Right about this time of year,
when the weather is pretty much awful pretty much everywhere, the thoughtful
motorcyclist opts to spend quality time dwelling on more pleasant topics – like
perhaps a longer ride than usual this summer.
Here’s some food for thought.
Bike: If something
as crass as money is not a concern, purchase whatever new motorcycle you deem perfect
for whatever task you’d like to be at hand. For 99% of us, however, there’s a
more comforting thought.
What you have will do just fine.
My first long ride was from
Minnesota to Seattle and back on a camping trip in 1968. My steed was a Yamaha YDS 250, a two stroke
twin that weighed about 300 pounds and had 33 horsepower or so on a very good
day. It was terrific. Two years later,
after a few west coast adventures and one return ride to Minnesota, a Honda 450
Street Scrambler took me from Seattle to Florida. Neither of these machines would fit anyone’s
definition of a touring bike. Both of them
were fine touring bikes. This summer I’ll
ride my Triumph Speed Triple on another sojourn to Minnesota and back. Anyone who tells you that a large touring
bike is required for a long ride has either never done such a trip at all, or
on anything else, or is trying to sell you something. If you already own a large touring bike, of
course, this entire paragraph has been a waste of your time, and hopefully the
next few will be of more use.
Two rules for the long ride:
- You need more carrying capacity than you think.
- You need to pack less stuff than you think.
These appear to be contradictory, but are not.
1. You need more carrying capacity than you think
because you’ll be spending a lot more time either by yourself or at the very
least further from your usual sources of help and supplies. That means, if you do not carry them at all
times now (as I do), you’ll need space for a First Aid kit, a tire repair kit,
and an air compressor. Flat tires do
occur, and they happen more frequently to people who are not prepared to have
them who are riding on a lovely road that is 75 miles from the next town and in
an area with no cell phone service. Some tire repair kits carry small canisters
of gas to inflate the tire. What if you botch that? What if you do not have
enough? What if you have two flat tires?
You’ll also need to carry water,
sun tan lotion, bug repellant, visor cleaner, water, maps, and perhaps
batteries or chargers for your phone, GPS system, and other et ceteras we
cannot seem to live without these days.
In addition, it is an excellent idea to take at least three pairs of
gloves to deal with heat, cold, and rain.
You’ll need a jacket liner and a sweater and perhaps a neck tube thingie
for the cold, and in the mountain regions it is always cold in the morning. When
the temps hit 80 or so, you’ll need enough capacity to be able to carry the
layers you want to shed. To help you keep all this organized and compact Nelson Rigg offers compression bags for
this. You place your clothing items inside, connect the compression straps and
start compressing your load by pulling on the straps. Reducing the volume of stuffed
bag by 50% or more isn’t at all unusual, and while you’re t-shirts and such
might have a few wrinkles when you take them out, you’ll sure appreciate the
extra space they can provide.
Most of us do not carry a cover for our motorcycle at all
times, and yet a Nelson-Rigg cover can be a real asset on a long ride. People of lesser morality who like to steal
things seem to go blind when confronted with a cover – they do not see that
there is a motorcycle there at all.
Therefore, covering your bike even when parked in the relative security
of a motel parking lot can do a lot for peace of mind. As an intended bonus, it can keep the bike
dry and clean if you find a rain system on your travels. But covers can fill up
a whole saddlebag, right? Not anymore. Most Nelson Rigg covers now have one of
those nifty compression bags included. Just to give you a better example of how
effective compression bags can be for motorcycle traveling; you can now take a
full dress Goldwing cover (that use to take up an entire saddlebag to store)
and by using the included compression bag, you can compress the cover to the
size of a can of coffee (or to about the size of an NFL football if you relate
better, since the season just wrapped up). So now there really isn’t any reason
to not take a cover with you.
All of this means the need for more carrying capacity than
you might be accustomed to for day rides or commuting. My bike has “too much
storage”, said no motorcycle rider ever! Right?
Choices. Depending on
the bike, you may need to add saddlebags (panniers), a tail bag or tail rack
and trunk, a tank bag, and/or a back pack. All of them have advantages and
disadvantages and time perusing the Nelson-Rigg catalog
will help pass the time until your adventure, offering a lot of good
information and quality choices. Once you made your choices, you’ll need to
address the next point.
2. You need to pack
much less than you think you do.
Almost everyone who goes on their first long ride packs way
too much clobber. This is particularly true of clothing. We spend time in
preparation trying to imagine every possible need, and pack everything we think
might ever be needed. But the reality is that most of the situations and needs
we think up will never occur, and a lot of them can be given a lower priority
and taken care of with a charge card if the need arises. A charge card takes up
virtually no space and you would be carrying one anyway.
The famous writer Peter Egan once
shared his own packing system for a long ride. He would start the trip with the
most worn-out and shoddy t-shirts in his drawer, the ones you should probably
throw out but never get around to. You
will be riding a full-coverage jacket all day on your ride (or you should) so
the shirt you are wearing will not be seen as you are styling your way through
a gas station or rest area. At the end of the day, Mr. Egan would take the
shirt, perhaps clean the bike with it, and then toss it. He reasoned that he
would probably want to purchase a shirt or two at the event he was attending
anyway, and those would replace what he threw away and be stored in the same
place.
A lot of us have a lifestyle that features daily changes of
every clothing item, daily showers, and daily shaving. Out on the road there’s a tendency to get a
little bit more liberal with these things, and as a consequence you may go
through clothing items less frequently.
Or, in a motel or a campground, you can do a pretty good job of washing
a few clothing items by hand and they’ll be dry by morning.
If you like to wear leathers, or even non-traditional
clothing, you’ll need a set of rain pants and jacket (see the Nelson-Rigg
catalog again) to keep you dry and protect your expensive leathers!
If you wear a one or two piece textile suit, all you will
need is one pair of jeans for “evening wear,” a pair of shorts and perhaps a
swim suit, and one small and light pair of tennies for relaxing.
Obviously, this is all very general, because I do not know
how much time you’ll have or where you want to go. This is intended to be the prod to get you
thinking, however. So many people think about a long trip every year and never
do it. But you? Why not you? Make this your year (if you’ve never done this
before) or the best year, if you have. You have map books to peruse, event
schedules of various types to consider, and vacation days to put in for. Get busy!
For our blog content, Nelson Rigg partnered up with David
Preston who has been riding motorcycles, and talking and writing about them,
for 47 years. For more of his thoughts, on motorcycles and motorcycle related
information, please follow our blog.
David Preston
Copyright 2014
