FJRBandit
Well-known member
The last weekend in June my friend, Tom Burgess, and I tackled the Saddle Sore 1000. Interestingly, Tom and I had just met earlier that week through a mutual acquaintance. Although I didn’t know Tom before, I knew he was a serious rider from some of the stories I had been told about him. My apologies for lack of photos in this report, as first of all I am somewhat of a newbie to the forum and not sure I know how to post photos, and secondly, I’m writing this from a place that I do not have access to the photos, even if I did know how to post them. Maybe I can learn how to add photos and post them later…
My buddy Mike Fletcher (mfletch69) and I actually had planned for several weeks to complete an IBA certified ride on June 27th. Since Mike would be coming up from Niceville, FL to my house in Birmingham, almost 250 miles, he decided he would make his a Bun Burner 1500 by heading back home when we returned to Birmingham after our 1000+ mile loop, while I would just be doing an Saddle Sore 1000. That was the plan and you know what happens to well laid plans....
Let me digress for a moment and set the stage and players for you. Mike (mfletch69) bought his '06 FJR AE last year and encouraged me to join the ranks of ownership for some time. It was only after a cage made a left turn into the path of my Vulcan cruiser that sent me over the bars and bouncing down the street like a rag doll last October that convinced me I needed a different bike, being that my Vulcan was totaled no doubt. :yahoo: Seriously, I like the Vulcan, it’s a nice cruiser. However, I realized, after buying the FJR, that had I been on an FJR I possibly could have sufficiently braked and swerved enough to avoid the accident. It's not my fault the guy turned in front of me, but it sure would have been nice to not meet the pavement the way I did. :headbonk: But this isn't a story about that accident, this is only to tell you how I came to be an FJR owner just six months ago and how I have grown to not only love the bike but have a great appreciation for the awesome capabilities of the bike.
As I mentioned, Mike and I had been planning this ride for some time. Tom, as I mentioned, is a serious rider. He has traveled the world riding bikes. Tom has ridden a Honda 250 2,000 plus miles over 13 days through Laos, he's ridden a BMW 650GS through the Andes mountain range in Peru, he's done a solo 2 week Route 66 trip across America in addition to numerous long distance days of 600 miles or so, but he had never done an IBA. I met Tom through a couple of mutual acquaintances over a beer the Monday before the planned ride and began to tell him about the upcoming SS1000. He emphatically said, "I'm in! If you don't mind me tagging along." I said, "Hell no, come on! We'd love to have you". So as many rides are planned, this one was described out over a bar napkin or two and maybe a couple more beers. :drinks: Tom owns several bikes but planned to ride his BMW GS1200 on this trip. We got together again later in the week and installed my wife's Scala Q2 headset into Tom's helmet so that he would be able to communicate with Mike and I on our trek (Tom and his usual riding buddies are set up with Chatterbox). So after sending him the .gpx for the planned route and our flexible itinerary he was set. The plan was for Tom to be at my house at 7:30 am.
A quick note about the set up on our bikes, I can't tell you much about Tom's BMW other than I know it's a GS and after he explained all that to me I now get the whole GS / enduro concept. Probably not for me, but at least now I get it. He of course has all the proper touring gear, in addition to the Airhawk seat pad, fluid bladder for his tank bag, throttlemeister and highway pegs mounted on the crash bars protecting the boxer cylinder heads . I had just installed the throttlemeister (thank God) last week, a brand new f___ing PR2 on the rear (I only say it that way because I hate the fact that the FIRST 1000 miles burned off the tire was on the SS) I have grip puppies, a cramp buster type thing, Wild Bill mounts and Kuryakyn 8025 pegs, +6 Cee Bailey's flip shield, stock seat with Alaska Leather's sheepskin buttpad, and I bought a memory foam seat cushion for extra comfort from Brookstone for $15. It slipped in nicely under the sheepskin. Enough of that crap, let's ride....
Well, as luck would have it, Mike's '06 AE suffered the dreaded wiring harness failure at 4:20 am Saturday morning as he was sitting on the bike ready to start up and head to Birmingham on his first leg of the BB1500. Since he planned to be at my house between 7:30 and 8:00 I got up at 6:00 am only to find a text message stating that he would not be making it. I immediately called Tom and he said he could make it a little sooner than we planned. So he headed over to my house and we departed around 7:30 for our first stop, the Rocky Ridge Fire Station, to get our witness forms signed. I had prearranged this with the firemen a couple of days earlier so they were waiting on us to arrive. They seemed excited and we got our forms signed, took photos and headed for our first gas receipt, which would be our official starting time.
We fueled up our bikes, printed our first receipt at 7:49 am and off we went. Our first planned stop was 100 miles out in Ft. Payne, Alabama, home of the legendary country band Alabama. We didn't take the time to tour the Alabama museum, but we did chat with some folks headed to the beach from generally the same area of Virginia that we were headed to. Our next stop was just on the other side of Chattanooga, TN, where we fueled up for the first time. We realized we were both using fuel at almost the exact same rate. We headed up I-75 through fairly heavy traffic towards Knoxville and then turned east on I-40 towards Asheville, NC. I have to say, check out that road on Google Maps as it crosses over the Great Smoky Mountains, incredible high speed sweepers and I simply had a blast carving them up! I was running them so fast that I had to fold my highway pegs up ON THE INTERSTATE! Of course, Tom on his GS didn't get to experience this portion of the trip as well as I, but he kept the pace and I only had to pull off for a minute or so once we came through the "twisties" (they really look like twisties on the map, check it out!).
Then we stopped for fuel and food in Asheville and it was off to run through the heat of the day. Our on board thermometers were hitting 100, which was probably close to accurate considering we were on the hot ass pavement. But the ambient temperature somewhere between 94-97. Still, it was hot. Thank goodness we only had to deal with this kind of heat for a couple of hours or so. We took a long break in Statesville, NC and headed North on I-77 up the mountains into Virginia. Absolutely beautiful countryside crossing the Blue Ridge Parkway! As we climbed up the mountains we were greeted with 82 degree temps. That was a nice relief from the heat we had been enduring. When we crossed the Virginia state line we had to pull over so I could put my radar detector in the tank bag as there was a sign informing us chronic speeders that radar detectors are illegal in Virginia.
We then made it to Wytheville, VA where we took on more fuel and a nice break. From there we headed South on I-81 back towards Tennessee. Of course we had to keep the pace down to a measly 65ish due to the VA speed limits, but this allowed us to see an absolutely beautiful sunset in the western sky. As we made it to Kingsport the sun had tucked away for the day. Now we had to keep the slower pace due to the darkness, as neither of us had auxiliary lights (a definite future farkle if I am to ride long distance night rides again). As my luck would have it, a large deer decided to make his appearance and crossed our path about 50-100 feet in front of me. Thankfully, I was able to slow down enough with the FJR’s awesome brakes and avoid a catastrophe.
We took it on in to Sevierville where we stopped for more fuel, coffee and a quick hamburger at Huddle House around 11 pm local time. Although we were 700 miles into the ride and had now been on the road for 14+ hours, we were both feeling great. With a little over 300 miles to go it was becoming apparent that our plan to get a few hours rest in Chattanooga probably wasn't going to happen. We made it to Chattanooga around 1 am local time and stopped for more coffee. Then on to Ft. Payne, where we had to slow to less than 50 mph at times due to the heavy fog that had settled in. Although in Ft. Payne we knew we had it beat, we now had to be extremely careful as it was after 2 am local time and even though we were not necessarily feeling tired, we knew we were running on adrenaline. We treaded on in to Birmingham and arrived at our starting point/finish line at 4:29 am - Almost 21 hours after our start - 15 hours of saddle time and 6 hours of stops. We took our pictures and shook hands goodbye knowing that we had just accomplished a feat that most people would never understand, or even want to understand why we ever did such a thing. Well, I don't have to explain that to you guys, you know why we did it, for the patch, of course!
To sum things up, I got in bed around 6 am. The wife was out of town at the beach with the kids so I had just the puppy to congratulate me. He was happy I was home. I slept about four hours then got up and cut the grass, filled out my log sheet and downloaded my pictures. My butt was a little sore but really not too bad.
We are sending off our IBA certification forms today. Hopefully soon I’ll have my coveted patch. Not sure when I'll do that again. But I can say, if I can do it you can too. Get out and ride, safe!
My buddy Mike Fletcher (mfletch69) and I actually had planned for several weeks to complete an IBA certified ride on June 27th. Since Mike would be coming up from Niceville, FL to my house in Birmingham, almost 250 miles, he decided he would make his a Bun Burner 1500 by heading back home when we returned to Birmingham after our 1000+ mile loop, while I would just be doing an Saddle Sore 1000. That was the plan and you know what happens to well laid plans....
Let me digress for a moment and set the stage and players for you. Mike (mfletch69) bought his '06 FJR AE last year and encouraged me to join the ranks of ownership for some time. It was only after a cage made a left turn into the path of my Vulcan cruiser that sent me over the bars and bouncing down the street like a rag doll last October that convinced me I needed a different bike, being that my Vulcan was totaled no doubt. :yahoo: Seriously, I like the Vulcan, it’s a nice cruiser. However, I realized, after buying the FJR, that had I been on an FJR I possibly could have sufficiently braked and swerved enough to avoid the accident. It's not my fault the guy turned in front of me, but it sure would have been nice to not meet the pavement the way I did. :headbonk: But this isn't a story about that accident, this is only to tell you how I came to be an FJR owner just six months ago and how I have grown to not only love the bike but have a great appreciation for the awesome capabilities of the bike.
As I mentioned, Mike and I had been planning this ride for some time. Tom, as I mentioned, is a serious rider. He has traveled the world riding bikes. Tom has ridden a Honda 250 2,000 plus miles over 13 days through Laos, he's ridden a BMW 650GS through the Andes mountain range in Peru, he's done a solo 2 week Route 66 trip across America in addition to numerous long distance days of 600 miles or so, but he had never done an IBA. I met Tom through a couple of mutual acquaintances over a beer the Monday before the planned ride and began to tell him about the upcoming SS1000. He emphatically said, "I'm in! If you don't mind me tagging along." I said, "Hell no, come on! We'd love to have you". So as many rides are planned, this one was described out over a bar napkin or two and maybe a couple more beers. :drinks: Tom owns several bikes but planned to ride his BMW GS1200 on this trip. We got together again later in the week and installed my wife's Scala Q2 headset into Tom's helmet so that he would be able to communicate with Mike and I on our trek (Tom and his usual riding buddies are set up with Chatterbox). So after sending him the .gpx for the planned route and our flexible itinerary he was set. The plan was for Tom to be at my house at 7:30 am.
A quick note about the set up on our bikes, I can't tell you much about Tom's BMW other than I know it's a GS and after he explained all that to me I now get the whole GS / enduro concept. Probably not for me, but at least now I get it. He of course has all the proper touring gear, in addition to the Airhawk seat pad, fluid bladder for his tank bag, throttlemeister and highway pegs mounted on the crash bars protecting the boxer cylinder heads . I had just installed the throttlemeister (thank God) last week, a brand new f___ing PR2 on the rear (I only say it that way because I hate the fact that the FIRST 1000 miles burned off the tire was on the SS) I have grip puppies, a cramp buster type thing, Wild Bill mounts and Kuryakyn 8025 pegs, +6 Cee Bailey's flip shield, stock seat with Alaska Leather's sheepskin buttpad, and I bought a memory foam seat cushion for extra comfort from Brookstone for $15. It slipped in nicely under the sheepskin. Enough of that crap, let's ride....
Well, as luck would have it, Mike's '06 AE suffered the dreaded wiring harness failure at 4:20 am Saturday morning as he was sitting on the bike ready to start up and head to Birmingham on his first leg of the BB1500. Since he planned to be at my house between 7:30 and 8:00 I got up at 6:00 am only to find a text message stating that he would not be making it. I immediately called Tom and he said he could make it a little sooner than we planned. So he headed over to my house and we departed around 7:30 for our first stop, the Rocky Ridge Fire Station, to get our witness forms signed. I had prearranged this with the firemen a couple of days earlier so they were waiting on us to arrive. They seemed excited and we got our forms signed, took photos and headed for our first gas receipt, which would be our official starting time.
We fueled up our bikes, printed our first receipt at 7:49 am and off we went. Our first planned stop was 100 miles out in Ft. Payne, Alabama, home of the legendary country band Alabama. We didn't take the time to tour the Alabama museum, but we did chat with some folks headed to the beach from generally the same area of Virginia that we were headed to. Our next stop was just on the other side of Chattanooga, TN, where we fueled up for the first time. We realized we were both using fuel at almost the exact same rate. We headed up I-75 through fairly heavy traffic towards Knoxville and then turned east on I-40 towards Asheville, NC. I have to say, check out that road on Google Maps as it crosses over the Great Smoky Mountains, incredible high speed sweepers and I simply had a blast carving them up! I was running them so fast that I had to fold my highway pegs up ON THE INTERSTATE! Of course, Tom on his GS didn't get to experience this portion of the trip as well as I, but he kept the pace and I only had to pull off for a minute or so once we came through the "twisties" (they really look like twisties on the map, check it out!).
Then we stopped for fuel and food in Asheville and it was off to run through the heat of the day. Our on board thermometers were hitting 100, which was probably close to accurate considering we were on the hot ass pavement. But the ambient temperature somewhere between 94-97. Still, it was hot. Thank goodness we only had to deal with this kind of heat for a couple of hours or so. We took a long break in Statesville, NC and headed North on I-77 up the mountains into Virginia. Absolutely beautiful countryside crossing the Blue Ridge Parkway! As we climbed up the mountains we were greeted with 82 degree temps. That was a nice relief from the heat we had been enduring. When we crossed the Virginia state line we had to pull over so I could put my radar detector in the tank bag as there was a sign informing us chronic speeders that radar detectors are illegal in Virginia.
We then made it to Wytheville, VA where we took on more fuel and a nice break. From there we headed South on I-81 back towards Tennessee. Of course we had to keep the pace down to a measly 65ish due to the VA speed limits, but this allowed us to see an absolutely beautiful sunset in the western sky. As we made it to Kingsport the sun had tucked away for the day. Now we had to keep the slower pace due to the darkness, as neither of us had auxiliary lights (a definite future farkle if I am to ride long distance night rides again). As my luck would have it, a large deer decided to make his appearance and crossed our path about 50-100 feet in front of me. Thankfully, I was able to slow down enough with the FJR’s awesome brakes and avoid a catastrophe.
We took it on in to Sevierville where we stopped for more fuel, coffee and a quick hamburger at Huddle House around 11 pm local time. Although we were 700 miles into the ride and had now been on the road for 14+ hours, we were both feeling great. With a little over 300 miles to go it was becoming apparent that our plan to get a few hours rest in Chattanooga probably wasn't going to happen. We made it to Chattanooga around 1 am local time and stopped for more coffee. Then on to Ft. Payne, where we had to slow to less than 50 mph at times due to the heavy fog that had settled in. Although in Ft. Payne we knew we had it beat, we now had to be extremely careful as it was after 2 am local time and even though we were not necessarily feeling tired, we knew we were running on adrenaline. We treaded on in to Birmingham and arrived at our starting point/finish line at 4:29 am - Almost 21 hours after our start - 15 hours of saddle time and 6 hours of stops. We took our pictures and shook hands goodbye knowing that we had just accomplished a feat that most people would never understand, or even want to understand why we ever did such a thing. Well, I don't have to explain that to you guys, you know why we did it, for the patch, of course!
To sum things up, I got in bed around 6 am. The wife was out of town at the beach with the kids so I had just the puppy to congratulate me. He was happy I was home. I slept about four hours then got up and cut the grass, filled out my log sheet and downloaded my pictures. My butt was a little sore but really not too bad.
We are sending off our IBA certification forms today. Hopefully soon I’ll have my coveted patch. Not sure when I'll do that again. But I can say, if I can do it you can too. Get out and ride, safe!
