Trip Planning and Lessons Learned

Out of the entire blog, this post will probably be the most useful for people planning road trips. If you smply want to check out the events of our trip, the daily trip logs are listed to the right that you can browse.

Now I certainly don’t proclaim myself as a seasoned touring specialist in fact quite the opposite – this was our first major ride. And since each trip brings it own set of challenges some of this may or may not be useful to you. However, we did learn a few things along the way that may helpful in planning potential road trips.

Trip Planning

• They say Its not the destination, it’s the trip... Stay off the interstates and enjoy the back roads. After all, that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? By the way, Google maps (http://maps.google.com) has a great feature that allows you to “avoid highways” when planning your route.


• Sept / October in the Northeast is a spectacular time for a ride. Days are cool and the fall foliage views are incredible.


• If possible, build an extra day (or more) into your plan that is not needed. This will help to account for weather or added sightseeing that may make you run over the initial schedule.


• Our trip legs were too long. 200 - 350 miles a day seems reasonable on a map but it is a lot more than you think it is when riding - especially with gas stops, bio breaks and sightseeing. I read this somewhere while planning the trip and ignored it. Now I understand why they said it. The trip would have been more comfortable especially towards the end of the day after 8 plus hours in the saddle.


• Some people like to wing it a bit more - I’m more of a planner. If you are like me invest some time prior to the trip and get your high level route plugged into the GPS ahead of time. I saved several waypoints into my favorites on the GPS and numbered them for easy access. This really helped cut down the amount of buttons you have to hit while underway in the event of change to your route.


• If it’s possible, don’t reserve your rooms between your stopovers. This may not be practical but not planning your hotel destinations ahead of time will allow for a lot more flexibility on the road especially if you run into weather conditions or interesting sights that take up more time. We took advantage of cashing in some of our frequent flier miles for lodging. Financially this was great but required us to pick the hotel before the trip thereby locking us into to the nightly destination. This forced us to more interstate driving to catch up and longer drive times than we anticipated (or cared for).


• In general, minimize everything you are planning to take. You can live without more than you think you can. So really be conservative with clothes and such. After all it’s gotta fit somewhere and packing will be a feat. Since we had not seen our motorcycle (other than pictures) there was no way to determine how much storage space we actually had available. Planning extra clothes, toiletries and such was an achievement. Additionally what we underestimated was space needed for bike specific items like the cover, tool kit and such. In our situation the CD player was located in one of the saddle bags which took up premium space. Ultimately, we ended up getting a waterproof bag to bungee over the back hardcase which helped out greatly.
  

Helpful Equipment

• A GPS is a must. Some hardcore road warriors might disagree but being the gadget head that I am, this is non-negotiable. We never used half of the features on our Garmin Nuvi until this trip. Being able to locate gas stations, restaurants and other attractions was really great. The only drawback was the GPS was sluggish in major cities due to interference from tall buildings. If you haven’t invested in one yet, check out Garmin’s zumo 400 (http://www.garmin.com). We already owned a 660 and it worked perfectly, but it looks like the 400 has a better setup for a motorcycle (for instance, the power lead to the motorcycle). I had to build a pigtail for our Nuvi 660 to tap into the bikes power – they just don’t make one and I wasn’t willing to invest in another unit at this time. They are pretty costly and one of the advantages of a portable unit is sharing it between vehicles. If you already own a GPS, then check out http://www.ram-mount.com for mounting hardware for your particular unit. They have a great selection tool to narrow down what you need for your model.


• Even though we had a GPS, we still brought a compact road atlas with us. This became very useful in long range planning in conjunction with the GPS. Simply put, a GPS with all of its great qualities was not practical to use when assessing your overall directions, ball parking potential stops or visualizing the route. The Atlas acted as a backup in case something happened to the GPS along the way. Depending on your map size (and your eyesight quality) you may need to invest in a small magnifying glass to bring with you for the map.


• Okay one last item about the GPS… Bring a few baggies with you to keep it dry in case of rain (unless your unit is waterproof). Ram mounts provide more permanent waterproof enclosures for units – but I could not justify the expense, as well as, they were not esthetically pleasing.


• If you planning on riding two up plus luggage on a bike, a communications system rocks! The ability to talk back and forth between rider and passenger while enjoying the sites was great and the trip would not have been the same without it. We bought a portable J&M unit (the Intgratr IV) (http://www.jmcorp.com) at Clays Radio shop (http://www.claysradioshop.com) since our bike didn’t have one build in. The only drawback was that there was uneven volume between my helmet and my wife’s (because of the extra wind noise she was getting).


• Windex Handy Wipes are awesome! Ohio has meaty bugs.


• Bring your own tire gauge, don’t count on gas stations having accurate ones, let alone any at all.


• A compact bike cover was good for parking at night; predominately for security reasons (aka, out of site out of mind…) but for weather also.
  
• Full Face helmets are good. Flip Front Style Helmets are great! Buy yourself smoked lenses – they are better than sun glasses but keep the clear ones with you in case you run out of sunlight. Check out http://www.motodirect.com for good deals and fast shipping.


• Get yourself a Skullcap (aka Do-Rag, aka Babushka) Your helmet and your head will thank you.


• A compact waterproof duffle bag is a must depending on your luggage capacity.


• Don’t forget bungee cords. Don’t bother with the mesh / netting types. They have steel staples between the bungees to keep them in form that could scratch your bike.


• You are going to hit some type of weather and probably in the middle of nowhere. A lightweight compact Goretex rain jacket and pants will keep you warm and dry for a spell. Just be careful around hot exhaust pipes.


• Vented leather jackets (versus synthetic / textile Joe Rocket types) rule for even body temperatures. That is of course until you get stuck in stop and go traffic. The trade off is the textile type jackets have better body armor which you wont appreciate until you need it. In any case Joe Rocket (http://www.joerocket.com) makes a wide variety of well constructed leather and textile jackets although they are a bit pricey. For cheaper options check out Bikers Dream Apparel from Biker Leather Ltd (http://www.nakedleatherbiker.com) available on-line and in most bike shops.


• Lets face it, no matter how comfy your bike seat is, sooner or later your going to get monkey butt (I found this to be the tehnical term used in many articles). Prior to our trip a seasoned rider warned me about this and I did not take heed. Don’t make the same mistake we did. Buy yourself a set of beaded motorcycle seat covers. I wish we had! Believe me – we are very happy with the comfort of our new bike, but after 8 or so hours you can’t help but to start squirming. Here’s a link I found to one type of seat cover that looks pretty good (http://www.beadrider.com). The Motorcycle Cruiser website also has a nice article comparing the different pads that you check out.


• Toll roads suck. Unfortunately they are inevitable. I’m sure seasoned riders have this process worked out but digging for coins and money was a pain in the butt. We worked a system out where my wife managed the money and that seemed to work well. If your solo you may want to check out a coin holder of some type.


• If your gas tank is metal, check into a magnetic leather tank bag. The magnets are strong and sewn into the leather to prevent any scratching of the paint. The bag provides a little extra space for cell phones, wallets and the likes. We bought one that looks like a large fanny sack but there are larger ones. Check out (http://www.motodirect.com).
  

About the Bike Features

• I never understood why you would want cruise control on a bike. After about a 1200 miles ride, now I do. It becomes second nature to turn it on briefly to be able to take your hand off the throttle to rest or make some type of other adjustment.


• Get used to your braking system. They say it in the safety course; its absolutely true. Take the bike in an open parking lot and put the breaks through the paces. In my case linked braking with ABS is a HUGE difference from the vintage brake drums I was used to and it took several hundred miles to smooth out my starts and stops.


• Face it, people don’t pay attention to motorcycles as much these days. In some cases drivers look right through a bike looking for another car or a truck. We had this happen a few times during the trip and you need to stay on guard. With that in mind, preview your bike’s lighting and reflector layout. While riding with some friends of ours they observed that our bike needs more lights/reflectors on the backside than it has. This will be a future adjustment.


• This may be obvious, but If you don’t have cruise control and plan to mount your GPS to your handlebars, it will need to be on the left side. Ours is on the right and I am happy with it there but I have to engage the cruise control if I want to zoom in or mess around with the GPS.

If I think of any other items I'll update this post but this should get you started. Check out the daily trip posts in the archive panel to the right in this blog and drop us a line if you have any questions.

Trip Log - Day 7 – (Mon) Hawks Nest, Bear Mountain and Beyond

Its been an interesting week and although this is the final leg of our trip, there are still great views to take in. We decided to head over the Hawks Nest via route 97 and then back onto Route 6 heading to the Bear Mountain bridge.

If you haven’t taken a ride through the Hawks Nest on Route 97 near Port Jervis,NY, your missing out. Route 97 flanks the Delaware river and then heads up over the mountain pass. Featured on many car commercials, the Hawks Nest has the best twisting turns that can be found around. It’s a lot of fun riding through this area and on weekends you often see literally hundreds of bikes coming through the pass. During the week however its not as busy but the views are still awesome.

Unfortunately we are getting closer to our final destination, but one last sightseeing stopover after the Bear Mountain bridge before we move on.

The last stop is in Ossining, NY, for lunch at Anthony’s Sports Bar (aka Main Street Steakhouse). Literally under renovation when we stopped. Some fellow bike fans run the place and rustled up some great lunch for us between painting the walls. Through Tarrytown and eventuallyback into the Rat Race of the Long Island and its congested expressways. We will do this again for sure.

Trip Log - Day 6 – (Sun) PA and NYS Touring Ride

One of the things we learned during this trip was that having a destination with a reservation attached to it became to be somewhat of challenge. So having a day for touring with no particular place to go was awesome. We woke up to another gorgeous day and headed out with our friend on their Gold Wing and went exploring the northeastern PA area. We decided to check out one of the local wineries.

Even though we are somewhat familiar with this region, we never seem to get tired of the views. They seem to be even better when cruising on a bike.

After soaking up the surrounding we stopped at Calkins Winery in Milanville, PA - toured the property and tested some of the wine.

After the Vineyard we headed to a great bar and grill – The Long Branch Saloon. Now Earl the owner and bartender is a Harley driver who is was quite the character who makes a great lunch and puts up with BMW riders. He proved to be an interesting character and we will surely visit the Long Branch again. After lunch we hear over to some friends that just returned from an Elk hunt to view their trophy.

Trip Log - Day 5 – (Sat) Pensi Grand Canyon, Pit stop in Lackawaxen, PA

With all of the instability in the weather around us – we certainly have been fortunate. We woke to wet roads this morning windy and partly cloudy - but dry. Much cooler today so we add a few layers and push off early.

With the clouds and sun darting in and out, the views of the fall foliage are wonderful. Although we thought we already passed it we were fortunate to run into a parks service sign directing us to the Pine Creek Gorge (aka the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon). The 20 mile detour is well worth it as we experience more spectacular views. Quite the destination as we park - the place has a a half a dozen bikes parked checking out the Gorge.



























Passing through Troy, NY we decide to stop at the Tamarack Inn (a dive bar and grill) for lunch. The inside looks slightly better than the outside does. The beers were cheap and the food was fair.

Another Kodak moment on route passing through the Allegany Mountains. Warriors Path has an amazing view of the valley and Susquehanna River.

































After last nights late arrival at our stop, we were able to abide to our newly created rule of no driving at night. We head into Lackawaxen for our 2 day stopover around 6pm. Our friends were prepared for our arrival as we toast some dry martinis to the new machine.

The night continues with some hawk throwing and cold Jager (for a change)

Trip Log - Day 4 – (Fri) Tooling around Ohio, late arrival to Olean, NY

Our morning ritual had a bit of shocker on this day. As we tune in the weather channel the reporters are very busy going over the tremendous storm activity that occurred throughout the day yesterday. The report turns to a live feed to a reporter in Nappanee, Ohio on which he shows the remains of the town after a E5 tornado touched down late in the afternoon yesterday. His main backdrop is the severely damaged Dairy Queen that was directly across the street from where we stopped for a slice of pizza. From what we could tell, the twister touched down a few hours after we left Nappanee for Sandusky. I guess the good Lord must be a biker that is partial BMW’s...

On the map and the Sandusky Ohio looks a lot more interesting than it was in person. A small seasonal town with a great views of Lake Erie.














We took a quick ride downtown near the fishing pier for a quick peek and we headed out towards Cleveland via Route 6. This was a great ride since Rte 6 circles around the bottom of Lake Erie and winds it way through a whole series of small towns. Unexpectedly the average speed limit was 35-40mph through this leg so this put us behind a bit as we make our way towards Cleavlend. However we really enjoy the views like the worlds largest Easter Basket Lakeview Park in Lorain, Ohio was worth a Kodak moment. The homes on the lake front were pretty big but packed in pretty tight to each other.

Our lazy trek continued with another stopover in downtown Cleveland at McCarthy’s Ale House.













McCarthy’s is a great backstreet Irish Bar with a huge selection of beer an awesome pan pizza and these great crab slammers which we of course had to partake in.

Too much gawking in Ohio put us behind schedule so we pick up the interstate for a run to make up some time however we lost daylight pretty quickly as we head into the Allegany Forest.

It's unfortunate since what we could see of the reservoir and forest area as we lost the daylight was spectacular. Heading over the mountains towards Olean, NY things cooled of pretty quickly. We get a chance to test out the antilock braking system as we travel through the forest and a few deer decide to make a run for it right in front of the bike.

We were ready for a cocktail as we headed into town. Good thing Olean (pronounced O-Lee-Ann) has the most bars per capita than any other town - and dumpy ones too!

First stop, Granny’s and what can I say. You know it’s a real dive bar when they are too lazy to turn their Jagermeister machine on and serve you warm Jager - I hate warm Jager!

After a less than stellar dinner at Angie’s “Olean’s finest dining” (so they claim) we do some minor bar hopping to make sure we get the full experience and head back to the room.

It is actually hard to put this sleepy town into words but a bad episode of South Park comes to mind from some of the experiences we have that are too numerous to list here.

Trip Log - Day 3 – (Thurs) Tornado Storm Dodging to Sandusky Ohio

Today will bring the longest leg of our Journey – destination Sandusky Ohio approximately 350 miles east / northeast of Chicago. As we assess the situation, although the storms are spotty to the east as well as to the west of us and it is pretty windy we decided to make a run for it.














Now comes the fun part – trying to fit all of our stuff in three hard cases. Not as much room as we expected to have so bought a waterproof duffle to bungee over the back and that seems to solve the luggage problem. As you can see by the time we pack up the clouds disappear and it turns out to be a really windy, but really nice day.

First waypoint is Nappanee, Indiana by noon. We decide to immediately get on the interstate to make some better time to get ahead of the storms to the west of us. We discovered yesterday that the bike if very comfortable at 60-70mph due to the front fairing so a hour or so on the interstate shouldn’t be that bad. That is of course if you don’t have 50 mile and hour wind gusts…

As we head out of town the wind is incredible. Passing tractor trailers at 60 mph with potential wind gusts peaking 50mph become a bit of a challenge. So much so at one point as we pass a big rig and just cleared his wind blast and then get broad sided by a 50+mph wind gust that literally pushes us off balance and over into the speed lane. Since I know better than to pass while sandwiched between two vehicles, we had room to recover without incident. But I think I felt my wife’s nails dig into my skin right through my leather jacket after that one.

After finally getting back on Route 6 we make our first stop in Nappanee, IN. Not a very large town (like don’t blink or you’ll miss it) but interesting enough do to it’s Amish influences.













Quite a few ZZ Top looking guys running around on bicycles as well as the traditional black horse drawn carriages double parked at the grocery stores.













After a lunch break at a rather homely Big Pappa C’s pizza joint we head on to our next waypoint - Napolean, IN

In route we stop for some Kodak moments along the way. One of which was these really huge power producing windmills in Bowling Green, Ohio.

With the high winds blowing through the corn fields at warp speed, these suckers are really spinning fast but they are eerily quiet. The pictures don’t do justice to the size of these ominous machines

We ultimately arrive in Sandusky, OH as dusk sets in. After a quick check in we head over to Manny’s sports bar across the street. With a bar full of Indians fans, you don’t admit that you live a few hours from Boston even if we aren’t big sports fans. This place was bonkers for the tribe so we kept a low profile and enjoyed a few beers and good food.

Trip Log - Day 2 – (Weds) Cabela's and Bike Acclimation

After hearing that a brand new Cabela's opened up right down the road, we plan todays activities around a visit to the new store in the morning and then downtown in the afternoon to the Science and Technology Museum. At least that was the plan…

If you haven’t been to a Cabela’s before, you really need to find one. Plan on spending some time there because this store is amazing and the Cabela’s at Hoffman Estates probably tops the charts as outdoor stores go.

Every product that is listed in their catalogs is on display in two story building that I couldn’t even begin to guess the square footage of. The products are one thing, but the wild game displays, indoor laser shooting range, huge aquarium, indoor waterfall and a restaurant serving wild game dishes for lunch was just incredible and made this the most unique shopping experience ever. After about 4 hours of browsing, a few Bison burgers and several hundred dollars in things to ship back home, we realized were running late if we wanted to make it down town.

We head downtime late in the afternoon by heading east and winding through Northwestern University (http://www.northwestern.edu ) following Lake Shore Drive into the city. The views of Chicago are awesome, the weather is very comfortable and the bike is running well (although my shifting and braking skills leave something to be desired).

We ran too late to make the science center and just as we were planning an alternate stop the fuel light comes on – on the bike. Caught us a little off guard since we put less than a hundred miles on the bike and the tank was full when we left the shop. I guess my shifting and braking skills were a lot worse than I thought. I guess not getting out of third gear in most cases and the stop and go traffic from the previous day didn’t help either.

Have you ever tried to find a gas station in a city while relying on your GPS to tell you which way to go? Don’t bother. Because of the unit looses line of site due to the tall buildings, it was like trying to follow a drunken sailor to his next bar. Anyhow, after finally fueling up we decided to head back to to the hotel. Nothing like Chicago rush hour to overheat your new air cooled boxer…

I think it’s time to get the hell out of Dodge and start putting some miles under our belts. Look forward to the open road tomorrow but you know what they say – be careful for what you ask for. We were in for some interesting riding.

As we turn in for the night on Weds, watching the weather channel uncovers some pretty significant storms coming across the plains and heading east. Not just rain, but extremely high winds and heavy rain and “tornadic activity” as the weathermen seem to love to say. Whatever you call it it's just exactly what you don’t want to hear when you’re on a bike trip. We decide to get up early and to make a decision to wait the storms out and get ahead of them after the mornings report.

My wife reinforces her position on the positive shopping experience we had and reminds me of what a good thing it was that we spent all that money at Cabela’s for rain suits… hmmm.. I don’t know if I like this logic...