Into Glory Ride

The bikes may be in storage now, but it won’t be long before the winter is over and we’re rolling again.  We’ve got 3 kickass trips planned for this year: a weekend trip to Delaware/Washington DC in May;  a 9 day trip to New Orleans & Jacksonville in June;  and another 9 day trip to North/South Dakota around the time of Sturgis.  Not sure if we’re going to attend the Sturgis rally or not, but I think I hear the motorcycle gods whispering that bad things will happen if I don’t go.  We’ll see what happens.

The dates of the trip aren’t 100% firm yet,  so if you’re interested in joining us for any of them and you have a scheduling conflict, speak up soon!  So far we’ve got 4 riders confirmed and we may have up to 6.

More news to come over the next few months in prep for our warm-up trip.  Until then I’ll do what I’ve been doing for the past 10 weeks: head down to the garage and stare longingly at my bike for hours and hours, praying for warmer temperatures.

Some recent developments:

• Katy and I are in the process of buying a house,  so I’m lacking funds/time to do any lengthy trips this fall.
• The trip to the south (New Orleans/Florida) that was scheduled for this fall is being pushed back to May 2010.
• The Mt. Rushmore trip is being rescheduled for mid/end of summer 2010 next year, or maybe May 2011.
• Alaska is still on the table for July 2011/2012, depending on the timing of the Dakotas trip.  This trip is the one that puts the fear back in me… this is my great white whale.   New Orleans or the Dakotas don’t seem to difficult, but I’m sure they’ll be fun.  When I think about trying to get to Alaska and back I get that same nervous feeling I had when I was on the California trip.  Good lord I can’t wait! 
• I want to write up something that discusses the gear we used on the last trip, but I think I need to go deeper than that.  Gear is one thing, but attitudes, assumptions, strategies.. those were are more important than I realized.  I’ll get something up on the site over the next few months.  First I’d like to have a chat with Vargs about his experience on the last trip, now that we’re a few months away from it.

I wanted to post a quick note to let everyone know where we’re going from here:

• The Deep South trip will be happening late this summer/early fall.  I’m planning on it being a 7-9 day trip from PA to New Orleans, then east to Jacksonville FL, then back to PA.  I’ll be posting more details as I get them.
• The South Dakota trip is going to be postponed to next summer.  I have a project at work that cannot be rescheduled and it will be going on through the end of this August.
• The Alaska/Pacific Northwest trip is slated for July 2011.  It will take over a month and will require some extra gear.  Start saving your pennies now.
• I would like you to come with me on all of these trips.  Let me know if you can make it. 

Meanwhile, Katy and I will be doing some weekend trips here and there.  We’ll be posting the photos to the site.

Oh,  and I still plan on doing a gear analysis and a more extended debrief from the last trip before I start heavy planning on the next trip.  Stay tuned…

We’ve got less than 48 hours to go before I leave for Pittsburgh (…and beyond!). FedEx should be delivering my recent order tomorrow: some Throttlerockers, new safely glasses, new light gloves, and a tank bag. Tomorrow evening I’ll pack the bike and get everything ready, then I’ll be heading out on Thursday morning/early afternoon. The Weather channel is predicting thundershowers on Thursday, but after that it looks clear for several days.

So the current plan is that I’ll get to the SW PA area on Thursday evening, meet up with Vargo on Friday and head to the store to pick up the rest of the supplies we’ll need. We’ll be doing a dry run setting up/taking down the tent and all the camping materials. Then we’re going to run the bikes past my dad for a last minute checkup. Once everything is ready and all the tests/checklists are complete we’ll load the bikes, sleep and head out early on Saturday morning en route to Columbus, OH to meet up with several friends there. Oh, and I’ll have to make camping reservations for Sunday night somewhere near St. Louis, MO.

I’ll write again soon from the road.

A few weeks ago Vargs and I took a trip around New England.  It was sort of a test to make sure we could handle riding for several days in a row without cracking up.  We’ll have more stories from that trip in the future (Brattleboro,VT has awesome sushi but weird hippies, for example), but for now here is a list of what we learned from it

• Call ahead to campgrounds at least 1 day before
• Phones on every rider at all times
• 2 lanes roads: less fatigue, low mileage/hour – fun during the day, dangerous at night
• Highways: high fatigue, high mph – fun at night if sparsely populated, dangerous all other times
• Ride while you can – conditions WILL worsen – get miles when you can get them
• Eat at Mom & Pop diners, not fast food
• Avoid truck stop food, regardless of how legitimate it may seem