Routing miles vs. MPG

I always use interstate when planning my route. delays, such as wrecks, construction, e.t.c. will get me to take back roads, or 2 ln hywys, but the less shifting, start & stop, watching for keeping on route thru town squares, I don't like. I used to load out of south bend IN. Going to i-65 south. i tried several times the shorter miles. hwy 31 thru kokomo In .red light city for sure. all the stop & go & if you catch the first light, you catch all of them. when I went out of the way to run 80-90 west to I 65 it was non stop a lot better m.p.g. and less wear & tear on my equipment. I just love the relaxed, feeling of the cruise on, plenty of shoulder & stop offs if anything goes wrong, better that the 2 ln 4 ln left turn right turn, stop & go. not to mention, some of the 2 ln roads I have run, have no signal to cell phones thru out some of the back roads runs, so if ya have truck trouble it may be difficult to get off the road, if no shoulder & make calls.

 

Funny you mention US31 through Kokomo versus I-65. I can make better time running 31 every time. And get good fuel mileage doing it. Yeah, there are a lot of redlights in Kokomo, but much like Evansville, IN US41 you will seldom ever get caught by more than half of them. Many times at night you can ride through there and only get caught by 3 or 4 of them. I used to run, for several years, a dedicated JIT run from Clarksville, TN up to the Holland, MI area. I also used to run lots of loads out of the same place to a point in WI above Chicago. Could always make better time going up US41 than the guys who would cut over to IL and go up that way. I've run every which way possible going up those routes US31 versus I65 and timed them all. I-65 is a big waste of time & OOR.