I would have a planned stop to change oil at 5k. Per my route I would find a dealership that fits my schedule, if you could make it the last stop for the day, one hour oil change than to the hotel for the night. But you are doing some aggressive riding (saddle time) so not sure how that would work out for you. Worst case, ride the entire trip and get it changed when you get home.

PS you should have the same concerns with tires. 8k is a lot of miles on semi worn tires. You might want to start with a new set of sneakers.

 

You will be fine with 8,000 miles on synthetic oil.
Good advice on cleaning/replacing your air filter.
Check your tires, especially the middle of the tread. Long highway miles will wear a stripe down the middle.
Carry some extra gas.

Good Luck
Ride Safe.

 

Some times I like to experiment without telling anybody about it. I use Redline and have stretched my mileage to 7 or 8k, because I like to ride a lot and then asked my Indy how the oil looked and he said fine, so if it was me, I'd just go for it but just check your fluid levels from time to time just to make sure they are staying where they are supposed to be.

 

I wouldn't use truck oil life as a comparison to motorcycle oil life. You have 1 gallon vs how many in a truck?. The trucks motor is water cooled vs air cooled.The trucks oil should be used harder, but runs at cooler temps. So that's like comparing bananas to coconuts. You can't just look at oil and decide what shape it's in. Lab testing tells you if it sheared to a thinner wt , is contaminated with gas, and how much of the anti wear additive package remains in the oil. That's what you want to know. Not what color it is. Any oil that's doing it's job, ie: cleaning the internals of the motor, will be darker in used oil then brand new oil. After you take that long ride and get home, drain a few ounces of oil and send it to Blackstone labs for a UOA. Now the results of that test can be used for future reference as how long you should go between changes, plus tract wear patterns in your motor.,,

 

In General, the change intervals in a owners manual is design to have the optimal life of the fluids but wastes a lot... At 5000 miles, synthetic oil still has plenty of life left...We dump perfectly good oil out of our bikes all the time and it's so wasteful.
Many members on here have sent their oil samples in to labs and it showed that the oil was still perfectly good.

 

New tires before the trip is definitely part of the plan. I expect I'll be close to needing new tires again by the end of the trip too. I am pretty sure my bike will be fine going 8K with the synthetic. I told my buddy basically what you guys are saying -- that if anything a trip like this with fewer stops and starts, less idling, and fewer ignitions should actually be easier on the oil than normal riding. My buddy's mechanic theorizes the other way -- high speeds, long temps may yield hotter operating temperatures and, therefore shorter oil life.

I guess there's pretty slim chance of hurting anything by changing the oil too soon, though (as long as the mechanic doesn't mess something up).

 

High speeds, plenty of air to the motor, cool motor...

 

For the motor oil, you should be good to go the whole 8K on synthetic.
I changed at 5K during my 48/10 but figured I was just making myself feel better about it at that point. (At that point the oil that was getting taken out had been in the bike for a total of 7 days)

The Tires: I was surprised how well the Dunlops held up during the 48/10. I'm guessing the lack of repeated hard braking/ hard accelerating actually made the life go up. They were squared off when i changed them, but the set I had on for my 48/10 lasted 16,005 miles. The Front still had about 2/16" and the back was at the wear bars.

 

With a good grade synthetic oil you really don't need to change it. But getting the oil changed on a roadtrip has never been a problem for me. Twice I stopped at a dealer - one in Salinas, Kansas and the other in Ocala Florida, and seeing I was from out-of-state and on a road trip, performed an oil and filter change while I waited.

 

Prior to H-D encouraging the use of synthetic (they actually discouraged it) I had a couple of oil changes done "on the road".
On one of the occasions, I got caught in a traffic jam (stop and go) near Fresno, CA, riding double and pulling a trailer, and my Heritage (EVO) got pretty hot, so I hit the nearest dealership.
Get this, they even un-hooked and re-hooked my trailer and never said a word about the trailer "voiding" my warranty!

We're planning a long trip this year so I'll have my bike serviced just before we leave so I won't have to worry about, but if we should ride enough to need an oil change, one dealership is as good as another, I guess.