What will happen if "We" weigh too much?

J. Paul

Joined
Oct 24, 2005
Messages
8
Age
60
Location
Petal, MS outside of Hattiesburg
OK, now for my first question needing help. I have searched up and down this group and others for some info on loading up the ST1300. Between my wife and me,we hit the load limit of the limit of 410 pounds almost exactly. (All muscle, of course!) I also have the top box and assorted necessities, and are wanting to do an overnight trip...maybe another 20# of luggage. We are new to the motorcycle touring thing, but have taken a few trips around town. There is definitely a difference in handling but nothing I can't handle. The question is how much can you go over the stated load? Hope this is like most things and understated by the manufacture. Any thoughts, or precautions that I need to be aware off. I know the obvious, like braking and acceleration diff.
Thanks, Paul
 
OK, I'm no engineer, and any advice you accept from me is at your own risk. I take no liability, etc. etc.

I think that, in general, manufacturers err on the side of caution. If you can keep your luggage to only 20 lbs, you're probably ok. (Are you including the weight of your riding gear?) I'd up the tire pressure a bit (not sure if Honda recommends higher pressures for a full load, but I'd add a few psi, cold). Use max spring preload and damping, and ride easy. It might not matter much, but I'd also pack your heaviest gear low in the bags, and your lightest stuff in the top box. Or leave the top box off if you don't really need the room.

If you haven't already, take some short rides in similar configuration first to get a feel for how the bike handles and brakes, and what ground clearance is like when leaned over.
 
Again, no engineer here.... but we have alot of pilots on board....

OK guys, how many of you would feel comfortable taking off in a plane that is greater than 10% overloaded? (load limit of 410 lbs + at least 41 lbs of clothing,gear, & luggage)

I'd err on the safe side. If she enjoys the local rides alot... time for her own bike!
 
STeve1300 said:
Again, no engineer here.... but we have alot of pilots on board....

OK guys, how many of you would feel comfortable taking off in a plane that is greater than 10% overloaded? (load limit of 410 lbs + at least 41 lbs of clothing,gear, & luggage)

I'd err on the safe side. If she enjoys the local rides alot... time for her own bike!
Click to expand...

No thanks. Is it safe.. . maybe, smart no. I don't like the way my bike feels with a pax. For me, 249lbs and girlfriend 130lbs, thats approaching 410 but not quite there and I feels really sloppy, sluggish.
 
This is one stat I don't understand of Honda. The BMW line up has carry weights of 800 - 1,100 pounds depending on how much the bike starts out with to begin with. How can the BMWs carry so much more weight than the Honda's? It is the one really big differentiator between the bikes from a numbers perspective that I've seen and doesn't make much sense to me. Maybe I'm reading the numbers wrong off the brochures and they are talking about gross weight, but I don't believe so.
 
I stand corrected, just went to the BMW specs for the R1200RT and the specs read gross vehicle weight 1089 lbs (519 lbs net cargo capacity). Still over 100#s more than the ST.
 
Pilot/over gross weight

A pilot I was. Overgross take off I have done. Peacetime max Gross for a C-130E is 155,000 pounds. I thought I was at max gross. The load teams had calculated the loads incorrectly, however. Lawson AAF, Ft. Benning, GA is in the bend of a river that is down about 100 feet below the field level. The runway lines up with the river to the north. We took off to the north. The runway was about 5300' long and at max gross we should have come unstuck at about 4500' roll. We didn't. We were just at unstick speed when we crossed the overrun, I horsed the beast into the air, it shuddered in a stall, I stuck the nose down into the river valley, the CP yanked the gear up, we went about 30 to 50 feet down in the river valley as the beast struggled for air speed. Finally after about a mile we had enough speed to initiate climb. We were cleared to climb to Flight Level 230 (23,000 feet). Traffic control kept asking when we were going to climb. The best we could get was about 50 feet a minute. Gradually, as fuel burned off, we climbed faster. We were headed to the Dominican Republic with steel planking for a bridge to be used in flood relief. We were past St. Augustine Florida before we passed FL180 and were well down the east coast of FL before we got to our assigned altitude. We used the performance charts to do reverse calculations to determine what our actual Gross Weight had been. Yes, it's possible for a C-130E to get airborne with the unique conditions of having a place to dive for speed past the end of the runway with a Gross Weight of 195,000.... This "war story" is to illustrate, there is a safety margin built in. Others have pointed out, when you get heavy, handling changes. A bike with 2 up, unless your GIB is rather small, is going to handle differently. Be prepared for it. Taking off that day, we knew we were heavy. We just didn't know HOW heavy. That was DUMB. We trusted the wrong people to be accurate with their weight calculations. In my years after that, such an event never happened again to me. I never was so trusting again.

JR
394
 
STPilot said:
No thanks. Is it safe.. . maybe, smart no. I don't like the way my bike feels with a pax. For me, 249lbs and girlfriend 130lbs, thats approaching 410 but not quite there and I feels really sloppy, sluggish.
Click to expand...

Come On Tim.... Didn't you ever make your student do the wt and Bal on a C-152 with full fuel and both of you in the seats....:rolleyes:

While I agree that overloading is not good, the ST handles my GROSS weight and the SO pretty well. You just accept a smaller manuvering envelope. Think of it as staying in the white arc. While the bike does feel slower to turn in and braking requires more planning, it's still safe if done correctly.

Besides, when you get it back to just a rider, it feels like a little sport bike for a while :)

Chris :04biker:
 
JReviere said:
We were just at unstick speed when we crossed the overrun, I horsed the beast into the air, it shuddered in a stall, I stuck the nose down into the river valley, the CP yanked the gear up, we went about 30 to 50 feet down in the river valley as the beast struggled for air speed.JR
394
Click to expand...

So, is that where your avatar came from? :eek: :D

Fred :03biker:
 
Medicine Bear said:
So, is that where your avatar came from? :eek: :D

Fred :03biker:
Click to expand...


Nah... The air in the cockpit was too foul with a certain odor for anyone to take pictures..... To this day, I still don't see how the old lady made it. Talk about a crew of young and foolish!

JR
 
The STeed turns out to be a Pack Mule also!

Thanks for the thoughts guys. Of course it was the last minute question and we left on our trip yesterday. Just got back and have to report that everything seems fine. Frame didn't crack, shocks didn't leak and I managed to keep it upright in the parking lot! No scientific research here, but it did everything fine. Challenge handling it in the parking lots and slow speed, at highway it just went like the great bike it is. Braking seemed OK, had a few quicker stops, no panic stop, and the bike seemed like it had brakes to spare. I am sure that over time there would be a lot more wear on the bike with this load, but I think from time to time it will work. Didn't get the chance to see how it would pull up out of a river bed, maybe next trip!:rolleyes: By the way this was a trip of 512 miles over 2 days. Now, what forum should I post the question of..... BOY OUR BUTS SURE DO HURT.....WHAT'S UP WITH THESE SEATS!!!!:(
Thanks guys,
Paul
 
Truly welcome to the club there J. Paul......:) All of us "Plus" size folk have had to upgrade the seat and there are plenty of options. A search on "Russell" "Sargent" "Corbin" "Mayer" will give you a lot of food for thought.

I did my SS1000 on the stock seat and walked funny for a while afterwards. In my case the Sargent has been great and the other seats all have their plus/minus. A little research will give you a lot of bang for the buck.

Chris :04biker:
 
I guess this is as good a place to ask as any. I am aware of all the other brands of seats and have read what people have posted, but will one of these "High Dollar" seats help with this but burn after an hour or so in the seat. Seems like other people are saying that the custom seats help with back pains and other things, but this is just a mater of time in the saddle. So would a good seat help with something this simple? I did get the Alaska leather sheep skins for them, they did help a lot but still burn like
h#$&%LL after the first hour, hour and half. Scared to buy something else on the "maybe it will work" syndrome. Just gave away a Chatterbox to replace with the Autocom.
Paul..............Even with this, Man! I do love this bike!!!! 3 months old, first street bike.:D
 
Paul,

I think Mellow had the best answer for your question, at least as in reguard to the Seargent.

"After a 1000 mile day on the stock seat the next day felt like mile 1001. With the Seargent it was like starting at mile 1 again"

That pretty much matches my feelings after about 8000 miles on the Sargent. I do hurt while riding and still have to stand every now and then, probably about 3-5 minutes each hour but the next day is just like I am starting out again.

The Russell folk say that they get "NO" butt burn but I do not have any experience there.

I am at about 230 lbs and find that in addition to the seat, what you are wearing makes a huge difference. If I wear sweats or shorts without a seam under my riding pants i am much more comfortable than I am if I have on Jeans or anything else that has a seam in the seat. I even switched to the legged underwear instead of the classic Jocky.

Bar risers, larger grips and a good seat will let you turn out 1000 mile days in a row and unlike some other LD bikes, you can look real cool in the curves when you get where you are going....

Chris :04biker:
 
Just a little food for thought: if the tires are the limiting factor in the ST's load capacity -- and I believe that they are -- why in the heck do we not have available tires that are made for a 700 pound-plus-two persons-plus-goodies bike? There are such tires available. Agreed: I have not heard of an ST's tires failing because of being over-loaded, but what the hey? I surely don't want to hear about it in the future, either!

If you want to explore a worse case, look at the poor Winger; less load capacity than us.

Marshal
 
I thought about your tire load capacity and looked up the ratings on the stock tires. According to the Bridgestone site the load for the front tire is 536 lbs. and the rear is 805 lbs.. Now I don't understand how this applies but if simple math would work the the total weight should some what divide between the two tires? Total capacity adds up to 1341 lbs. subtract bike weight of 637 lbs. subtract farkle weight +- 50 lbs. give rider/luggage capacity of 654 lbs.??? Pass the biscuits we got room to grow!.....I'm sure I missing something about the tires. I am also aware that there are frame/suspension issues.
 
J. Paul said:
I thought about your tire load capacity and looked up the ratings on the stock tires. According to the Bridgestone site the load for the front tire is 536 lbs. and the rear is 805 lbs.. Now I don't understand how this applies but if simple math would work the the total weight should some what divide between the two tires? Total capacity adds up to 1341 lbs. subtract bike weight of 637 lbs. subtract farkle weight +- 50 lbs. give rider/luggage capacity of 654 lbs.??? Pass the biscuits we got room to grow!.....I'm sure I missing something about the tires. I am also aware that there are frame/suspension issues.
Click to expand...
Lets have a different look at this: although the dry (no fluids) weight of our bike is listed by Honda at 637 pounds (648 pounds with ABS), the wet weight of is about 735 pounds -- 45 pounds of that is fuel. Now add a 200 pound rider and a 150 pound passenger. We're up to 1,085 pounds; still less than the 1,341 pound load capacity of the tires, but by only 256 pounds. But that assumes that the tires are of equal load capacity and are equally loaded. They are not. MC Consumer News measured the static balance of the bike as 46% front, 54% rear. That means that the front tire load with our 1,085 pound system is 499 pounds. That is a capacity reserve on our front tire of 37 pounds.

I have a wet weight (coffee plus gear) of 235. I also have a Farkle or two, carry an extra helmet, and use my brakes, adding front bias to the load distribution. Carry a passenger? Sure do. Room for an extra biscuit? I need to de-biscuit myself, that is if I don't wish to press my/our luck.

So -- what is the problem? Either I/we are too large for the bike, the bike is too portly for its tires, the tires are too slight for our combined girth, or a combination of the three.

As always, YMMV.

Marshal
 
Last edited:
Of course now I feel even more worried about us riding together, I just used your numbers for distribution and put our weights into the picture and I either have to figure out how to run with no gas in the tank or lose weight! Don't know which will be easier to do.:confused:

Makes sense what you say. I knew I had to be missing something. and we are going to lose weight or else! Now we actually have a good reason, got to ride.:pig1:
 
J. Paul said:
Of course now I feel even more worried about us riding together, I just used your numbers for distribution and put our weights into the picture and I either have to figure out how to run with no gas in the tank or lose weight! Don't know which will be easier to do.:confused:

Makes sense what you say. I knew I had to be missing something. and we are going to lose weight or else! Now we actually have a good reason, got to ride.:pig1:
Click to expand...
I have given-up Denny's as a dining experience to reduce the amount of gas carried. Don't know if that will help my bike's weight, though. :D

But seriously, folks ... please give me a shout if you figure out the solution to this problem.

Marshal
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom