No Thru Traffic

Yesterday was the first day of our tour and it went really well. We put on over 350 miles and took it pretty easy as we snaked through the gorge and some back roads to Wallowa Lake State Park. We definitely enjoyed the smaller roads way more than I-84 and will be avoiding interstates as much as possible from now on. I’m sure within the week we will be comfortable doing 400-500 mile days but will also stay at some of the bigger destinations for a couple days each.

Cooling off

This is how we should have traveled

Ryan cooking me dinner

We’re also working on a coordinated strategy to befriend people in camp enough to score some free food… Also if anyone is living somewhere close to where we are and wouldn’t mind letting us camp on their lawn, let us know!

My bike exploded my stuff all over the place

The bikes and our packing held up pretty well and we are already perfecting the organization of stuff.

Today our plan is to head north towards Heyburn State Park at Chatcolet Lake in Idaho and slowly make our way to Glacier National Park, which will serve as a good launching point to head either east or south.

Onward!

Last night was our first night camping but I’m already realizing some ups and downs of moto camping in state parks.

Moto campers seem to be much more rare, so the pains of jealousy are very strong indeed when we light up our small stove to warm dried food and the aroma of steaks and corn on the cob fill our nostrils and the clang of glasses of iced tea reach our ears. While everyone else brings all sorts of entertainment, we spend the evening repacking and cleaning the bikes and ourselves. Last night we retired to the tent and watched an episode of My Super Sweet Sixteen that someone else had obviously put on my iPhone by mistake… then fell asleep to the sound of our neighbors inflating an air matress…

But our small tent and two bikes makes us incredibly mobile, in minutes we can pack up and move on to the next great thing. With the early nights come early mornings, which is great… but I’m still glad I brought a book.

What am I reading? Well, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, of course.

- Alex

So it took me pretty much all day to get all of my stuff together, packed and mounted onto the bike. Wow, did my inexperience with motorcycle touring really show through today. I have a lot of stuff strapped to the back of my bike. You can see the final packing list, here.

We both ended up packing about a weeks worth of clothes which may have been too much given that we could just wash stuff more often and bring less stuff. Since my bags and bike were a bit bigger, I’m the one carrying the tent, stove, gas, cooking stuff, etc. It’s like I’ve got a whole passenger behind me now.

Having a dad who also owns a Nighthawk was pretty helpful as I was able to score a free corbin seat and was allowed to borrow his engine cards should the weight of the bike be too much for me to keep off the ground (I really don’t want these guards to ever come in handy).

I think that we are both going to get pretty good at packing things up pretty quick with the amount of practice that we will have.

Tomorrow morning we are going to meet up at 7:00am and take some photos of the bikes all loaded up then head out to our first stop: Wallowa Lake State Park. Check out the route page for a sort of up-to-date map of where we’ve been.

Let the adventure begin!

-Alex

We will be staying connected as often as possible while on the trip in order to keep this blog updated and share photos and stories of our adventure. However, it will be limited to the amount of battery power we have and the strength of our internet signal.

So being the geek that I am, I wanted to figure out a way to make all this happen, for as long as possible. By installing a power outlet on my bike, I am able to take a borrowed GPS and keep my phone charged at the same time. In order to get the internet, I was able to do a workaround on the iPhone to enable internet tethering so that I can us my phone to access the internet on my computer…

And to top it all off, my dad was generous enough to let me borrow his laptop battery so that we can last as long as possible in between rest-stop charges.

Geeky and overkill, I know.

So I’ll stop all this nonsense if it means it will detract from the trip… as the purpose is to experience the outdoors and try something new! I’ll keep it as updated as possible, but the priority will always be making new experiences. I just hope to use this site to share some of them with you.

- Alex

Today was spent running errands, packing tents, installing GPS, checking batteries, rolling sleeping bags and finally starting to plan our route.  The maps are currently unfolded and we hover over them with highlighters ready to decide our fate. However no marks have been made and we still can not seem to decide where to go.  The only thing we know is that we are going to set out North and maybe stop at some ghost towns along the way.

-Ryan

Over the past three weeks I have been laying out everything that I think I am going to need. It has become quite the pile.  I am in the process now of weeding out what I do not need and what just will not fit.

Things worth noting amongst this massive pile:

*Plexus Plastic Cleaner:  This is a spray cleaner, protectant and polisher that works on all plastics, but I mainly purchased it for its abilities to be applied on my face shield and windshield. It creates a coating that makes bugs and road grim easily washable so I will be able to quickly wipe my plastics clean while traveling

* Crank Powered Flashlight: Super lightweight, small and never needs batteries. It has 6 LEDs and is bright enough for most applications.

* Motorcycle Jumper Cable:  This is a pigtail jumpercable that hooks into any cars cigarette lighter  and provides power to the battery. I am not sure how effective this is, but it came with my trickle charger and seems like it may come in handy if either of us gets a dead battery.

* Cable Locks: I am bringing three different sizes so I can lock up my jacket, pants and bags when leaving the bike for extended amounts of time. They are small and light, plus they coil up so I wont have them getting tangled up in all my other stuff.

Tomorrow I head up to portland from Eugene. It will be my first long ride hauling all this stuff. In addition to these things I will also have a sleeping bag, sleeping pad and tent to incorporate into my elaborate packing pile.

-Ryan

We are getting down to the wire preparing for the trip and have only 5 days remaing until we leave!

Unfortunately, I’m still waiting on my saddlebags and windscreen to come in the mail – hopefully when they arrive the pieces of the puzzle will all fall into place.

There is still a lot of work to do regarding packing and preparing. Specifically planning our route… which we have decided to plan only the first week of and handle the rest as we go. We haven’t done much touring between the two of us, so the first few days will inform the rest of our trip and determine how far we can and want to go. One thing is for certain though, a month may seem like a long time in the beginning, but there is so much awesome things to see that I already feel like we’ve missed too much…

I plan on updating this site a lot tomorrow and getting some kinks worked out, the pages finalized and a lot more photos up here. Stay Tuned.

- Alex

This is certainly not the first, and definitely won’t be the last, trip of this kind. Folks have been touring the country on motorcycles for ages. So naturally, you would assume that there would be a lot of useful information on the internet concerning touring, routes, bike setup, gear selection, etc. Unfortunately, most of what we found was a little out of date, or mostly worthless.

This site is not intended to be a ‘how to tour on your motorcycle’ site, but I’d figure that it could potentially serve that purpose some day. So I feel compelled to share the link that Ryan discovered called Motorcycle Touring for Beginners. It’s written by an awesome old crotchity guy named Dale Borgeson who has been touring on his sport bikes for years. It is a virtual treasure trove of useful information that pretty much covers anything you could want to know about motorcycle touring. Click through and read some of what he has, it’s written well and sprinkled with his unique viewpoints and can be funny at times.

So when deciding my own packing list, I used his as a guide and modified it to fit my own needs. I’ll post it here for future tourers should they stumble upon this site and wonder. I’m not taking all of this stuff, it was more of a brain dump than anything else, and it will be refined more over the next couple days leading up to the trip:

Clothes

• Sunglasses
• Long underwear
• North Face jacket
• Sweatshirt
• Swimsuit
• Socks
• Underwear
• T-shirts
• Flip-flops
• Hiking shoes
• Athletic shorts
• Warm hat
• Jeans
• Shorts

Riding Gear

• Helmet
• Extra Visor
• Gloves
• Jacket
• Boots
• Pants
• Ear Plugs
• Riding socks
• Rain Suit
• Hot weather gloves
• Anti-fog
• Camel back

Bike Equipment

• Saddle Bags
• Tank Bag
• Watch
• Windshield
• Bike Cover
• Powersource
• GPS
• Cigarette lighter
• Backpack
• Compass
• Camera mount
• Waterproof bag
• OEM tool kit
• Owner’s Manual
• Rags
• Tie wraps
• Duct tape
• Tire gauge
• Tire patch kit
• Wrench for oil change
• Disk lock
• Chain lube
• Rain-X
• Campground map
• Maps
• Ziplock bags
• Bungee Cords
• Cargo net
• Piece of wood for sidestand
• Lock for bike cover
• Cable lock
• Spare bike key

Camping Gear

• Tent
• Tarp
• Sleeping Bag
• Pad
• Pillow
• Chair
• Flashlight
• Lantern
• Pocket knife
• Lighter
• Stove
• Fuel
• Cookset
• Silverware
• Water Purifier
• Iodine Tablets
• Water Bottles
• Watter Bladder
• Scrubber pad
• Dish Soap
• Nylon bucket
• Waterproof matches
• Thermometer
• Garbage bags
• Nylon cord
• Can opener
• Collapsable cooler

Food

• Energy Bars
• Gatorade Mix
• Spices
• Oatmeal
• Peanut butter
• Jelly packets

Personal Hygiene

• Toilet kit bag
• Baby wipes
• Toothbrush
• Toothpaste
• Soap
• Shampoo
• Lip balm
• Sunscreen
• Washcloth
• Deoderant
• Towell
• Razor
• Laundry detergent
• Toilet paper
• Purrel

Personal Items

• Wallet
• Pens
• Notebook
• Book
• iPod
• Headphones
• Phone
• Alarm clock
• Cleaning cloth for glasses
• Extra batteries
• Camera
• Camera Batteries/charger
• Camera Case
• Mini tripod
• Laptop
• Absolut music speakers
• Insect repellent
• Wireless card
• Glue stick
• Markers/pens

First Aid Kit

• Bandages
• Neosporane
• Gauze
• Scissors