Fat_Man said:
Noice and wind will make you really tyred in the long term, but also remenber wind protection those not need to equal a Barn door in front of the bike, remenber the whole issue of frontal area and gas consumtion ...
CRuisers will never do the trick no matter how much crome the have or how big and fluffy the seat are, for one simple reason, the ERgonomics of the bike force you to place a 100% of your body mass on the seat, when on a proper motorcycle the mass is spread in between the footpegs (your feet & legs) the handlebars and also the wind (the airflow holds your body from falling forward (No muscle energy spend) and a big porcentage on the seat, but at least this seats let you move around, they are not the "Tractor type"
You also want the angle of your knees, shoulder, elbow, hips, etc, and the most important the bend of your back (Lordoxic curv) to be very relax so the nerves and arteries are flowing with out interuptions, On one end the sport bike posture generates really accute angles specially at the knees that is going to restrict blood flow and on the other hand the cruisers force you limps to be far more stress than the need to be (for example your Hip rotator and your hyper extended knee.
the basic idea is to have your footpegs more or less under your BUtt, anything farder back (race replica) or much farder forward is going to make it impossible to stand up and get the blood flow going or even preper for a Jolt on the road, so you need to trust that Big old seat to mitigate the impacts
Distance....
currentlly is very comun to see more than one thousend miles on one day, my personal record is 1280 miles in 22 hours, but the real hard core iron butt riders are achiving 1800 or so miles in less than 24 hours, many of them on multi day challenges, one of my clients has the record for the Iron butt rally touching the fardest corners on the USA in less than 8 days, personally I think those guys are Nuts, but is also nice to know that it can be done. Oh all of them ride somehow "up-right" bikes like the Honda ST11 & ST 13, BMW RT's, BMW K bikes, and a few even if much less efficient in terms of gas and miliange do to the extra expose area ride the BMW GS do to the exelent ergonomics and comfort they provide, specially after they being modified with a few tricks to fit the rider bodys and needs to perfection.
well if you can not go for many days, maybe you don't need to carry so much, ergo you don't need such a heavy massive bike..
Being realist about you needs is one of th best things you can ever do on a bike since they are not like cars that you can keep loading and loading on a bike every extra once count.
Even a "Little" Suzuki SV650 is capable of 800miles per day with out much trouble and they go pretty cheap (from about $2800 to $3500 for the older ones) and they are ultra reliable and easy to mantain...
don't fall for the same "Gadget" tricks that you do on the trucks, since on a motorcycle every piece of unecesary crap makes a diference, specially at parking lot speeds, what I'm trying to say is to be realistic and don't carry more that you really require or wait for years to get a bike you can not afford will all the ameniest and shinny crome as opose to get a "work Horse" bike Today that you can ride into the sunset...
little funny side note,...
Is very comun on the hard core riding comunity for people to pack a lot of old useless clothes, that are wear for "One last time" and then used as rags that very night to clean the bike and lube the chain since you dispose of them and by the end of the trip you are traveling a lot lighter..
My self I travel with really high end fabrics design for mountaniering and back packing that can dry very fast plus they are also very compact and light weigh, and yes I do cut my toothbrush in half to safe weight and space.
On my way to Canada for my yearly two week long bicycle ride in wistler.
