Touring with a Glee. ?

[blackops]

Just been reading a post on the Stromtrooper forum where hes selling his Glee because its no good for touring, and can't keep up with the pace of the other riders? How fast do these people tour?

[mr_diver]

In the USA?
Most likely very fast... there are no corners.

Yeah a glee will struggle against a triumph sprint, fjr 1300 and the like as those bike will cruise at speeds over the top speed of the glee.
If you're wanting relaxed touring with everything you need to take including the kitchen sink, get to the daily destination relaxed and without major physical issues but travel at a speed that you have time to look around and see a few things, also without the worry of bike breakdowns then the wee/glee/vee is the bike for you.
If you want to get from location A to destination B in a record time, carry sod all, see only a long blur of the country your travelling through calling with the petrol stations you are required to stop at then the sprint/fjr type of bikes are for you.

I'd choose a v-strom any day over the sports touring options. My bike will go wherever I point it and be reliable.

[Iggy]

Touring ?

that's about mind-set not machine isn't it ?

:confusion-shrug:


Iggy

[temporaryescapee]

Couldn't agree more  

Maybe he needs different mates rather than a different bike?

[Jacko]

Sometimes some higher speed country crossing is called for, then you reach the Glees limitations. The rest of the time it's perfect.

[Fatbelly]

The fact is that riders are all different. I know lots of riders who go like shit off a shovel in a straight line but as soon as the road gets twisty they are pretty slow. For those riders the only way to go quicker is to buy a bigger bike.

Of course they could learn to ride better but they know they are already the best rider you've ever seen because they just did 135mph! They don't seem to have noticed that they arrived at the same time as you.

[Jacko]

This us true. It's the chaps that are quick through the bends that present the problem. I tour with a mate who rides a VFR1200, if I toured Europe with him on his VFR I'd struggle to keep up, not because he's Jonny CooI, far from it, he's a swift rider on a powerful bike, the combination provides difficulty for the bloke on the Glee.

The truth is that if you go on a big tour with a bunch on big bore tourers with good riders who don't tend to hang around you'll struggle. The folk I ride with are grown ups who don't go much above 85 anywhere so I'm OK. If my mates were 130mph merchants they wouldn't be my mates.

[Andy M]

.... I know lots of riders who go like shit off a shovel in a straight line but as soon as the road gets twisty they are pretty slow. For those riders the only way to go quicker is to buy a bigger bike.

Of course they could learn to ride better but they know they are already the best rider you've ever seen because they just did 135mph! They don't seem to have noticed that they arrived at the same time as you.

Nail on the head  

A 70 HP bike will sit at 100 mph plus all day and go round the corners as fast as the road and rider combination will allow. 100 mph is not the optimum speed because your range drops and the breaks get longer.

I once had the disagreeable experience of trying to get across Spain with a group mostly using big BMW's. They averaged under 35 mph and having left them behind I had to wait for two hours at the ferry for them to catch up. Their problems were fuel use from accelerating hard and often, over long fuel stops because they had no plan and one masively dangerous rider who became known as "The Leech" because whenever you overtook he'd be coming with you, stuck up your arse, regardless of how big the gap was. The Leech was like towing a trailer, you had to allow bigger gaps and concentrate like mad. 80 HP bikes allowed them to attain utterly illegal speeds, do stupid overtakes and make them feel like they were going faster. The fact that a 48 HP F650 could not hit 130 mph they saw as making it little, the fact I overtook them and arrived sooner was ignored as it didn't fit their self image.

Every bike I have ever owned that had more than 30 HP averaged 45-50 mph over a day, traffic and fuel range is the limit unless you get the autobahn to yourself.

I would suggest the "Can't tour on a little bike" is really about feeling inadequate and associating CC with power.

Andy

[frez]

Andy is pretty much spot on.

The only time the 650 will fail is when you have to travel large distances very quickly, and those occasions are few and far between. For instance, if you were planning on touring Poland or the Czech Republic and didn't want to see anything of Germany and simply wanted to get through Germany on the Autobahns with the minimum of delay, then the 650 is not going to keep up. On the other hand if you know where you are going it just turns into tortoise versus hare as the big bikes sprint off and have to stop more often for fuel while you spend less time fueling and more time moving.

[Juvecu]

+1, I'll echo much of the above. Touring is a mind set, speeding is another mind set... I prefer to tour at a relaxed speed to be able to divert some of the extra attention to have a look around and actually see things. Even if I need to get from point A to point B I find it faster, more relaxed, and safer to just sit at a good steady speed (say 80-85) rather than screaming up motorways. The time you saved going fast is hardly ever worth the extra expense and effort. Getting there as fast as you can is a car driver mentality, getting there having seen lots along the way and safely is what bikes are about. I never get why people want to go fast everywhere when touring, it's a holiday, you should be relaxing!

[Fatbelly]

To be fair to BMW riders, they are not all the same. I ride with a mate sometimes who rides a BMW K1300GT which makes 165 horses and he is not a slow rider. In fact the bugger is even quick on a moped (we like mopeds).

I must admit I quite enjoy trying to keep up!

[mr_diver]

Milz on here is a fairly quick rider. When I ride with him I struggle to keep up and I watch him disappear into the distance fairly often even though I know I'm no slouch. He came from a vfr800and says he goes faster on the wee than the vfr.
But hes not a noob that goes fast in a straight line, and not fast for fasts sake, a safe rider that doesn't make high risk maneuvers,  a rider whos confident of his abilities and dare I say it 'at one with the bike'.
I rode with a few local riders a few weeks ago from welshbikers forum. One on a brand new z1000 and one on a gsx600f who'd just passed his test. The bloke on the bandit was leading and me in the middle. Z1000 was happy sitting at the back, while I was a little bored as we sat behind every tractor and caravan on the roads that day. I could see the new rider wasn't experienced enough to be nailing the throttle and overtaking to on the roads we were on and I was in no way going to pressure him to go faster though I felt I could have overtaken him and the caravans and tractors at the safe moment.

I think when touring or just travelling around as a group you should ride within the abilities of the least experienced/confident rider and never pressure anyone out of their comfort zone.
Sure sometimes you have to try something new (I'm thinking ajako on the trail a few weeks back) and ask if everyone is OK with it. If everyone isn't OK with it then don't do it or split into groups and regroup down the road again. Many organised tours do this as a matter or course and will group fast/confident riders and slower/less confident riders separately.
The problem come when its a group of friends who tour and the leaders have a plan and the others are allong for the ride and might not want to be nailing the bike accross continents.
Riding with me mrs on the L plated 125 and going the long way to west Wales over the last few months has made me see all the scenery I have missed every time we've traveled there before on the major roads.
If its a holiday I'll be wanting to make progress but not at the expense of the comfort over the run and missing the good bits that won't be on the autobahns.
The strom is an adventure bike and the type of bike alone sells the idea of an adventure through areas undiscovered,  not a high speed blast that the name ninja does.
We don't hear often on this forum about how fast we did our european tour, we always hear about what a great time was had and many many pictures of all the sights that were seen and postcards bought.
I'm happy cassing Milz on the same bike as him around the lanes rather than attemping to keep up with an fjr or gtr on the autobahns.
Oh it quite high up here on this soap box.

[Penfold]

The group I ride with ride to capabilities of those in the group. A little chat checking what speed people are happy at tank range etc before hand goes a long way. Good mates look after each other no matter what they ride.

[Mr Nick]

My bike buddies always put me at the front last year - new rider, smallest bike setting the pace. Fair enough but I was also comfiest rider with greatest range so they had to try to get me to stop so they could fill up & revive their bottom halfs letting me feel hugely superior....  

I've been away the last 2 days doing some advanced cornering techniques training and I would agree with what's being said: at the end of today I am not going any faster on straights but I am covering more ground at a higher average speed whilst now being able to look around and appreciate the scenery more than I felt I could at the beginning. Bonus on both counts given the roads we were away playing on in Perthshire.  

I would recommend this type of training to anyone who wants to go touring.

And anyone who doesn't.

[MartinW]

We don't hear often on this forum about how fast we did our european tour, we always hear about what a great time was had and many many pictures of all the sights that were seen and postcards bought.

 

[Jacko]

Diver, I enjoyed that trail, thanks to Locky and Ricky (and Rickys old man) too for looking after me.

This is part of the reason I like touring alone, (not that I don't like group touring you understand). I don't have to concern myself with whether anyone in the group is unhappy with the mileage, speed, stop frequency etc. It great to be with mates, but it's also great to only have yourself to please.

One night in Scotland, I stopped riding, put the tent up away from the road, went to sleep, woke up, packed it away, carried on riding then stopped for breakfast at the first opportunity. It was brilliant, how many others would have been happy to do that with you? Certainly no one I ride with outside of this forum.

[Fatbelly]

One night in Scotland, I stopped riding, put the tent up away from the road, went to sleep, woke up, packed it away, carried on riding then stopped for breakfast at the first opportunity. It was brilliant, how many others would have been happy to do that with you? Certainly no one I ride with outside of this forum.

We need to say "well done!" to the Scottish Government for changing the law to give you the right to do just that. In other parts of the UK you would get "Get orf my laaaand!"

[Abercol]

I agree with Andy, my longest bike tour was taking a 40hp 440 twin two up on an 8 week 7000 mile European tour inc. Yugoslavia & Hungary. Sitting at the Hungarian border with all of the BMW owning Germans, they initially laughed, then showed respect for my having come from North East Scotland on "that small bike". We then cruised off overtaking most of them on the way to Budapest.

Its really a state of mind.

But I still hanker after an FJR1300....

[Andy M]

No apologies, this WILL turn into a RANT    

A typical day in the big bike group tour always seems to go like this:

The group agrees to get up, have a swift breakfast and be off by 7.00. Mr. Stayinmy-Pitt however will crawl out of bed at 8.30, stagger about the carpark with bleary eyes and a snatched cup of coffee until some unfortunate has managed to get Fat *******d away from the breakfast buffet and the ****er off the pot. At 9.15 engines will be started and the group will move off. They will get lost as the "leader" will have forgotten a conversation he had with The Back Marker at 3 am concerning a new under-drop off-re gurgitated- back cycle for stopping at junctions and preventing The Wanderer turning right five times in a row. Having got onto the open road the group will then wind it up to illegal speeds which will regardless not be fast enough for F***wit and the bloke who is trying to ditch The Leech by going faster and faster. At 9.45 having covered 25 miles, F***wit will pull into a petrol station having not filled up the night before or during the wait for Stayinmy-Pitt. Half the group will then make an illegal U-turn to get back to the petrol station. The group will queue at a single pump in the hope that someone else will pay for their petrol. Fat ******d will nip off to the restaurant and order his three course 2nd breakfast while The ****er will be last seen heading for the smallest room with a copy of War and Peace. Ready to move off again by 10.45 if will then be discovered that The Wanderer was last see heading off for a fag with the words "I may be some time".

By 12.45 the group will be 45 miles from the start point, on the hard shoulder, talking to the Dago plod.  

The Back Marker will have spotted a group on the shoulder and stopped. This was a group of Germans doing the formation unzipping of the air vents. The Back Marker however will have been missed by all the group except The Wanderer (who is now about to join the Ungalumba Tribe of the Upper Volta after a 15 week solo ride across three continents in search of a Spanish Hotel). In doing their illegal U-turns the group will have been spotted by The Plod who will have been amazed to see yet more U-turns as they spotted The Back Marker coming back the other way and performing his own illegal U-turn. Safely pulled onto the hard shoulder to re-group The ****er will have gone into the bushes right where Plod pulls up. The Crybaby will then find that the nasty hard shoulder has got dirt round the shiny bit near his Touratech DriveShaft Hardbit and will have called the AA. F***wit will wipe off the dirt and be punched by The Crybaby for touching his bike and invalidating the warranty. The Plod think about sectioning the lot of them but can't be arsed even when ****wit does a half mile wheelie after his telling off.

Just before midnight, 25 miles from their hotel, The Quiet One having dealt with lunatic speeds, getting lost, stupidity, almost getting nicked and the antics of ****wit and The Leach has a puncture. The group leave him and go to the bar  

They argee that the only solution is a 6.30 start tomorrow  

Andy

[mjc506]

Can you write a book? I'd buy it