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Longest you've driven without sleep breaks?

Meghan54

Meghan54

Lifer
I did a pair of 22-23 hour drives last week, from Savannah, GA to Wellfleet, MA (on Cape Cod.) and the return trip. Did it without sleep breaks, although did make numerous pit/coffee/gas stops/walk-the-dogs stops (more stops for the dogs than coffee, unfortunately. Such is life driving with 4 dogs, one a puppy.)

So, longest you've driven without sleep breaks?
 
12-14 hours. That's at the extreme limit of what I felt comfortable doing. Haven't done that in years though.
 
hmm well the longest I've driven without sleep (not non-stop) was various trips I made during a stint of being awake for 79 hours, so if that counts... It wasn't a single journey though. It wouldn't take 22 hours to drive the entire country so... The longest drive in that time was about 2 or 3 hours.
 
by myself 12hrs roughly from Ga to MD. With a partner we worked a bit over 12hrs, and then burned through the night for another 14hrs or so from Texas back to Ga. That one was rough as we'd been doing some really long hours for the past 2 weeks almost with little sleep. Things got really rough when we got to Atlanta around 7or8am. Was kinda nice to drive on deserted highways, but bad being so tired with traffic. Also no where to get food at 4am, so we were feeling ill by the time we got breakfast.
 
27 hours, Dallas to Barnstable Town to catch the ferry to Nantucket the next morning. Really didn't bother me too much. I mean it sucked yes, but just kind of did it.

EDIT: I would never ever recommend anyone do these drives in their life. FInd someone else to do shifts with you or something. If you decide to though, audiobooks are your friend. Music will lull you to sleep, but intellectually interesting things help immensely.
 
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I cut myself off when I dummied straight through a stop sign at about 36 hours of being awake, with maybe half of that actually driving.

Longest continuously behind the wheel was maybe 7-8 hours or so.
 
Hermitage, PA to to Chicago on a motorcycle. It was probably only 10 hours. I have no idea how people do saddle sore 1000s.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
My Little Rock, Arkansas to Tucson, AZ trip was on a 500 twin that I rode coast to coast. :biggrin:
Click to expand...

That's pretty nuts.

Mine was on an SV650. It was part of a half cross country loop. On that trip I learned how all the little things really make a big difference in fatigue. Vibration, lack of wind protection, etc. When I'm in a position to own more than one bike I'd love to have something really set up for serious touring.

edit: I can understand the hallucinating. About two hours into the day after my ride from PA to Chicago I pulled over at a gas station and took the windscreen off my bike for no apparent reason. An hour after that I pulled into a rest stop and barely knew where I was.
 
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the DRIZZLE said:
That's pretty nuts.

Mine was on an SV650. It was part of a half cross country loop. On that trip I learned how all the little things really make a big difference in fatigue. Vibration, lack of wind protection, etc. When I'm in a position to own more than one bike I'd love to have something really set up for serious touring.
Click to expand...

The one thing ALL of the major bike manufs. get wrong is the seat. Every bike I've ever owned after the first one had a custom seat. The after market is your friend.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
The one thing ALL of the major bike manufs. get wrong is the seat. Every bike I've ever owned after the first one had a custom seat. The after market is your friend.
Click to expand...

I'm a short guy so I actually had my seat modified by this guy. http://greatdaytoride.com/Home_Page.php

He rips the stock seat down to the pan and rebuilds it with different types of foam. Then he puts the stock cover back on.
 
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Denver to Houghton MI. i have no idea how long it took. i pulled into Houghton and nearly passed out i was so tired.

1200 some miles.

i have driven for a few hours to the shop after being up for 30 hours plus on a job site also.
 
Left SoCal about 9am or earlier, got to Quakecon in Texas about 10:30am next day. Just stops for gas/food. That was a SOB drive and I'll never do it again.
 
Meghan54 said:
I did a pair of 22-23 hour drives last week, from Savannah, GA to Wellfleet, MA (on Cape Cod.) and the return trip. Did it without sleep breaks, although did make numerous pit/coffee/gas stops/walk-the-dogs stops (more stops for the dogs than coffee, unfortunately. Such is life driving with 4 dogs, one a puppy.)

So, longest you've driven without sleep breaks?
Click to expand...

New Orleans to Palm Springs CA--1,800 miles--All I-10.

32 hours .

Did that trip a few times in the 90's and before...
 
I can't go for more than several hours hours without at least somebody else driving. I find myself daydreaming while awake, and not daydreaming like thinking about something else but I realize my mind has literally gone elsewhere with my eyes open and I start to have a mild out of body experience. Is worst of course if music is off, no audio book, no conversation and it's a warm day outside with the sun gently beating down upon me saying "Go to sleep."
 
I just worked a 12 hour shift and was awake 4hours before that. Got off, came off, and got in the car with the wife an drove from NC to N.VA. I made it about 1/2 hour from the house we were going to but I think I did a couple 2 second eye close drifts.
Even though I was only 1/2 away I pulled off the road to a reststop and slept for a couple hours. I know looking back, esp after my nap, that I would have went to sleep and wrecked if I had not stopped.
Never did that again, I was lucky.
 
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