Essential Tips for a Memorable Motorcycle Road Trip Adventure

Transcript

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Get your motor running.

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Head out on the highway. Is that all you need for a motorcycle road trip?

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Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. It's the end of 2024, so I thought it might be helpful to think about how to prepare for road trips on your motorcycle. A new year often brings a sense of wanting to try something new, and a motorcycle road trip is a great one to try.

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Even if you've traveled by motorcycle before. This episode will offer some tips to make the most out of your travels. Now, this episode is meant to give you an overview of travel and the essentials to make the most of those trips. Now, there are many variations to motorcycle road trips, and covering every detail in a single episode would make for a very long episode. So I'm going to try to cover the basics and the real essentials of what you need to make a motorcycle road trip.

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Just like there are many variations in the types of motorcycles, there are variations in preferences and comfort levels of motorcyclists.

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And if we think of this, it's really a spectrum. There's going to be some riders who like to have everything planned in advance. They want to know which roads they're going to be riding on. They want to know where they're going to stop for food, where they're going to stop for fuel, where they're going to be staying each night. Some people may fill half of their baggage with tools and spare parts to nearly rebuild the bike on the side of the road. And some will have so much with them for camping. They've got multiple chairs, TVs, big camp stove outfits and many other contingencies to make camping as comfortable as possible. Now, while this preparation can ensure you never have anything to worry about, it can also make packing everything a real challenge. So on the other side, there will be riders who head out for coffee and then find themselves five states away and they'll find a place to get food or fuel as they ride. And the same goes for where they'll stay each night. Some may even be comfortable just sleeping on the bare ground next to their bike.

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Some of these riders will also go to that extreme of no preparation, so they'll assume that the bike will just work.

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And with many modern bikes, they're probably right. They'll leave everything for camping at home, including bug spray. And if a problem does arise. They may need to mooch off of friends or wait for roadside help, but most riders will probably fall somewhere in the middle. And I'm going to cover some examples across that whole range of different priorities. You'll find some tips that I'm sure will resonate with you. let's get into planning and I'm going to really sort of start with there's sort of two fundamentals that you'll do. One, which is probably the most common, is starting at home, and that's the one I'm going to probably spend the most amount of detail in this episode. The second one is fly and ride, but it's probably not something for the first time traveler I really want to focus on the aspect of motorcycle trips where people are starting from their own home and riding their own bike, because I think that's going to cover the vast majority of people.

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All right. So let's talk about those people who like to plan everything up front.

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One of the first things that you may want to think about when you're getting ready to plan this ride is how many miles you're going to travel each day.

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lot of people became overly ambitious of how many miles that they're going to ride in a given day, probably because they're used to driving in a car for longer road trips and they think they can do the same miles on their motorcycle. The reality is that riding in a motorcycle is less comfortable than driving in a car. You're more exposed to the elements because of the focus that you need to do. It does require more attention. So you may not be able to do as many miles per day on a motorcycle as you can on a car.

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Then that doesn't mean that there are not some high mileage riders. In fact, there's an entire organization focused on riders who put in really long miles every single day, and it's called the Iron Butt Association.

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And membership is granted to those riders who can document that they've been able to complete 1000 miles within 24 hours. Now, this is a real feat of endurance, because if you think of that, that means that you need to average nearly 42 miles per hour for 24 hours.

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It's unlikely that you're hitting back roads. It's only the high speeds of a highway will allow you to have an average speed that high, as well as accommodating food, fuel, sleeping. So personally, for me, I find riding on the highway is a last resort. It's not the kind of rides I like to do. Yes, it's convenient for getting you from point A to point B. But I like curves. I like a road that you can actually enjoy. And maybe you pull off to the side because you see this beautiful view.

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You're not going to see that on a highway. And I find the monotonous drone of just a constant speed just has me bored to tears and in almost falling asleep. So it's not for me personally, but I do want to acknowledge that there are some riders who are really gung ho on doing in the long miles per day.

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And if that's for you, that's amazing. And in that case, if you're going to be doing long highway miles, you're probably going to be planning your route with something like Google Maps because you're on highways all of the time. You can pull off at any exit for food or fuel. You really don't have to sort of do a lot of the planning for that in advance. But some certainly iron butt riders will do that because they've got to have everything planned out to be able to accomplish those 24 hours and a thousand miles. But I'd say that's probably, again, the exception. If you think of the number of miles that are coming in for most people, I find if you're keeping your days to less than 300 miles each day, this works out quite well. And the advantage of this is it allows you to take back roads and have some great curves and wonderful sights along the way.

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And if you want to stop and see one of them for a while, you've got the time. Now, if you plan to start your day around 8 a.m.

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and maybe finish by 6 p.m., you have 10 hours to cover those 300 miles. That's an average speed of just 30 miles per hour. And any backroad can do that and you can take some time to see the scenery, enjoy a meal. And if you stretch your day a couple of extra hours, you can even take a slower pace or stop more often.

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So I find that this tends to be sort of that sweet spot that 250, 300 mile day is a good range.

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It's doable by most anybody, and you're not feeling so pressed for time that you have to resort to highway miles just to be able to get the speed and the distance in. And it allows you to see some sights that you would not be able to do otherwise. So it is the is the recommended range that I would say for most riders. But of course you do you. I found that if you do more and I've done five 600 mile days, it's just exhausting at the end of it and if you were to continue to do it day after day after day, it's really a big slog. So you have to see if that's what you're up for. But I find most riders can usually do 250 to 300 miles in a full day's ride. Now, for those type of rides, because you got to be doing the backroads, I actually prefer to use a route planner called Rever. Now, Rever has a few really good things going for it. We actually have a full review of the Rever application on our website.

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throttleandroast. I'll put a link to it in the show notes.

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the beauty of Rever is if you love twisty roads, the pro version is definitely worth the annual subscription because you get those twisty road features.

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In terms of the routing, it will try to find the route that goes between your destination, point to your waypoints that you've selected along the curviest roads. And it has one other cool feature that it has, which is it has the Butler maps. And what Butler Maps does is they rate the roads, they call them these incredible roads, and they'll rate them in different levels.

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And this is a rating based upon the scenery that's along the way, how curvy the road is. Elevation changes, you know, whether it's a a highly populated road that's going to have a lot of traffic on it or it's a little bit more free flowing. And the beauty of Rever is you will see those roads overlaid on the map so you can just snap the route to match those roads as you're deciding where you're going to go. So I just love it as a route planner.

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I think it's a phenomenal tool.

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So I would encourage you to read that article. It's going to give you a lot of details on two Rever now related into how many miles you're going to do each day is how often you should stop.

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And this depends on a couple of factors. One is how often you like to take a break, but also it's the capacity of your bladder and your fuel tank. Now, most bikes will be able to go at least 100 miles on a tank. Some smaller dual sports might be a little bit more on the lower end of that spectrum where they may stretch to it. But most street bikes will easily do 100 miles on the tank. Now, I found that a good rule of thumb is stopping every 2 hours or every 100 miles, whichever comes first. And the reason why I've found that this is helpful is this ensures that you stay fresh by taking a small break every couple of hours. It gives you time to refuel the bike, stop for a snack, use the bathroom, whatever you need to do. Now there are some iron butt riders, particularly those with the BMW GS adventure fuel tank that has over eight gallons of fuel. They may want to stop less frequently. Maybe they're only stopping when they need to refill, which could be three, 400 miles at a go. And that's fine too. But I think for the vast majority of the riders who are not trying to hit a endurance record, stopping about every 2 hours or hundred miles is a really good rule of thumb.

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So you're planning this route that you're going to do and you've got your distance that you want to travel each day. You have some plan of you to be stopping for food or fuel about every 2 hours or every hundred miles.

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The other thing you're going to do is think about where you going to book your and plan your accommodations each night.

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Being that most people are probably comfortable with hotels and motels, they're a very popular option and there's plenty of resources out there for finding them. And of course, there's tools like Google Maps that allow you to find hotels near where you want to stop for the day, whether it's a particular city or a particular view destination site. And those can work very well. The other one that some people will do is they may want to stay in an established campground. So KOA is actually a really good resource for established campgrounds. And unlike wild camping or some state park and federal park camping, these often have some amenities like showers and full bathrooms. Some even have a camp store for food or supplies. So it can still give you many of the amenities that you may be comfortable with within a hotel or motel, but still keeping your expenses low by camping out. This is really for that rider who is meticulous about planning every last detail.

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The downside of that is, while it can feel comforting to have that level of detail in planning, is that the best laid plans often go awry dealing with changing situations. This can actually become problematic when you have every little detail planned out to the nth degree.

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Maybe you find a beautiful sight along the way and you want to stop and explore it a little bit.

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But you're on a tight timeline because you've got to get it to

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00 to get to your hotel room. And what if you have a breakdown or a flat? You may not even be able to make it to that hotel that you've booked or the one that you have booked for the next two, three, four days because you're going to be delayed. So this is the downside of it. So you do want to think about your ability to effectively change your mind in the middle of the day. So I do recommend, even with that planning to build in some buffer so that you're not finding that you have to. Absolutely be there at a specific time. So if you try to end your day maybe around even to a shorter number of miles per day, so you're trying to finish your day maybe at like two or three in the afternoon if you have that plan, then you're more likely to be able to accommodate a delay. You'd still get in, still be able to find your accommodations, deal with any sort of, you know, flat tires or break down or whatever it is.

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Now, the other way that someone might want to choose to do a bit of planning is kind of a big picture approach. You know, roughly where you want to go and you might even pick where you want to stay, but you're going to figure out the route on the day of the ride. So just like you do with the the Uber planner, you can be planning and booking your accommodations each night.

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And as you're riding, you may choose to use a few different techniques for how you navigate to your final destination for that day. So one of those is to sort of do this in a G.P.S.

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driven manner. So maybe you use a GPS like the Garmin Zumo or even a phone app like Rever or or Calimoto is very popular in Europe. And then ask the GPS to create a fun route to get to your destination. And Rever is very good at this. As I mentioned earlier, with my favorite twisty road planner and the Garmin Zumo has it, the adventurous routing, which also works pretty well and gives you a nice fun road along the way.

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But there's also some simpler ways, like a Beeline Moto, which is a very small, discrete device that you can place onto your handlebars and it's going to give you a much more simplified view. But you can still plan the route and have a fun road along the way. Now we can also go back to the old way that many of us started riding and was done way before the advent of GPS, which is really simple, just using maps and road signs. And with this approach, you're probably going to stick to some of the major roads. You know, for example, if you're heading towards Altoona, you're going to look for the signs that are pointing that way and follow them and maybe have a map taped to your tank or in the transparent pocket of a tank bag.

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They can help guide you along the way. Maybe you might pull over, review the map to sort of say, Oh, yeah, I should probably hit this road to get over to where I'm heading toward. And this is just it's a very analog approach, but it can work really well. And it does require you to have more of an awareness of the environment through which you're traveling, have an awareness of the location that you're at. You know, there's a third way that I want to highlight, and this is something that is specific to the Beeline Moto, and it's called Compass Mode. And I do this on the coffee rides that we do for Tank of Coffee. I just point the the compass at the destination, and it's showing a direct straight line distance to where the destination is. So that might be 100, 200 miles a straight line. It's up to me to find the specific roads that I'm going along. what I love about that approach is, you know where you're going, you know how far away it is. You just don't know the specific path you're going to take to get there. So it is a lot more of an exploring. You might see a road. You're like that. The road looks good. Let me take that one. So it can be a lot of fun and can still have a sense of how far you are from your destination. We actually a whole article on how you can discover some great roads with the beeline moto. So I'll put that into the show notes as well for you to review and see if this is the right way for you.

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Now, the third sort of major archetype that I want to talk about for how you might plan your trip is really that sort of go west young man type of an approach. And this is for riders who you may have a final destination and or even a rough idea, but with no specific path in mind. And I'm often reminded of the film Forrest Gump. In one section of that film, the lead character played by Tom Hanks, just decided to go for a run, and he had no particular destination in mind. And as he said in the film, when I got tired, I slept. When I got hungry, I ate. And when I had to go, you know, I went. And this is a beautiful way to travel because your days can be as long or as short as you want. So if you're feeling particularly open to a long day, go for it. If you were really tired from the day before, maybe you don't travel as far and you can explore at your own pace of how you feel that particular day. Just be prepared though, for long diversions because with nothing planned for accommodations, you're at the mercy of whether there is something available along the way you've chosen. And maybe you start to feel you want to stop when you're riding at

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00. So you pull in the next town and you look for that hotel or motel and the rain is getting more intense so you're anxious to get off of the road. And a sign up ahead indicates that there's a hotel. So you pull in, you head up to the front desk, and then the staff tells you that they're fully booked for a convention, just like all the other hotels in this town. You may have to do some longer diversions with this approach You may want to end your day a little bit earlier just in case.

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So we've got a ride all planned out, but what should we bring along now? Many of us have gone on road trips in cars.

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we're used to being able to throw everything we may want into the back of the car and the trunk in the cargo space, if you're in an SUV, whatever it is.

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But biggest consideration of motorcycle is that there's far more limited space and payload capacity than you have in a car.

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And bulky items take up a lot of space. And so often the materials that you choose can have a big impact on the pack size. So there's a few things that I think are good to always have with you when you're making a road trip.

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And going to start with riding gear. I know that there are riders who don't believe in wearing a lot of motorcycle gear.

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Many who don't actually even like to wear helmets. I do believe that a good quality helmet is a wonderful tool, both from a safety perspective. But the other thing, and this is where it becomes more important for longer trips is a good quality helmet can help reduce fatigue. The helmet is protecting you from the elements.

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You don't have bugs smacking into your face. You don't have the wind hitting against you and fighting all of these elements that are surrounding you as you're riding. So you are less fatigued when you have a good quality helmet. And those elements, hey, it starts raining you're going to be protected from that by having a nice full face helmet. I like for long road trips is actually a modular or a flip lid. They offer a few big benefits that really help the rider who is going on these tours, who's going on these longer rides? One is they often have better weather sealing around the neck, and this helps to make them quieter than a full face or an open face helmet would be. Again, helps to reduce that fatigue aspect. This keeps it quieter and helps maintain temperature so you don't have all this variation of it suddenly gets too hot, suddenly gets too cold. The other advantages, they're very easy to flip up and grab a drink, have a conversation at a stop without fully having to take off your helmet. So it makes it really, really easy to deal with and many of the helmets actually support riding in the up position. So this can be really helpful When you're at slow speeds, maybe you're coming into a town, you can lift up the helmet. You now are going to get a lot more airflow even when you're riding slow. So it kind of becomes a three quarter helmet. The other advantage with a lot of the flip lids is they will have a built in sun visor in most cases. So the sun visor comes down from the helmet, even if the chin bar is in the upper position. So you still have some eye protection that's coming in.

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Now the other thing that I would say is you want to have a good riding jacket and pants that can be adjusted to the weather. Many of those riders who don't like using helmets may also be the same riders who love that classic black leather motorcycle jacket with regular jeans. And that does have an aesthetic to it that is outstanding. And I don't deny that it looks cool, but it doesn't adapt to changing conditions that you could encounter on a trip. The black color is going to absorb much more heat in the summer, making you feel even hotter than the temperatures would suggest. And some riders will also figure, Hey, you know what? I'm going to carry some rain gear and I'll put that over my gear if it rains. And while that can work, it takes up space in your pack and it's at the expense of you taking something else along. And oftentimes those rain suits don't breathe very well. So you're left with this sort of clammy feeling while you're riding in the rain from your sweat and in all the moisture.

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So I really do suggest that if you're going to go on these longer trips, there are better options. And one of the ones that is pretty common, you'll see this on a lot of BMW riders a textile jacket. These will oftentimes have built in Gore-Tex coating or a liner. And this gives you more flexibility to the changing conditions.

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These often have vents that you can open in clothes with zippers to adjust to changing temperature and textile pants offer the same type of functionality. Now, many long distance riders and commuters turn to an Aerostich RoadCrafter, one piece suit and like a textile suit, because these are made out of textiles, they offer the same Gore-Tex weather protection. So your rain suit and your suit is one and the same. You don't have to switch into it. They have the added benefit that you can wear normal street clothes underneath and zip into and out of the suit in pretty much less than a minute.

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They also can custom size these for you in a variety of colors so you can really make them your own and they last forever. Mine is over 15 years old at this point. The one downside I will say with the road crafter is the venting is more limited and then some other jackets that you can get so they can get a little hotter in the summer. But this does provide a convenience because you don't you actually can wear some street clothes underneath it, which means you need one less pair of clothes that you packed so they can be very space, efficient. The other one that you want to look at is your boots. And I know I may sound like a broken record when it comes to Gore-Tex or any other brand's equivalent. It doesn't have to be a Gore-Tex specific brand. But what you really want is you want a material which will allow water to be prevented from coming in and allow moisture that is on your body to escape, to have the vapour escape out of there so you don't get that clammy feeling and that's really what Gore-Tex is about. You want that in your boots as well because you want to be able to handle any conditions you may face. If you're on a longer trip, you may run into rain and having your feet soaking wet because you don't have waterproof boots is going to make for a very, very uncomfortable trip. So get yourself a good pair of Gore-Tex boots. You'll be much happier while you can get Gore-Tex gloves as well. And I do think that they are a good options with gloves being as small as they are. I'm actually pretty okay with pairing with packing a second set of gloves, so I may have a pair of mesh gloves to support the hottest weather that I may encounter on the trip. And also a pair of Gore-Tex gloves that I can throw on in case it gets a little cooler or in case the weather starts to turn. So I like having a couple of pairs of gloves when it comes to trips because I want to have that flexibility. And they're so small, it's very easy to pack into most any sort of a pack.

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Now, the other one that I would say that you want to think about is your base layers. And this is the most hidden but probably the biggest impact to your overall comfort on a long trip. Base layers can help wick moisture from your body and keep a more consistent temperature and some base layer shorts actually like those from Moto-Skiveez, even have a chamois like those used in bicycle shorts to add some additional padding in the saddle.

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And they oftentimes have different shapes so that you can accommodate ADV riding or cruiser or sport bike postures.

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To even further accentuate that comfort. Now, with base layers, I recommend bringing at least two pairs of base layer so you can swap over to a clean set.

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Now, you might also want a set to support different temperature ranges that you may expect to encounter on a trip. So maybe you have a very a base layer that's oriented more towards a very hot weather and maybe one that's more towards temperate or cooler weather. So you can adjust based upon the conditions that you're going to encounter on your trip. But I would always encourage bringing, at least two.

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now the next thing I want to talk about is for supporting you on the bike. Your motorcycle is your mode of transportation, so you want to ensure that that bike is going to continue to be able to operate for the entirety of your trip. So even if you don't normally perform your own work on your bike, having a good set of portable tools can help get you back on the road, especially of an issue far away from population. You want ensure that your tool set can accommodate the fasteners that are on your bike, whether they're torx or hex and the sizes available on your bike.

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And even something as simple as tightening up a loose mirror can make having some tools with you worth it. other thing that's really important is practice with these tools in your garage before your trip. Look over the various spots on your bike so that you know where the tools are going to be used. You're comfortable with doing any sort of tweaks. I would say is if you are in the over preparing side of the house, bringing more tools will allow you to address more issues on the side of the road. But if you don't know how to use them or how to address the issues on the bike, they just become added weight and storage space. So focus on the tools that you know how to use and the repairs that you are comfortable doing on the side of the road as opposed to everything that you might do in your garage. Fixing a bike on the side of the road is very different experience you might be in wind, you may be in rain, and you're trying to fix this thing on the side of the road.

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You may not be able to do quite as much on the side of the road as you would do at home. So just be cognizant of that. Now, there are some tool sets that are targeting motorcyclists on the road like those from Cruz tools, and these often come in packages aimed at your type of bike. They provide tools that work with metric or SAE even TORX fasteners, and most will be a smaller size, allowing them to take up less space. But because of that, they aren't really meant for frequent use, like your home tools. But But they can be a good option to split the difference between carrying more tools and not using a lot of space. So I think they are a wonderful option. there are some items that are universal and worth bringing along no matter what kind of bike you have. So the first one is if you are on a motorcycle having a chain drive train, you need to bring chain cleaner and lube, as you will almost certainly need to use this on any road trip because most bikes recommend cleaning and lubing your chain every 500 miles. And unless it's really a day trip, that I once you kind of go in for a couple of days, if you're doing that 250, 300 mile days, you're going to hit 500 miles in a couple of days.

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So you're going to need to clean and lube that chain. If your bike has a center stand, you can easily move the rear wheel to cover all of the chain. But otherwise, you may want to look at something like a roller wheel set where you can put this underneath the rear tire and then still be able to rotate the rear wheel to be able to cover all the chain. There's also some swing arm lifters that you can use that can lift that up, almost acts like a portable center stand in a way so that you can make lubing that chain a little bit easier. of Another one that some people will like to bring onto a trip is bring an extra quart of oil. Across many miles. You know, your bike might burn off some oil. So being able to add some on the road rather than relying on having to find a shop that has the right oil for your particular motorcycle can help set your mind at ease.

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There's one other aspect for motorcycles that I think again is a universal that I would encourage everyone to have at all times. And this is depending upon the type of tires you have on your motorcycle, if it's a dual sport, some ADV bikes. And it's usually going to have spoked wheels. You may have a tubed tire, so bringing along a spare tube is going to be very helpful for those. But if you're on a large full dress, Harley, let's say with tubed tires, the likelihood of you be able to get that wheel off to change a tube on the side of the road is probably not as highly likely.

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So you have to be pragmatic on this. But if you have a motorcycle that has tubeless tires and the vast majority of motorcycles will have tubeless tires. Getting a plug kit at an inflator is really, really easy.

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Small punctures can be patched on the side of the road to get you going again. Many of these plug kits do include like CO2 cartridges, which you can use to try to refill the tire after you've patched the hole. And these can work. But remember, each cartridge has limited capacity, and you may need several of them to refill your tire, especially if you didn't fully plug it on the first go.

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You might plug it, fill it, and then find that the air is still leaking out and have to re plug it. And you've now used up your CO2 cartridge. So for those I personally like bringing an electric pump. There's some that you can plug directly into the bike, whether it's going through, let's say, like a din plug that you may have. Unlike some of the European brands, the BMW is the KTM. So oftentimes have a din accessory plug or if you have one that can plug directly into a maybe you have a battery tender pigtail on your bike going directly into the battery.

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Some of them will actually allow you to plug directly into that SAE plug and then power the electric pumps.

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If you are riding with a group of some other riders, one of the best things you can do is actually bring a Bluetooth headset. And this allows you to actually intercom with some of your fellow riders as you're riding along. We actually have a great article on the website that goes into a lot of detail on various motorcycle headsets and some of the pros and cons of each one. And this would be another avenue that you could explore and see if this is the right choice for you. The other benefit of headsets is if you wanted to listen to music along the ride, you can do that with them. They can often interface with a GPS so you can hear turn by turn directions. they're usually a pretty good option to have for some of your longer trips. Whereas on a day trip where you know the road and going along, they may not need it. But for those long trips, having a Bluetooth headset, I think it's a really helpful advantage. So and is one that probably everybody already has in their pocket already is a cell phone. You never know if you're going to get stuck by the side of the road. You need to call for a tow truck or whatever.

00:31:41.087 --> 00:32:11.095
really Having a cell phone is a no brainer when it comes to travel, of course, made this but not every place that you're traveling long will have cell coverage. And this is where a another communication tool, a satellite communicator like Garmin, InReach the Zolio, the spot messengers. These would be another great option that you can use for a trip and allow you to communicate, ask for help, whatever you may need while you're traveling.

00:32:14.637 --> 00:32:24.268
If you're going on this wonderful road trip, you probably want to capture some memories along the way, as they say. Pics or it didn't happen.

00:32:20.758 --> 00:32:28.048
And bringing a camera along can help you ensure that you do that.

00:32:24.268 --> 00:32:58.782
Now, almost everybody has a cell phone, and most cell phones today have pretty good cameras on them. You may also want to consider a dedicated camera. And the reason for this is that while the quality of phone cameras has continued to improve over time and you can get pretty good quality images and videos out of a device that you already have sitting in your pocket. And most phones have sensors that are smaller than about six millimetres wide. And the smaller the sensor, the less light it can gather. So low light images will often suffer.

00:32:55.099 --> 00:33:33.648
What some riders will do is bring a higher quality camera with them. And this could be something like a compact point and shoot type camera. It could be one of the new mirrorless cameras, which are more compact than the older SLR cameras. For example, I have a Sony RX100 that I take with me on most of my trips, including some of the coffee rides that I do for a Tank of Coffee. And it's very small. It has a one inch sensor, so it is significantly larger than my iPhone's camera would be, but it's much better quality, certainly in low light than I would have. And it has a zoom lens, which is also pretty fast.

00:33:29.778 --> 00:35:22.202
So it gives me a decent range of the kind of images that I can take with a camera that's small enough to really, quite honestly fit easily into a tank bag, even a windshield bag, or even just a jacket pocket. So it's not that big, but a larger camera, like an aps-c or even a full frame camera would make this even better, but it is significantly larger. So there's that trade off in size and weight, and we are at a premium for size and in weight on a motorcycle. Another one that's become quite popular for motorcycles is carrying an action camera. And this can allow you to capture some really great video along your trip. Now, GoPro, of course, made this style very popular, but there's other brands that have become available that can fit that same typical form factor. There's ones from DJI INSTA360 and these newer cameras often have higher resolution. They may have additional sensors, including GPS, that can allow you to overlay maps in editing. And some even have sensors like your phone that can keep the horizon level in the camera so you won't have that rotating around or jiggling as you're going. It really feels like a much more stabilized view, and this is something that's pretty powerful that you can get with a lot of these action cameras. And there's plenty of mounting options on your bike to allow for different angles. Several Moto vloggers use these with one facing them from the cockpit, maybe mounted on the handlebar facing towards them and another one they mounted on a chin bar so that they can see out. And it's a very common to be able to use those two cameras and then switch angles and editing so they can get a more visually interesting option. The newer kind of camera that a lot of people are bringing for motorcycle trips is a 360 camera, and Insta360 is one of the biggest brands in the space.

00:35:18.362 --> 00:35:50.628
GoPro also has a 360 model, though, so you can use whichever ecosystem you're more comfortable with. And unlike a traditional action camera, A360 camera typically has two sensors and two lenses that are set 180 degrees from one another, and the camera can stitch these two views together to give a full 360 degree view. Now with that, you can actually pick a field of view as small or as wide as you like, so you can actually make it look just like an action camera point of view would be.

00:35:47.514 --> 00:36:13.585
And this can be done in your editing software afterwards. But the beauty of it is because it captured all 360 degrees, you'll never miss the shot with these cameras because you can always reposition the camera to capture the field of view that aligns for the thing that is of interest to you as you're going along. Now, these often have very similar overall resolution to some of the action cameras.

00:36:15.054 --> 00:37:29.431
These may be, you know, 4K, five, K, even eight K is pretty common nowadays, but that is in full 360 view. Once you crop into a smaller field of view, the overall megapixels will be smaller than a typical action camera, so the quality won't be quite as good when you've framed in. But the tradeoff is you're much more likely to have gotten the shot with a 360 camera. Now some people pair them with an action cam, so you're fully covered. You might have maybe a chin mount action camera that's going to get you a nice, high quality front facing view and maybe have a 360 camera also mounted so you can get some shots of you viewing back, some side shots. You can pick and choose the other options that you want. So there are wonderful add on as an other type of way of capturing your ride and they're pretty easy to be able to mount. can actually get some that have an extended pole so you can shift them out a good distance from the motorcycle and be able to get some really interesting perspectives, almost like you were being followed by a drone. So it's pretty cool what you can do with these 360 cameras. Of course, no matter what kind of camera you're choosing to bring with you, all these extra cameras are going to need spare batteries as well as extra memory cards.

00:37:29.335 --> 00:38:09.009
Now, one other thing that I would say for any sort of a road trip almost becomes more critical than a day trip is oftentimes we think, oh, well, I can just stop along the way, I can grab a snack, I can grab some water. And that's true. But maybe you get hungry or thirsty in the nearest place to eat is pretty far away or even it's closed. And maybe you have a breakdown where you might not be able to reach your planned stop for many hours. So having a little bit of water and snacks with you doesn't take up a lot of room, but it can make a huge difference in keeping you comfortable. So that covers the type of gear that I think makes sense for you to bring with you on the bike.

00:38:09.876 --> 00:38:54.389
talked a little bit in the planning of if you want to think about where you're going to be staying each night. Now, for a lot of people, the normal de facto decision of where they're going to stay is probably going to be staying in a hotel or a motel. We're used to having a warm, comfortable bed at home, a full shower and bathroom, and we may want to have that when we're on the bike to be able to get the road grime off each day. The thing is, motels and hotels can tend to be more expensive between room charges and taxes. You'll often spend at least $100 per day unless you find a particularly frugal motel. The other thing is that when you get to the hotel, you probably don't want to be walking around in your riding gear. So you want to have a change of street clothes to wear.

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And especially when you get to the end of a day, this can feel really very comforting to change out of the same gear that you've been riding in the whole day.

00:39:03.012 --> 00:39:53.507
But because of limited space on a bike, you may want to consider bringing some synthetic clothes as they can often roll up into a smaller size than natural fibers like cotton would. So if you think of well a pair of jeans, I'll just throw a couple pairs of jeans and, well, jeans take up a lot more space than some of those synthetic, let's say, camping pants, which will be able to pack down to a much, much smaller size. You can fit more stuff in with those type of clothes than you would have with cotton. Same thing goes for shirts. So if you have a bunch of t shirts that are made out of cotton, they will take up more pack size than a equivalent t shirt made out of synthetic fibers because you've chosen to go hoteling. You may have a little bit more space budget to spare with your street clothes, so it might be okay to do those cotton clothes if that's what you feel more comfortable in.

00:39:54.016 --> 00:40:00.586
But if you're already using one of those Aerostich Roadcrafter suits, you already have street clothes on underneath the suit.

00:40:01.036 --> 00:40:11.356
So you really only need one or two other sets. And this is the big thing. I think a lot of people think of, Well, I'm going to be on this trip for five days, so I need five pairs of clothes.

00:40:11.956 --> 00:40:58.851
The reality is that most hotels will have laundry options you can clean the prior day's clothes. And if you're on a ten day trip, packing ten days worth of street clothes would take a huge amount of space. And you're on a motorcycle. There's not that much pack space. So instead, consider bringing maybe 2 to 3 sets that you can switch each day and wash the others that the other advantage of those synthetic clothes that I mentioned is that they often dry much quicker than cotton. So if you're washing in your sink, let's say they don't have laundry facilities, you can actually wash your clothes in your sink, hang them in the shower and they'll be dry by the next morning when you get up. So it's much more practical with synthetics that you can pack fewer clothes and still be able to have things that are clean each day.

00:41:02.164 --> 00:41:35.454
The thing I love with motorcycles is you're already out in nature on the bike and when you're camping, you're out in nature again. So to me, camping on a motorcycle is a perfect pairing. You can sit around the campfire, you can make dinner, you can talk with your friends. If it's been a group trip, you have this camaraderie of remarking and talking about the ride of the sights that you saw along the way. But you do need to bring more gear with you to support camping than you do in hotels.

00:41:30.405 --> 00:41:58.387
And so I want to cover a couple little highlights of what you might want to consider as you're going out for camping on a motorcycle. Again, we get back to that overriding concern with the motorcycle, which is I have very limited pack size. When you're going camping, the first consideration tends to be shelter, and most people tend to think of a tent in this regard. But a camping hammock is another consideration.

00:41:58.320 --> 00:42:18.532
There are a few distinct advantage ages that a camping hammock has over a tent that allows that pack size to be much smaller. And I'm going to talk about them because there's three of them that I'm going to really highlight. You already have a chair built into your hammock, so you don't need to carry another chair with you. Second, you don't need a sleeping pad.

00:42:18.862 --> 00:43:19.550
The hammock already provides the most comfortable sleeping environment, and the gentle rocking makes you feel like a baby in a crib. And the third, because the hammock is suspended above the ground, you can set up in areas with plenty of roots and not have to worry about them poking you in the middle of the night. But there is one downside to a hammock. You need trees at the right distance apart to be able to set up. And an open field like those at many BMW MOA rallies won't work. While there are some add ons that you can give some supports to set up anywhere for a hammock. These do add more bulk to your pack and more setup time, which may reduce the advantages of a hammock over a tent. this brings us to the. Traditional backpacking. Now, most people, when they think of those self-standing tents, common in backpacking circles, these are the ones that most motorcyclists will choose to use. Now, I have one made by Big Agnes. It's called the Copper Spur. It doesn't take up a lot of space.

00:43:16.070 --> 00:43:29.420
It sets up pretty fast because it's this self-standing tent. I can actually assemble the tent and I can pick it up and move it if I need to adjust for roots or whatever that are on the ground.

00:43:25.851 --> 00:43:56.795
But there's even now some bike packing versions with shorter pole sections. Now, these were originally designed for bicycles, but many motorcyclists are now taking advantage of using these versions since the Poles can often fit inside of their pannier bags. The beauty of this is it's probably the best option for most people. And if you also ride bicycles or hike this same tent can be used for camping with those other activities.

00:43:53.885 --> 00:44:34.306
These tents tend to be quite lightweight, and while weight is less of a concern on a motorcycle, when you're bicycle riding or hiking, having lightweight becomes critical. So if you want a single tent to do it all, a traditional backpacking tent, specifically one of these bikepacking tents is probably the best option. But I do want to cover a oddball option. And this is it's actually the newest tent that I've personally bought and the one I specifically have is by Wingman of the Road, and it's called the Toucan, which is their two person tent. We actually have a full review of this tent on our website, so I'll link that in the show notes.

00:44:31.275 --> 00:44:38.025
But here's the super short concept for what this tent does.

00:44:34.306 --> 00:45:25.782
It's a canvas tent as opposed to the nylon material that's common in backpacking tents. This does make it heavier and more bulky than those tents. Now, while this doesn't sound like a good thing thus far, it has a few tricks up its sleeve that aren't evident on first glance. The first is the tent has the mattress and the sleeping bag already installed inside of it, from being strapped to the bike to you lying down in the tent, in your sleeping bag is less than 5 minutes. It's easily the fastest setup of any tent that I own. And while that copper spur tent from Big Agnes I mentioned earlier is also a very fast setup, you still need to set up your sleeping bag. In the Wingman of the Road, It's already all together. And this is the reason for that extra bulk. Since it's everything you need, including the sleep gear.

00:45:26.385 --> 00:46:21.521
Now, what about that material choice of canvas? Well, this is a naturally waterproof material as the fibers expand to fill in any holes. But this also means that the tent can breathe so you don't get the condensation that you get inside of a plastic tent, like a typical bulk backpacking tent. So it is less of a clammy feeling. The other thing is that canvas is light tight. And what I mean by that is most of the plastic tents, you know, it's sunrise immediately because the sun is passing through the material of the tent exterior and you feel the the light of the day as soon as it comes up in the wingman of the road tent, you can sleep in as much as you like, because if you've closed all of the window sections that open up mesh, it's pitch black in there. You won't even know that it's daylight. It's amazing.

00:46:21.530 --> 00:46:54.213
So you can sleep in as long as you want. The second thing that this does is the temperature are maintained more consistently than in a plastic tent. In a plastic tent. If you're camping in the middle of summer the tents sitting in the middle of the field, let's say an X is exposed to the sun by the middle of the afternoon, it is baking inside of that tent and absolutely horrible to be inside of. And that the lack of light penetration in a canvas tent keeps that tent cooler when you're coming in after that day.

00:46:51.304 --> 00:47:18.161
So it's really amazing when you get into this tent, you're like, wow, it feels the same temperatures outside. It's not 20, 30 degrees warmer like it would be in a typical plastic backpacking tent. And this works the same way as the cold weather because it actually insulates when it's colder at night. And if you've ever been in a regular backpacking tent, that thin shell, all the cold comes right in through that. So it's not providing any insulation at all.

00:47:18.550 --> 00:47:49.956
So the canvas does insulate a lot better. It's a much more standard or consistent temperature that you're going to find. So while it's bulky, these features do add to convenience and comfort. So I actually really do like it, and I think it balances well for many road riders. I love putting it onto my BMW. R 18. I think any sort of the older style bikes, it looks really at home. It just looks like an old bed roll. Now I mentioned I have the Toucan, which is their two person tent.

00:47:50.706 --> 00:48:14.068
I'm six foot three, so I'm a bit on the taller side. So this it's a little bit longer than their single solo tent. So for me, it's the one that I chose. It gives me a little bit more headroom. But if you're a shorter rider, the single person tent may be a good option for you. It does pack a little bit smaller. We do have a full review on this on the website, so I will put the link in the show notes.

00:48:14.565 --> 00:48:41.217
Okay. So we focused on your shelters. The next thing you need to think about for when you're camping is your sleeping gear. Now, if you're not using that wingman on the road tent, which has the sleeping pad and the sleeping bag included in it, you're going to need to think about adding those into your camping setups. So if you're doing, let's say, like the backpacking tent, you're going to need a sleeping pad and you need this for two reasons.

00:48:38.398 --> 00:49:18.695
Number one is you want to provide some comfort from the hard ground. The second is to insulate you from the ground and avoid a cold spot. If you were to just sleep on your sleeping bag directly against the hard ground, what's actually happening is you are compressing the insulating material and now it's not going to provide as much warmth. So you get these cold spots. So the sleeping pad is not only just providing a mattress type of a feel, but it is also providing insulation to keep your temperature more consistent around the entire 360 of that sleeping bag. Now, the other one that you need, of course, is your sleeping bag.

00:49:18.876 --> 00:50:01.771
And this is what keeps you warm at night. These are oftentimes rated in degrees for the coldest temperature that they are designed for. But most bags, that's the survival temperature, not a comfort temperature. So it's often a good idea to get a bag that's rated ten degrees Fahrenheit colder than you'd expect to face. Now, synthetic fill is cheaper than down, but nothing beats down for both pack size as well as warmth. It may be with the limited space on a motorcycle worth investing the additional expense for getting a down sleeping bag because you will save some space relative to synthetic fill.

00:50:05.376 --> 00:50:24.342
Okay, we've covered your shelter. We've covered your sleeping options. The next thing you need is what you're going to cook. How are you going to eat when you're at your campsite and cook gear can add a lot to your pack size. So you need to decide how much you want to cook and what kind of meals you'll have.

00:50:24.702 --> 00:50:49.902
Now, the smallest and simplest setup is just a stove to heat water, and if you just want to have coffee in the morning, you can get away with a small stove and pot with limited controls for simmering. This also works great for dehydrated meals. Now I always have coffee with me, so I'm always got at least a stove like this. We had a an episode earlier where we talked about how you can make coffee while you're camping on a motorcycle.

00:50:50.172 --> 00:51:05.286
So I'd encourage you to listen to that to understand why this can be so wonderful for camping on there. But there are more advanced stoves that have more pot or cooking options, as well as some fine grained control for simmering.

00:51:05.820 --> 00:51:32.728
Now, for food options, you have a few different ways that you can do this. Now, you could carry food with you or you can purchase it locally. So what a lot of people will do is they may set up their tent, get everything unpacked, run into the local town and pick up some food to bring back and cook. And that's certainly a very good option. You can bring things like other seasonings. You can use some of the fresh ingredients that you can buy.

00:51:29.248 --> 00:51:53.739
But a third option is you could bring a dehydrated meal. The advantage of this is you really just need to boil water so you can have a simpler stove. You don't need to carry around a whole bunch of other pots and pans and seasoning for it. The downside is the meal is a little bit more limited. It's effectively a pre-built meal and not going to necessarily be the tastiest thing under the sun.

00:51:53.739 --> 00:52:07.652
But there are some ones that are pretty decent. I use this one. I did a backcountry discovery route because I wasn't sure how close to any sort of civilization I was going to be camping each night and having the food with me just made it a lot easier to be able to deal with.

00:52:08.342 --> 00:52:19.762
The other one that you want to think of is around your campsite. Just like when you're in a hotel, you probably want to change out of your riding gear.

00:52:16.132 --> 00:53:06.255
There are motorcyclists who will just sit around the campfire in the riding gear, and that's certainly an option. It does allow you to minimize that pack size. But I personally really love getting out of my riding gear into some more comfortable clothes that I could use. And just like I said, with the hotel camping, I really encourage you to look at synthetic camp clothes because they pack up very small, they dry very quickly. You may also want to have some different socks than the ones that you're using in your riding. Boots are switching into those can be helpful. It may be chilly at night, so maybe you want a small down jacket that packs very small, but it can be perfect to keep you warm around the campsite. And this is often more comfortable than a motorcycle jacket, but you have to balance that available space versus the comfort on your pack size that you want to deal with.

00:53:06.273 --> 00:53:21.106
And finally, one other thing you might want to consider adding into your pack for a round. The campsite is a camp chair. You want to have some comfort while you're sitting around the campfire. While you're relaxing.

00:53:16.516 --> 00:53:45.766
And while you could sit on a log, you could maybe sit on a rock that's there. I find bringing a camp chair is a worthwhile luxury because I don't know what the conditions around the campsite will be. Now, I happen to be a big fan of the Helinox chairs. They actually make something called the Chair One Its a very compact, lightweight chair. It's very quick to set up and it does not take a huge amount of space in your panniers.

00:53:49.431 --> 00:53:55.340
Whenever you're going on any trip is always have some water and some snacks with you.

00:53:52.041 --> 00:54:21.847
But when you're camping especially, you probably want to have more because this is your place that you're staying. You don't have a sink that you're going be able to get water out of. You really want to have some water that you've brought with you. And what I like to do is I bring a giant loop cactus. And this is canteen that's available in sizes ranging from one gallon to five gallons. And for solo use, I find the one gallon is perfect and I can usually refill it on the road at a very stop.

00:54:18.771 --> 00:54:37.903
You know, even if you're just buying bottled water and then pouring it into the canteen, that works super easily. I can strap it to the top of my other bag so it's easy to access and this gives me enough water to both drink, make coffee, cook any dehydrated meals at camp.

00:54:38.264 --> 00:54:47.713
And because it's a soft pouch as it empties, it becomes more compact. So I really like this as an option for camping to make sure that you have enough water with you.

00:54:51.445 --> 00:55:07.119
We've covered a lot. We discussed some of the range of planning so you can go from a go with the flow that can exist with just a few tools for route planning and navigation to massively planning in advance.

00:55:04.157 --> 00:55:36.467
We covered some gear that you may want to bring along to make your trip more comfortable, but also to help you document it with like cameras. We'll also talked about running tools like spares, fluids, all these things that can keep you running while you're on the road. And we've also talked about hotel versus camping and what gear you might want to consider for each of those as a chair. I'm personally a big fan of Moto Camping, both for the experience but also for the savings per night versus hotels. Now there is an upfront expense for camping, but I think you will save in the long run.

00:55:36.467 --> 00:56:00.548
And as I said to me, it just creates this wonderful, wonderful combination with the ride. So I hope that this has given you some good ideas for how you may think about your next road how you may want to consider putting that together and what you might want to think about. But I'd love to hear from you. Is is there an aspect of motorcycle road trips that you think that I missed or that I should cover in more detail?

00:56:00.998 --> 00:56:09.067
Text the show through the link in the show notes or leave us a voicemail at throttle on road sitcom slash voicemail. Thanks for listening and we'll talk to you next week.

Essential Tips for a Memorable Motorcycle Road Trip Adventure

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