Izzy's Trip Report

Copied to me & his rabid biker buddies (a great group, all of them...names changed for the post)

Well, I learned a couple of things yesterday, including the new corrections for odo and speedo with the E3 60 series rear on the Leanabago.

The most important thing I learned was not to do this during the school year. I had been banking sleep as well as I could, but that's still hard to do while teaching. This will be the shortest ride I've registered, but I've come out of it more wiped-out than with any other ride, registered or not. I was picturing cooking a nice spinach & feta omelet when i got home, but I wobbled into the house feeling punch-drunk and fell asleep sitting up on the couch. When Lizzie came in from the hospital fifteen minutes later, I had slumped over to the side in an extremely awkward position, forehead on the armrest near my thigh. And I've been making odd mistakes all day. So future LD rides will have to be with at least a week of no classes and full nights of sleep behind me.

I had already clocked the odo on short runs, comparing it with the green mile markers. Ten miles on the markers got me 10.4 on the odo. About what I had expected from using the original Dunnies (250s), where the odo ran 3.7% optimistic. Yesterday, I was able to check on a couple of legs of the trip, and at 50 and 100 miles of markers going by, the odo is nearly exactly 4% optimistic. So I'll give my stats here both as indicated and as corrected.

The speedo I marked against Rider 1's GPS. On the final leg, I led after Rider 3 turned off for home, and I locked my cruise control at an indicated 70 mph in a 65 zone (I-385) and 75 in a 70 zone (I-26). Rider 1 says that his GPS told him I was right on the speed limit in both zones, so about a 5 mph correction at highway speeds. This means I'll probably run at an indicated 7-8 mph over posted speed on the freeways, ~5 mph over on surface streets. All other things being equal, I like to stay within 5 mph of posted. (There are places where the flow of traffic is simply too fast to allow this rather sedate habit, but I DID say "all other things being equal.")

So, here are my stats for the ride, which should be identical with Rider 1's ride since we started and ended at the same place.

From the Exxon at I-20 exit 61 back to the same Exxon:

1065.5 miles indicated / 1024.5 corrected 18 hours, 35 minutes (3:55 AM to 10:30 PM) 27.64 gallons of gas at $78.15 (avg. $2.827 / gallon) 38.55 mpg indicated / 37.07 corrected

Best gas price of the day was the Murphy Gas in Walterboro, but I'm not sure I'd hop down that curb to get it again. (Yes, that's right, folks -- even on an IBA run, Rider 1 had to lead us over a little bit of a dirt road to make a non-traditional entrance to a gas station.) $2.719/gallon. Most expensive was $2.889/gallon at the Shell station at Pedro's South of the Border. Anyone surprised? Show of hands? Anyone?

Also unsurprising was the leg with best fuel economy. Rock Hill to Lavonia, GA (the Amoco at exit 1 has gone out of business, so we pushed 2 miles over the border to a BP at Dad's Restuarant). The first bit of this leg was our only non-interstate leg, getting from I-77 over to I-85 via SC-5. Wisdom has it that lower speeds = better economy. I got 40.21 / 38.76 mpg on this leg, which would have been even better had not every single traffic light turned red as we approached. But my next best mileage was on the very next (and very last) leg -- I-85 to I-385 to I-26 to I-20 to the Exxon at US-378. All highway speed and 39.31 / 37.79 mpg. I think the fuel economy was so good here because I had cruise control locked from mid-385 to the Exxon. Less accel/decel = better mileage.

The leg with worst economy for me was the short hop down I-95 from Walterboro to Hardeeville. 36.71 indicated / 35.30 corrected. I have no idea why this leg went lower mileage unless it has something to do with the cheap no-name gas we picked up at the site of our short off-road excursion. Next lowest economy was the only windy leg, from Pedro's over to Rock Hill. 37.32 / 35.89 mpg.

Two things we have to tell the IBA people.

1) We left the state three times. Two times were up at Pedro's. You actually exit in NC then come back into SC where the little tourist Mecca mostly lives. Then you leave SC and get back on the highway in NC before heading back south. So those two add up to yards rather than miles. The third time was when we got off of I-85 at exit 1 and found that the Amoco had gone out of business. Rather than back-tracking to exit 4, we went two miles into GA (exit 177), gassed up, and headed back. I hope they don't count this little 4 mile round-trip against us. We have plenty of in-state miles on the day anyway, so we should be OK.

2) Three of us have a few extra miles on the odo for the leg going from the GA/SC border on I-95 to Charleston. We had meant to have Rider 4 take point as we got into Charleston since we were on his stomping grounds. Instead, he was riding tailgunner. And since he knew what he was doing, he was the only one not fooled by signs. The other three of us got off the highway too soon, had to backtrack from Slightly North of Broad back to the highway, get across the Ravenel Bridge, and then make a short tour of gas stations looking for Rider 4 while trying to get him by phone.

He had crossed the bridge, gassed up, and sensibly gone to sit by the side of the road under a bridge where he knew we had to pass to continue on our I-526 route out of town. When Rider 1 finally talked to him, we fueled up and went to meet him. But if I've remembered and mapped our little detours properly, Google Earth puts the two extra bits at under 3 miles combined (perhaps Rider 1's GPS can say more). So we did more to affect our time than to to affect our miles while we were suffering our little bit of separation anxiety.

So thar 'tis. I look forward to seeing Rider 5's pix, and thank her and Rider 6 for meeting us and handing out the power bars. I wish you could have made the whole trip, guys. And I'm sure the other three riders will understand when I say, "thanks for the camaraderie, but leave me alone while I take another nap."

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