QUACKA, Mrs. QUACKA, Jaime, and myself just got back from this years Iron Butt Association Florida pizza party.

QUACKA, Mrs. QUACKA, and myself rode down on Thursday. We picked up Jaime from Jacksonville International Airport of Friday, went to the party Friday night, and rode home Saturday.

Mrs. QUACKA got her first SS1K certificate on the way down and Jaime got her first SS1K passenger certificate on the way home.

I'll try to start from the beginning. I signed up as a route coordinator (I think that was the term) to make this a MTF (Motorcycle Tourer's Forum) ride. Basically a SS1K from Ronkonkoma, NY down to the hotel we were staying at in Jacksonville, FL. QUACKA, Mrs. QUACKA, and myself were the only 3 set up to go (shocker). We met at the 7-Eleven at 876 Ocean Ave. Ronkonkoma at about 4:30 am and rolled out about 5 am.

Since I'm trying to do SS1K's on as many different bikes as possible QUACKA was nice enough to swap bikes with me on the way down. I took his ST 13 he took my FJR. At our first gas stop about 180 miles into the trip I pull up to the first gas pump, dismount, turn around and see my FJR on it's side, leaning against the pump behind me!!! I thought QUACKA was gonna like the FJR, not hate it enough to throw it to the ground!!! QUACKA went to deploy the side stand and hooked one of the lugs on the sole of his boot on it while he was pulling his foot back so when he went to lean the bike onto the side stand it just kept going. The saddlebag landed on the gas pump island and was scraped up pretty bad. Needless to say I did not, and will not, let him live it down.

Somewhere in VA we rolled up on an Aprilia Futura and a BMW K1200LT. We passed and waved. The Futura pulls up behind us with his headlight modulator on full blast. I thought he wanted our attention for something so I motioned for him to pull up next to me but he just pull in behind me. So an hour or so later when Mrs. QUACKA was ready for gas I motioned to him that we were pulling over for gas and he pulled in with us. Here we are at that stop.

He introduced himself as David Forshea. We asked if he was going to Daytona or Jacksonville figuring he was either going to bike week or the IBA dinner party. He said he was going to Jacksonville but was only going to head there to meet some friends. He had no idea about the party but knew of the IBA. He was jazzed to tag along since he was riding alone (he tagged along to the LT earlier but we were running closer to his pace). He had planned on doing Maryland to Florida in two days but since we were doing it in one he decided to run the whole thing in one day.

Pretty much the rest of the trip was ride/gas/ride/gas repeat.

We got to the hotel at about midnight.

Mrs. QUACKA had completed her first official IBA ride. CONGRATS!!!

After we went and picked up Jaime from JAX on Friday morning we went back to the hotel and grabbed some lunch. We walked around and looked at some of the bikes in the parking lot. Kicked some tires. I didn't take nearly as many pics as I did in '04 but only because I was busy chatting with people.

We had dinner and sat through the awards. There are some people that put some serious miles on their bikes out there!!!

We woke up on Saturday ready to get Jaime her first SS1K passenger certificate. The four of us started riding back after breakfast at about 11 am. Here's Jaime as we leave the hotel.

A few stops later we had a little mishap. I wasn't filling my fuel cell during the trip since Mrs. Quacka's range was about 180-220 miles and I know I could do that on just what I had in my stock tank. I was keeping about a gallon in the cell just as a backup in case any of us needed it. I decided to let that empty into my tank and replace it at the next stop somewhere along the road and I only got 132 miles to that tank full!!! Something's wrong. I pulled into a gas station and my fuel cell is full!!! Somehow the stock tank pressurized and backfilled the cell. I opened the stock cap very slowly and heard a WHOOSH but it wasn't too bad. I put a straw into the vent line up at the cap and blew into it. Air was passing but it could have been clogged. I checked all of my connections, even the quick disconnect under the tank. I didn't want a gas fire on the way home. We got gas flowing from the cell to the stock tank no problem. Then I had a second problem. My rear tire was fading fast. Front was fine but the rear wasn't NOT giving me that warm fuzzy feeling inside. I figured it would last so I was just keeping enough fuel in the cell to keep the O-rings in the petcock lubed. Less weight = less heat right?

A few hours later Mrs. QUACKA ran out of gas and couldn't get to her fuel petcock to switch to reserve before the bike died. She was behind us so by the time we realized she wasn't there we got separated. We all pulled off and caught up at a gas station a few exits up 95. No harm, no foul.

About an hour and a half later we stopped again for gas and since The Quacks were getting tired they decided to get dinner and a room for the night. We were about an hour south of Richmond, VA and about 468 miles from home. Jaime looked at me and said "Can we make it home with only one more stop?" so I put about one gallon of gas in the cell to keep from running out and said we'll run 240 miles, refuel, and run the rest home. This was about 9:30 pm and my tire was not looking so good.

Front was still perfect but the rear was no good. I keep the speed to 5 over and tried not to over heat the tire. We rode into and out of some rain which helped but we were not making good time. Oh well. Nothing I could do about it now. Slow and stead wins the race right? We stopped once in MD, then our last stop to get our ending receipts. It was about 5:40 am Sunday morning when we pulled in about 1,050 miles later. About 18.h hours with all the little problems and nursing a bad rear tire that ended up looking like this.

I'm sure there's more and I'll fill in the blanks over the next few days.

My riding impression of the ST 13 was really good overall. First, let me start by saying it's worlds better then the ST 11. It doesn't feel overly heavy (It's not fair comparing my FJR to QUACKA's ST since I have probably the weight difference in dirt on my bike but what are ya gonna do.) It had plenty of power (faster than a speeding ticket!) and handled everything I threw at it OK. I'd like to try it through the twisties since all we did was slab while we were swapping bikes. I don't like the ST mirrors. I could get used to their positioning but the angle at which you see things behind you is changed from where the mirrors are usually positioned on other bikes. It makes everybody's headlights seem brighter. Also on other bikes I can puff up my elbows to block headlight behind me if I want to. Can't do that on the ST. If the ST were the same price as the FJR (which if you ask Evil Bill it is, but his abacus must be on the fritz) then it would come down to styling as the deciding factor. That brings me to another thing I dislike about the ST, it's fugly. But hey, there's an ass for every seat right?

Maybe I'll get QUACKA to write up a trip report or a riding impression of the FJR. Or at least a look into his mindset as to why he felt the need to toss mine to the ground after less then 200 miles. : )

This page was last updated on:

09/27/2008