Riding a scooter 1610km (1000 miles) in 24 hours seems hard so for my 70th individual IBA ride it was worth having a crack to see what the growing long distance scooter fuss is about. I’ve had a 2018 Honda Forza 300 (275cc) for 4 or 5 months now and prep was kept simple. The service schedule was brought up to date, all fluids replaced and a new drive belt fitted. Farkles – heated grips, a bar for the Spot Tracker and some power and a mount for my iPhone. No aux lights, no fuel cells, no jerry cans for this trip and I was riding it bareback.
I chose the Forza 300 because in Ironbutt Association land a 1610+km day on a sub 300cc scooter is classified as a Gold level ride, supposedly harder than similar rides on normal motorcycles. We’ll see. Scooters are also cheap!
I woke up at 3am and looked at the weather radar. Southern NSW looked horrendous and north was clear after the first 150km or so. So north it was, but not too far, southern Queensland was copping it too. After finalising some sums I rode to the start point for the ride, the BP at Heatherbrae NSW and got the start docket at 4.20am.
Light drizzle was a feature for the first 150km and at 212km I stopped for fuel and water at the BP at Thrumster (Port Macquarie) with the sun nicely up. Continuing north my next stop was the BP at Coffs Harbour South only 148kms further up the road for a top up and some food. I didn’t carry any snacks this trip and kept a bottle of water under the seat for emergencies.
I had to stop at the Big Banana for a quick pic, it’s the only thing of note along the highway on the Mid North Coast.
At 195cm and, let’s say 100kg I reckon I’m an average sized male. It’s fair to say I was a little cramped on the scoot, but not uncomfortably so. I tried standing and don’t recommend it over 60kph. I then tried sitting on the passenger seat and found I could ride with my legs straight forward resting on the front section of the scooter. The position was like riding a Harley with highway pegs but angled down at 30 degrees. It was quite comfy and a good alternative when different body parts needed a break.
Ballina (563kms) was my next stop and to avoid rain further north it was time to head back south. I decided to stick to the A1/M1 on my first ride for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I needed to work out the scooter’s fuel range and on the route there are plenty of options available. The second is that the suspension on scooters isn’t that great so it seemed smart to pick decent roads. Oh, there’s a third. Not having auxiliary lights meant it made sense ride roads they wouldn’t come in handy. It doesn’t matter how much light you have to spare when there’s a steady stream of oncoming traffic. Having said that, if I kept to a decent schedule I’d only be spending 4 hours or so riding in darkness.
My first stop south was back in Coffs Harbour. It was getting towards 30 degrees and time to undo some zips on the Badlands. Next was Port Macquarie again for fuel, a coffee and a cheeseburger at Macas.
I was feeling great, the scooter was holding the speed limit with no problems. I found that just keeping it a 7000rpm was the sweet spot for speed and enjoyed drafting any vehicle that seemed comfortable with it. On the next leg between Port Macquarie and Heatherbrae I drafted the same vehicle almost the whole way and used just over 7 litres for the 212kms. It’s nice to be dragged along and relieve some of the stress on the engine too, even though it didn’t seem stressed at any time in the ride.
Back at Heatherbrae (1127kms) it was time check my quick sums. I turned back north and rode to the Service Centre at Kempsey. There were no problems with fuel range for the 250ish kms. There I took some time to have some food and a chai latte on soy channeling a scooter rider’s choice of drink. Daylight had started to fade so I put on my clear glasses and warm gloves for the final non-stop leg back to Heatherbrae.
Ironbutt riders seem to take lots of photos in servos, some of them come out OK!
During this leg I was congratulating myself on avoiding the weather. I shouldn’t have. About 40kms from the finish I rode straight into a very impressive thunderstorm. I needed to stop quickly and do up 12 zips on the KLIM Badlands in order to stay dry. It’s a mission to remember them all! Lightning nearby always makes me nervous and nervous I was.
Back at Heatherbrae for the final time and the end of the ride. 1644kms for the day on the ODO and 1625kms by Google Maps. The finish time was 9.34pm, 17 hours and 14 minutes taken for the ride including the 6 fuel stops and 2 meals. For Ironbutters that’s an OA of about 94.5 kph without being focussed on efficiency, just getting it done. For perspective that’s about the same time I would take to do this same ride on my 1250GS or any other big bore Motorcyle. It also means the 2000km day would be achievable on the stock bike in just over 21 hours so multi day rides on it shouldn’t be a problem.
Was it hard? That’s a matter of perspective. Speed wasn’t an issue and maintaining it also wasn’t. I didn’t lose any time on Waze’s GPS eta on any of the legs and on most was able to make some time up. I didn’t find the scooter particularly uncomfortable but the roads were good quality so suspension and wheel size didn’t matter on this ride. The seat was good. The weather protection on the Forza is great, a big adjustable electric screen, my legs were tucked away, it reminded me of my ST1300 back in the day.
I’ve done a bunch of 1600km rides on 125cc and 250cc motorcycles and each one was more difficult than this ride on the scooter. It’s a blessing not to have to continually change gears to maintain speed. It was nice just to focus on the tacho and use the light throttle to make adjustments when required. This isn’t as good as cruise but better than rolling on and off while changing gears in terms of hand and wrist fatigue. It was nice to stick the helmet and other stuff out of sight under the seat when leaving the bike for whatever reason, less stress.
So for anyone who can sit on a bike all day, the scooter ride isn’t hard on a Forza 300 and I guess not much different on any modern 250cc and above scooter, it’s just a novelty. Personal opinion. It’s definitely worth having a crack if you have a scooter or access to one though, it’s great fun.