The Nicer Way Round - How Much Touring Should You Cram Into A Day?

It’s natural to find friends like yourself when you’re a motorcyclist. You bond over the love of motorcycles, worship the same gods and definitely form an intimidating enough mob when the time comes to get a great deal on riding gear. Oh, the happy universe of bulk discounts!  

There are two instances in which this camaraderie evaporates, though. First, whether or not to eat at a McDonalds and second, deciding how long the riding day is going to be. 

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For what is a simple activity - let’s not even begin with the romanticism of it yet - touring is made out to be something of a feat of endurance. It isn’t. Riding a motorcycle refreshes you, keeps your imagination churning and generally makes you happy. If it stops doing any of these things, it’s your cue to stop. Don’t be alarmed if you find yourself fatigued - it’s only biological and in no way a blot on your enthusiasm for riding. The pressure often mounts when in a group, especially one that isn’t close-knit, although that’s not to say it won’t hit you when you’re out by yourself. It’s alright. Nobody wants to give you an Arjuna Award for riding to Goa anyway. Not yet, at least. 

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When it comes to planning riding distances, the most influential element is not speed but expectation. This expectation stems from conditioning. Over the years, as our motorcycles have gotten gradually faster, we’ve begun to expect irrationally. Your motorcycle’s comfortable cruising speed needn’t necessarily be your average speed. And let’s not even talk about top speeds, please. 

Theoretically, a motorcycle like the Suzuki V-Strom 650XT or the Kawasaki Versys 650 should breeze through a day-long 1000km ride, and most of them do. Heck, even a relatively smaller Royal Enfield Himalayan or a Honda CB Hornet 160R can do it beautifully - I have done it a few times and I’ve only fond memories to show for it. Sometimes, though, it just isn’t your day. There’s a spectrum of elements that decide how seamless your ride is going to be - speed, health, sleep, weather, what you eat (always a tricky one!), the condition and layout of the roads, the scenery around you… it’s a long list. The formula to work around this is a simple one - if you can’t seem to be able to ride somewhere in a day, take two. 

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Sure, this may require a degree of planning, the most elementary of which is figuring out a decent enough hotel, and that’s something the Internet will easily take care of for you. A more pressing question is, where do you split the ride? In the instances I’ve chosen to do so, what has worked wonderfully for me is to keep the longer stint in the saddle for day one. That’s when you’re invariably fresher. A longer first day also allows you to sleep in later on the second day, which means you can get enough rest to be as fresh for the remainder of the journey. Making this decision is never an easy one, for you will always find yourself tempted by an ‘almost-home’ scenario. But statistics tell us the highest number of crashes occur on familiar turf, closer to home, where you invest more faith in the roads than in your attention. 

I am always guilt-ridden when it comes to paying for a hotel room when home is only four or five hours away, but the thought of hitching a ride home in an ambulance makes that decision easy. Making this decision is easy because I have felt sleepy on a motorcycle, perhaps to the extent of having a couple of seconds worth of a snooze. It’s a nasty feeling and it fills you with guilt and regret and pure hatred. In an instant, you begin to imagine all the possible ways it could have ended and usually, you only imagine the absolute worst. It’s a good thing - it’ll keep you off an ambulance, for one. The second and perhaps equally important decisive factor is that they tend to not serve you piping hot butter chicken and rotis in the back of an ambulance.  

Of equal weightage and often not given its due appreciation is daylight. Maximising the time you spend riding in daylight takes the pressure off the few hours you may have to ride in the darkness. Despite how much I enjoy riding at night, I’d be lying if I said it allows for as much visibility as in the day. That’s not to say it’s a bad idea, only perhaps less than ideal. So until you find the perseverance (or a set of really powerful auxiliary lights) to ride at night, try and use daylight to its full potential. 

While this does imply being frugal with time, in no way does it imply that you must forego anything that is restive and satisfying. I, for instance, love an elaborate moment under the shade of a tree where I can listen to the silence of the highway interspersed with the ticking of a cooling engine. Since this refreshes me and resets my energy levels, I’ll set aside twenty minutes or even longer sometimes. What the shade of a tree does for me, a bite at a McDonalds may do for you - get an extra helping! And don’t worry about the camaraderie - it will stick around if it’s meant to.