pre ride question
 

im considering riding my bike from st.louis to sedona az. in june..it is approx 3000 miles round trip.. i bought it new june 07 i have approx 4000 miles on it now im thinking by june 08..i'll prb put another 3-4000 miles on it by then i'll have close to 8000 miles on my tires if so should i get new tires before trip ..or are those safe...and also how long can gz be ridden per day lobng distance w/o destroying it

Re: pre ride question
 

It depends.......and it depends. :roll:

As for the tires, you need to check the tread depth about a month before your trip...........or have a dealer check them.
IIRC, you're gonna be near the point where you need to change but a lot depends on your riding habits and style. Your tires have tubes and are, generally, a little more "robust" than tubless ones.

As far as riding distance, as far as you can go. It's likely that YOU will crap out before the bike will.
This assumes that you are not riding "flat out" all the time. That is, if you push it as fast as it will go, it will be under a LOT more stress than if you back off just a bit. Should run 55-60 all day long.

Take note that at that speed, you probably should NOT plan on riding on the Interstates very much. If you try to keep up with traffic, it puts a lot of extra strain on the bike. If you don't, it puts YOU in extra danger.

This past summer I did a 2500 mile bike trip; I had to replace the back tire at 9000 miles but the front tire is still good at 11,000 miles.
I spent 7 days on the 2500 bike trip. The last half of the trip, I did mostly Interstate speeds for 3 days, going anywhere from 200 miles to 550 miles per day on the Interstate.

There is a guy who did about an 18,000 mile bike trip in 19 days from Tennesse to west coast, up to Alaska, over to East coast and back to Tennessee. Just keep up the maintenance and ride safe. It can do it.

No question that it CAN do it.......the question is SHOULD you?

IMHO, it is not a good idea to operate any engine at or very near to it's performance limits for very long.................if you care about the longevity of the engine, that is.

You didn't say what sustained speeds you were achieving on the Interstate part of your trip.

This is, after all, a matter of opinion and there is no way to tell in advance if any ONE specific bike will be able to handle the strain or not. Most will do it fine; a tiny few won't. I'm not gonna take the chance.

FWIW, I think if you are gonna do much riding above 60 mph, you have the wrong bike. :cool:

I also used it for Interstate travel to work: 70-75 mph. Of the 11,000+ miles I have put on it so far, 70% has been Interstate use. While on my 2500 mile trip, the interstate travel was 70-75mph. Of course, I cannot sustain these speeds at the moment, I switched to the 16T front sprocket and only have a top speed of 67mph at the moment. However, I am going to switch back to the 15T as soon as it warms up and I have the time.
By the way, when I mention speeds, I compare my speedo with timed mileage. Since I have an Interstate close to the house; I time my speeds per hour between the mile markers and do the math and then compare to what the speedo stated.

Great. I'm glad it's working out for you. One man's nectar is another's poison! :tup:

Two final thoughts: At 75 mph, stock, you are wound flat out. There is no extra to be had if you need it AND regardless of what you might think or others have told you, there IS extra strain on any engine when you run it WFO !!! True, it may not be a problem for tens of thousands of miles but the ODDS are that it will fail sooner if it is ridden harder.

While I love my GZ for puttering around town and road trips ~60mph, from what you have just said, I think you NEED a slightly larger bike. I've heard good things about the S40. :)

I agree, however, when I have the 15T front sprocket on the bike, 75mph is not WFO; I have throttle left over and I have done 80mph (timed) with a little left (not much but some). There are not many GZs out there which can do this, but some. The rebels also are 250cc bikes and a lot of them can do 80mph with no prob. I have got a bigger bike now (C50) for my Interstate travels, bike trips, commute to work; and I have relegated the GZ to my weekend, back country roads, town errands.

Ooooh, I see. :roll:
Of course, there wasn't even a HINT of that in your earlier message.

Now that we have that out of the way, why in the world would you want to go back to a 15T front? Not enough "ZIP" for you? :??:

thanx all i appreciate the input

Wow, tearing at each others throat. Also it depends where you live and plan to drive. I just traveled to Michigan and back from west Texas. This bike would be pretty bad on the interstates here. They are mostly straight through west Texas and turn really hilly in north Texas, not good for a GZ. Up in Illinois, speed limits were only 65, and the roads were all flat and straight. The GZ would do okay, but the roads were pretty bad and worn out. I make a 206 mile round trip pretty often to get to a bigger city, and have no problem on the state highways cruising around 65. Also about the tires, when i first bought my bike for 400 dollars, it only need tires, but as I couldn't really afford new ones, or was to lazy, I stil rode it for about 600 miles on slicks, which shows that the tubes are tougher than you would think, so don't worry to much.