no tartar sauce please), and a soda. So I'm riding down the road with my soda in the drink cup, and open up the sandwich box to find and ample serving of tartar sauce on it. Rats! Tartar sauce on the crotch of your black riding pants is not a good look, hope it doesn't leave a stain.
2. I believe I experienced a Spot2 battery failure. Spotwalla didn't get any messages for about 200 miles. Once I changed out the batteries, all those missing location messages filled in, so at least they queue up in the device or somewhere. What is disappointing is that the little green happy lights continue to blink on the device and you really have no idea that no messages are received on the other end, unless someone calls. Not good. Something to watch.
3. I Lost a lot of time in construction zones on I40 between Memphis and Little Rock. This was doubly troublesome since the required route was an out and back. The only memorable image I have in my head from this ride is a long line of 18 wheelers ahead of me, not moving. I'm going to experiment with locating construction zones when creating my routes and bypassing them instead of just going through them and hoping for the best.
4. No problem with the stock seat. It works well for me.
5. I carry too much crap. And it's not organized well. I'll work on that.
The weather was great, and the ride, my first ss1k, was very enjoyable. I really like the idea of riding from before dawn in the morning to well past dusk at night. I was enjoying it so much that I continued riding the 120 miles home instead of finding a motel. A full day of riding a fantastic motorcycle.
I had a goal to maintain BBG pace for this ride, but as I sat on the bike staring at the long line of trucks in AR, I knew any chance of doing that had faded. I'll be trying this again, maybe during a trip to CO or wherever. Next time I'll do it right.
