Cruising Above 85mph

[car61]

There was a thread referring to Harleys being OK as long as you can live with below 85mps cruising speed.
Question is: how many of you riders consistently cruise above 85 and in what part of the country?

[Captdf]

I am a recovering HD Road King rider, and live in Houston. Most of my riding is in south and west Texas. Most of the time on the old HD, I cruised around 65 and rarely faster than 70 mph. The Road King simply was not a great high-speed bike. On my new LT, I find myself cruising at 75 or so, with 85-90 not being a problem when roads and conditions allow.

Capt DF

2007 K1200LT

[tobiwan]

85 indicated or 85 MPH for real as in a GPS?

[sanjaun2]

Anytime anywhere as long as I'm outside the city limits. To many bad drivers in town. 85 is quite safe on a LT and just starting on the GT.

[donsobeck]

80 mph on a corrected speedo on the instate to get out of town or get run over.

DON

[DaveDragon]

85 is just too slow to cruise the highways in FlatLand if your heading out of state. The LT likes 92 and The GS like 90.

[SeattleRT]

I am also a recovering HD rider it has been 2 years 4 mo 6days since my last HD ride. I then picked up a GW and was bored out of my mind. The GW has no soul. Good ride just boring and heavy. I dropped by a BWM shop last February and test rode the 1200GS and 1200RT. That was it for me. I am now a very happy 07 RT rider. This bike is absolutely great and I find cruising at 85 is very easy to do. My HD friends use to call me molasses when I rode the Road Glide. Now it’s a different story. Time for a Radar Detector.

I recommend that anyone who is a new BMW rider do two things. One-Take a refresher advanced motorcycle safety course. And Two- find a big parking lot to practice hard breaking maneuvers. One lane U-turns are so easy you just think about it and it’s done.

No Regrets
Seattle RT
:bmw:

[grifscoots]

West Texas, on IH10, 90mph is perfectly bueno, as the speed limit is 80.

[UncleRock]

Everywhere except when pulling the pop up.

Then the trailer tires limit me to 80 daytime 85 at night (heat build up is what speed ratings are all about on tires, any of them can go 150mph, for 1 mile)
There are no V or Z rated tires that I could find for the trailer
Rock

[brianbeemer]

Most places in Southern UK except where there are speed cameras! Seriously, there are motorways in the UK where you will cause a tail-back if you're doing much less than 80. I did Hastings to home, a distance of 95 miles, in 1 hour 5 minutes a couple of months back and the first 20 miles are regular roads with difficulty passing anything.

The speed limit on French motorways is 85 in the dry, 75 in the wet. In Germany there are unrestricted sections of autobahn so cruising at 120-130 is easy, and considered slow by some...

:D :D :D :D :D

[hagar]

About 85 on the BMW with the wife on the back. Alone on the ZX11, 110 makes for a nice speed. And I have never had a ticked on a bike in the US, and only 2 in cars in 23 years. I speed everytime I get in a vehicle, but I am not reckless and weave in and out of traffic.

In my younger years, around 1982 or so, my father rented a house at the beach at Margate South Africa for a week. I was 24 and living on my own, but an invitation to spend a week at the beach for free was a deal I could not pass up. I spend the night at my fathers home helping him pack. My dad left at 2am, I left at 5, and was running between 140km/h and up to 200 in some stretches on my Suzuki GSX1100. South Africa had nice big empty highways back then. Stopped for gas and food a couple of times, and around 11:30 and 800 kilometers later I rolled up to the beach house. No sign of my parents. They showed up 2 hours later. He took one look at me, and told me "I saw you going by me, you must have been doing 160 km/h at least!". I just smiled. :D

[motoguy128]

Everywhere except when pulling the pop up.

Then the trailer tires limit me to 80 daytime 85 at night (heat build up is what speed ratings are all about on tires, any of them can go 150mph, for 1 mile)
There are no V or Z rated tires that I could find for the trailer
Rock

The speed ratings are specified at maximum load. If you're running a lower load, you will build less heat and can run a little faster. That being said... blowing a tire on a trailer at over 70mph doesn't sound like fun, so conservative is definitely the best policy.

[UncleRock]

The speed ratings are specified at maximum load. If you're running a lower load, you will build less heat and can run a little faster. That being said... blowing a tire on a trailer at over 70mph doesn't sound like fun, so conservative is definitely the best policy.
Right, if you ever see me on the road with it, you'll notice. I have rachet tie down straps over the top of the camper.
Coming down the mountain in VA 0n I-77 the rubber hold downs let go. Instant drag chute:eek:
Much to the credit of the manufactuer not one seam let loose.
Rock

[BillyOmaha]

Cruising speed: Sustained pace over significant distance, say greater than 30 miles.

Generally, regardless of two-up or solo, will cruise at 18 mph faster than the posted limit. If the stretch of road is a high enforcement area we knock it down to 10 mph over.

Our maximum cruise speed was 97 to 99 mph (I don't use cruise control at that type of pace) was two-up in Northeast Nevada along the Western edge of the Great Salt Lake basin. The bike seemed to really "settle in" at that pace. Fuel consumption was pretty high, more than expected due to 10+ mph head wind.

.

[fas]

My cruise is usually set at 85 indicated. I push above to pass or find clean air. Set it higher if vision is clear and traffic light. With the new Z Technik V Stream, SO reports a 25% improvement in buffetting after Cleveland/Columbus round trip last weekend..
:dance:

[BrianV]

Also a recovering HD rider - just ask Lonewuff. My Dyna started getting weird around 85-90, but would run smooth at 80 all day long. MAy have been the Progressive shocks and fork springs helped.

I rode an '07 RT all over Arizona with a buddy from SLC last May and ran 95-100 consistently across the desert - in 107 heat. Bike was flawless, and the wind cocoon extremely nice, not to mention the bike seemed to ride lower to the ground the faster we went. Is this a fact, or just a "seems to" ? Sold the HD mid-summer, and now looking for a 07 RT the way I want it, but that's another story.

[cfell]

"Officer, there is no way this machine can go that fast!!!"

[meese]

In Germany there are unrestricted sections of autobahn so cruising at 120-130 is easy, and considered slow by some...Agreed. I spent some time on the Autobahn running around 125 mph actual, with the speedo reading above 140. Even at those speeds I was being pushed from behind by faster traffic. The LT was perfectly stable, though it took a long time to get up there as there's not a lot of pull left at the top end. The biggest problem was that at ~25 mpg, I was stopping every 1 1/4 hours for more fuel.

http://www.bmwlt.com/gallery/files/1/7/8/Avatar140.jpg

I've also done a Border-to-Border ride up the entire length of I-5. Except for large cities and some heavily patrolled stretches of Oregon, I just set the cruise at 90 mph (with an accurately calibrated speedo) and left it there. I completed the 1,468 miles in 21 hours for a total average of 70 mph (including traffic and all stops) and an average of 38 mpg. The LT was perfectly happy the whole way up.

The GT on the other hand was still pulling hard at at GPS-indicated 146 mph. Gotta love western Texas. :D

After such experiences, anything below 80 mph just seems slow. I'm quite comfortable setting the cruise 15-20 mph over posted, but have recently started cutting that down a bit. Just because I have the experience and judgment to know when such speeds are safe doesn't mean the local LEOs will see it that way.

So your own choices should relate to the local conditions as well as your own skill level and your personal tolerance for risk.

[jayjacobson]

All this talk of speed has made me realize that I need a radar/lazer detector. It's not like all the local and not so local CHP dudes don't know me well enough already!

[Ushebra]

I consistently ride between 85 mph to 90 mph in the desert southwest. The LT really smooths out at these speeds and still gets great gas mileage (approx. 49 mpg). I ride an '02 LTC.

[Nodakgus]

When riding the highways in the St. Louis area, I try to ride in the left-most lane because that lane is the safest when considering lane changes. That then means one needs to keep up with the cars in front of you unless you want to get ran over from behind. Consequently, that means 80+.