Prepping for the Shetlands — Thoughts on Endurance

The biggest piece of riding on the trip will be the stretch from home to the ferry in Aberdeen. There are a number of factors playing against this leg; it will be the first bit of riding, so things will still be finding their pace and rhythm; there will be a time pressure to reach the ferry on time; it will be across a built up and busy region of the country.

The leg will be circa 400mi for me. I will be coming straight out of lockdown for this trip, so I need to make sure I do not just go cold into the trip. Once I hit the Shetlands and, later on, the Orkneys, everything will be more relaxed. I have a vague plan of where to go, but I will have complete freedom and liberty to head where I want at whatever pace I would like. Even the last leg home won’t be as bad, because if things get bad, there is no specific pressure to get home by a specific time.

So I need to de-risk the first leg. Can I do 450mi in one go on a specific timescale? Google Maps says it will take 7hr 30min to get to Aberdeen from home. I will likely want to stop at least every three hours or so, so to be conservative I will factor twenty minutes every two hours. Calling me soft? I can live with that. With a hydration bladder, I will be sipping along the trip, which means many loo stops! It also breaks up the monotony, and allows me to deal with the bike’s 200mi range fairly conservatively.

On top of those breaks, add half hour to the overall journey as contingency. Plus another half hour for ferry stuff. We’re at 7hr 30min originally; with the 1hr of breaks, 30min contingency and 30min boarding, we get a 9hr 30min trip. To get to the ferry by 18:30 ready for 19:00 boarding, it will be a 09:30 start. Factor in something for traffic? Nah, I think there is enough fat built into the plan to accommodate enough things going wrong. You have to draw the line somewhere.

What we have then is a 450mi travel day. Questions to answer:

• Will my saddle be fit for purpose? It should be, but on a recent 100mi trip I started having the whisperings of some saddle pain
• Will my hydration bladder, fully loaded with 3L of liquid and some snacks, kill my shoulders over that period of time?
• How’s my new helmet, on the motorway, for extended periods of time? I ride a naked bike, so I get a slightly more “direct” experience. I would not trade this for the world though.
• What’s my concentration level going to be throughout the trip?
• What is the real world runtime of my helmet intercom (satnav and whatnot)?
• What else am I going to come up with?

I can’t be bothered with heading up to Aberdeen as a dry run since it’s just too boring. Besides, I would then have to come back, too. To use some technical jargon, that plan would be pants. I need an analogous route, something with similar characteristics but somewhere more practical.

Let’s go just south of Plymouth then, over to Looe Beach. I fancy a mini one-day holiday. That will be a smidge under 3hr 40min, so just under 7hr 30min total. I also get a little trip to the beach, woohoo. Let’s hope for nice weather, but if it rains we can still figure out a lot from it.

Something I can test on the trip is the packing system. I have decided to pack light for the week away. Two small saddlebags, a hydration bladder and a waistpack. Nothing more. What I might do is take the bladder and waistpack on this trip, to make sure the two work well with each other.

Interim Update

I’ve had to go service the bike, and while it was being worked on, I had a K1600B as a loan bike. By going to the dealership and back — twice — plus a shopping trip in between to try the saddlebags out, I racked 200 miles without even trying.

Findings: the K1600B (henceforth known as the USS Enterprise), despite being a fully fledged bagger tourer, is fucking uncomfortable! I mean seriously, you’d think the floorboards would be comfortable, but all they do is fold you into a taco shape, putting all pressure on your lower back. I had to continuously shift and wiggle to keep comfortable. Of course I could put my feet back on the footpegs, but at that point I may as well have a sport tourer or a naked, no? I was actually thankful for — and very appreciate of — my R1200R’s ergonomics, once I was back on it. So yes, it is comfier than many! Or at least I’ve learned to tour on it. And because if the even wind pressure, it was actually less tiring in a counterintuitive fashion. But at least I now know that I do not want or need a bagger or similar super tourer. Shame, the Enterprise definitely had the right engine :(

A back rest might change my mind though, but may as well go in the car at that rate.

Was I tired? A wee bit, half way. Partly it came down to information overload when I took the USS Enterprise out for the first time, trying to make sense of the menus, buttons, settings, behaviour, character, what it liked, what it upset it, how to behave with it and how deal with the horrendous dirty air caused by the fairing (I swear, nakeds are misunderstood). I had an hour’s break half way, which approximates my plan above. I definitely had reserves for another 100mi, so it does not feel like an issue.

Now all I need is the possibility to go do my analogous test.