Boondocking on a Bike? MC travel on the cheap

[Brodie]

One thing I find really handy when I'm out tent camping is to have a couple of ShamWows with me - 'As Seen On TV' . They pack small, hold a ton of water when wet, wring out nearly dry, and dry quickly in the breeze. I have a big orange one for the bike, and several small blue ones for camp use, along with a collapsible packable bucket (Sea to Summit Ultra-Sil Kitchen Sink - 10 liter) from REI.

I've found that a small blue ShamWow is all you need for personal shower and hygiene use. Soap it up to wash yourself with, then rinse it out real good, wring it out and dry yourself off with it. No need to carry a space wasting terry cloth towel and wash cloth.

I'm jealous!

Go out and enjoy yourself in this great backyard of ours - You dirty dog !

Brodie

;-)

 

[ionbeam]

... I'm thinking I already lost over 4700 grams when I decided to go it alone..

You need to review the math on that one!...I am also looking for a small one burner gasoline stove. Compact is nice but not if it costs too much; weight doesn't really matter to me...

Fred doesn't have a math problem he just ran out of zeros before he was done

Frugal Yankee stove, small, light, and wicked cheap:



[/Friday]

 

[RossKean]

https://www.campstovewizard.com/dual-fuel-stove.html

A little background stove information. I see they have a Coleman 442 (in addition to the 533 mentioned above). Seems to be smaller but I don't see as many retailers carrying it. Good reviews and cheaper than some of the backpacker stoves.

 

[Geezer]

https://www.campstovewizard.com/dual-fuel-stove.html
A little background stove information. I see they have a Coleman 442 (in addition to the 533 mentioned above). Seems to be smaller but I don't see as many retailers carrying it. Good reviews and cheaper than some of the backpacker stoves.

Even at have the cost of the 533, you can buy a lot of cups of coffee before it pays for itself. And if you don't cook you don't have to pack all the fixings and spend time cleaning up. When you calculate the cost of the equipment and supplies you aren't saving much.

Personally, I do not carry any cooking equipment, I just buy a cup of coffee when I want one. It is part of the traveling experience to see what coffee tastes like at various places around the country. Sometimes good, sometimes not.

 

[Checkswrecks]

MSR Whiperlite for $79 is really hard to beat. You can re-sell it for most of that later.

I've seen too many Colemans rust, so swore off of them.

That said, Craigslist ALWAYS has a bunch of camp stoves for sale, cheap.

 

[Fred W]

One thing I find really handy when I'm out tent camping is to have a couple of ShamWows with me - 'As Seen On TV' . They pack small, hold a ton of water when wet, wring out nearly dry, and dry quickly in the breeze. I have a big orange one for the bike, and several small blue ones for camp use, along with a collapsible packable bucket (Sea to Summit Ultra-Sil Kitchen Sink - 10 liter) from REI.
I've found that a small blue ShamWow is all you need for personal shower and hygiene use. Soap it up to wash yourself with, then rinse it out real good, wring it out and dry yourself off with it. No need to carry a space wasting terry cloth towel and wash cloth.

Sham Wow? Who'd a thunk it? Now that's a great tip!!

As seen on TV...

... I'm thinking I already lost over 4700 grams when I decided to go it alone..

You need to review the math on that one!...I am also looking for a small one burner gasoline stove. Compact is nice but not if it costs too much; weight doesn't really matter to me...

Fred doesn't have a math problem he just ran out of zeros before he was done

Yeah, those zeroes can get expensive, and like I said, I'm on a tight budget.

No, seriously, I've known what a "kilo" is since those fuzzily remembered days of high school economics.

Buy it by the kilo, sell it by the ounce. What sense does any of that make?

But more on that weight savings thing in a minute....

Frugal Yankee stove, small, light, and wicked cheap:

Yeah, that is wicked cheap. Maybe just a little too cheap for my tastes.

https://www.campstovewizard.com/dual-fuel-stove.html
A little background stove information. I see they have a Coleman 442 (in addition to the 533 mentioned above). Seems to be smaller but I don't see as many retailers carrying it. Good reviews and cheaper than some of the backpacker stoves.

Even at have the cost of the 533, you can buy a lot of cups of coffee before it pays for itself. And if you don't cook you don't have to pack all the fixings and spend time cleaning up. When you calculate the cost of the equipment and supplies you aren't saving much.

Personally, I do not carry any cooking equipment, I just buy a cup of coffee when I want one. It is part of the traveling experience to see what coffee tastes like at various places around the country. Sometimes good, sometimes not.

Good financial point, Greg. But I'm a caffeine addict and I have to have a cup'a to get myself moving in the morning, in more ways than one. I'm seriously in a fog until I choke down at least one. Besides, there is nothing quite so fine as to start the day with a healthy-size mug of joe, which is closely followed by enjoying your daily constitutional. Anything less... just doesn't feel civilized!

I really appreciate all of the advice. I knew I could count on many of you to share your tips and tricks, and you have all come through in spades. I do plan on using most of them. But the plan for this trip has now morphed a little bit and I'll be adding that 4700(0) grams of weight back on the bike after all. Yeah, as we started talking more about my planned adventure, with the goal of reaching the continental divide and riding the roads in Montana and Wyoming for a couple of days, my bride (and the best pillion ever, I might add) has said that she would be interested in coming along. That, my friends, changes everything.

So, we are going to do this one two up, which means no room on the bike for the camping gear. She's not into the camping thing anyway. We'll have to find the cheap motels each night wherever we can. You see... once you include the missus in on the travel plan, those purse strings get loosened up a bit.

I still plan on taking about the same general routes, Out along the north, return a little further south, picking it more or less on the fly depending on the weather, but I'll plan on doing it in ~5 days each way instead of 4 (for her sake), and we'll plan to spend ~4 days in the Rockies instead of 2 (for both of our sakes). Just being the two of us, we'll still have freedom to change plans whenever and wherever we want to.

I'm sure that I'll have an opportunity to do the lone wolf solo ride and include some light camping / boondocking sometime in the near future. To be honest, I should probably give it a try on a smaller scale ride first to see if I even like it. So all of your advice will be used and is truly and greatly appreciated. And who knows, maybe a few of those tips or ideas has been helpful to other folks, or just motivation to get out and do it.

 

[timk]

KOA cabins for just you would be close to the same price as a motel room.

 

[Twigg]

When we do this we take a small French Press anyway ... and our favourite coffee. It packs really small and you can buy milk at any gas station.

 

[gregory]

I only do 1 cup o joe a day, so not having coffee is no big deal. I'll just get a Starbucks mocha from the store and call it my morning jolt.

 

[airboss]

I'm with Fred on this. Nothing happens without that first cup of coffee in the morning.

As far as how to brew it up? Still waiting for the IV pump to hit the market.

 

[Bokerfork]

Freddddddddd.

So disappointed. Really? Suddenly 2up?

Sooooooooooooooooooo disappointed.

Man card please.

 

[Checkswrecks]

Wanna keep her your best friend? Fly her to Denver and meet her there.

The middle part of the country is the most fatiguing boring slab in the world, takes about 2-3 days of non-stop wind gusts, and usually long days of hot mugginess or rain. Get an Iron Butt award or two to make the miles pass.

Do it once and you'll understand. It's cheaper than selling the bike as part of a divorce settlement.

 

[Twigg]

The middle part of the country is the most fatiguing boring slab in the world, takes about 2-3 days of non-stop wind gusts, and usually long days of hot mugginess or rain. Get an Iron Butt award or two to make the miles pass.

This is only partly true

Depending on your route, the middle of the country is actually quite varied, often staggeringly beautiful, and unlike anything you will see east of the Mississippi.

If you make the mistake of simply riding across Kansas or Nebraska, then sure, you are in for about 10 hours of "wondering what is next on the satellite radio channel you are listening to". It doesn't have to be this way if you can take your time and try a few directions other then due west.

Heat ... yes, a lot of heat. Wind too but that tends to be in a corridor running north/south about 200 miles wide and centered on the Texas Panhandle. You'll see a lot of wind farms, and you will know why they put them there!

Whatever, you are on a motorcycle and it's fun

Edit: If you ride the 500 miles across Nebraska or Kansas, then there will come a point where you are more than ready for some variety of scenery. If you drop south and ride that same distance across Oklahoma, it is not the same. You will get the green of Northeast OK ... You will run through the Glass Mountains before you finally hit the prairie of the Oklahoma Panhandle. A few hours later the landscape changes to the desert of New Mexico where, if you turn north, you ride watching the Rockies grow larger.

Really, it gets no better than this

 

[Geezer]

Freddddddddd.So disappointed. Really? Suddenly 2up?

Sooooooooooooooooooo disappointed.

Man card please.

You say that because you don't know Josie. She will be just fine, and Fred will enjoy the trip a lot more because she is with him. Even if it means riding across...... Kansas.

 

[Fred W]

Thanks, Greg. (and I'm going to tell her you said that!)

Yes, there is a reason that I sometimes refer to her as TMJ. Afterall, she puts up with me every day, doesn't she?

It is still up in the air as to whether she will come along or not, but I'm really wanting to make this trip one way or the other, so I am still preparing for either possibility.

And no, I'm not planning on riding thru Kansas or Nebraska, or going thru Denver, or Colorado at all for that matter. Too far south for me. My rough plan is to cut thru Canada avoiding the cities (Trawna and Ottawa) and go thru the UP of Michigan (cause I've always wanted to) the northern corner of Wisconsin, cross MN, then drop down into South Dakota. So S Dakota will be the only real flatland droning on the way out, at least until the Black Hills.

Way back may be a bit further south. But the way I look at it, the journey will be the destination. If we make it to WY and MT and see the parks great. If our plans change along the way and I don't make it that far, but still get to ride around North America for 2 weeks, oh well, it will still have been a total success.

Oh, one other little thing: TMJ will ride on the back of my bike all day long with nary a complaint, but she will not fly, especially not alone.

 

[RossKean]

That's pretty darn close to the route I took from Vancouver to home via Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan (into Canada @ Sarnia and back to US @ Niagara Falls)Upstate New York and home via VT, NH, ME.

If you haven't done it, Southern Minnesota (I did highway) is pretty much a drone as well. Green but you may never want to eat (or even see) corn again.

 

[Brodie]

Fred

If your very best friend is coming along for the ride adventure make sure your pilot to passenger communications system is working flawlessly. If you are running a Audiocom or Starcom, it would be a good idea to carry an extra headset in the event one craps out. A few years back my 3 month old Starcom headset failed on day 2 of a multi week trip. Because this unit was a proprietary design, and is typically obtained on-line, I was SOL for the trip. Good thing I ran with 2 other FJRs, if there were a mighty V twin in the group the constant exhaust note would have driven me bonkers without my iPod piped into my helmet. At least the lack of communications from my Starcom system didn't ruin it for my riding buddies, They both had cobbled together systems that didn't work well either. We were running 'Old School' on that trip - plenty of hand gestures between us.

One note, it was because this fourth headset failing so soon, that I researched and invested in the Sena bluetooth system. This system has become so popular that you can get a replacement unit (should the need arise) almost anywhere. Try finding a starcom headset at your local Cycle Gear.

I envy the guys who's brides enjoy riding along with them, consider yourself blessed.

Have a great trip - the both of ya !

Brodie

 

[hppants]

Fred:

I'm enjoying this thread - I'm not cheap, but a value-oriented consumer, so everyone can learn something new. I have 5 comments:

1. Every Army Corp of Engineers (ACOE) camp site that I've stayed at has been very cheap, extremely well maintained, nearly desolate, and with plenty of amenities for the price.

2. You can cook at your camp site for a fraction of the cost of eating out, and without having to tote a ton of stuff. My entire "Kitchen" resides in my 29-liter top box with room to spare for other things. Good meals too - see any one of my ride reports for more info.

3. Regardless, you should loosely plan to get a cheap motel every 5 or so days. Hopefully, it will fall on a bad weather day. You can wash clothes and re-charge your batteries (all of them).

4. Go get lost in Advrider.com. Those guys have done this and done this very cheaply.

5. (this might sting a little, take it easy)

Quit planning this shit to death. You and I seem to be cut from the same cloth. I totally understand your inner need to comfort yourself in the planning, and there's definitely benefit to situational awareness. But get this, and it took me a couple of years to really understand it.... the REAL adventure doesn't truly start until you throw the plan in the garbage. The un-knowing is the beauty of the motorcycle tour.

Oh - 1 more suggestion.... bring your camera and share your adventure with us.

Peace, brother.

 

[ionbeam]

...make sure your pilot to passenger communications system is working flawlessly. If you are running a Audiocom or Starcom, it would be a good idea to carry an extra headset...I researched and invested in the Sena bluetooth system. This system has become so popular that you can get a replacement unit (should the need arise) almost anywhere...

I assure you that Fred has the communicators, GPS, phone and music all sorted out. I'm pretty sure that Fred could use a Bic lighter, aluminum foil from a candy bar wrapper and pieces of a wire brush to rebuild any part of his electronic or electrical systems. I would expect Fred to be able to make a USB charger and supplemental batteries from a lemon, a nail and a copper penny. Fred (with pillion) has even been able to ride to a gas station after having already run out of gas. I think Fred can get past any obstacle in his path unless it happens to be a micro-brewery or craftsman rolled cigar shop

 

[Fred W]

Ha, ha... I appreciate your confidence, Alan. But where the heck do you find lemons when out on the road in South Dakota?

Yeah, for some reason my comms / GPS system comprised of a Starcom1 Advance (not digital) and zumo 550 has been very reliable (knock on wood). I have yet to have a headset fail on me in the 5+ years I've been running it on every ride. I have some extra headsets already (to fit into other helmets) so bringing along an extra would be a good idea.

By the way, I have found a place that sell Starcom1 compatible headsets for less than $20 ea. The Motocom Riderlink ST-1 system has an identical pin-out cabling as the Starcom1 headsets that go for 3-4 times more $$, and they will sell you the headsets separately from their website.

5. (this might sting a little, take it easy)
Quit planning this shit to death. You and I seem to be cut from the same cloth. I totally understand your inner need to comfort yourself in the planning, and there's definitely benefit to situational awareness. But get this, and it took me a couple of years to really understand it.... the REAL adventure doesn't truly start until you throw the plan in the garbage. The un-knowing is the beauty of the motorcycle tour.

Oh - 1 more suggestion.... bring your camera and share your adventure with us.

Peace, brother.

Thanks for your suggestions.

As to #5, I agree more than you might imagine. I'm not really "planning" the trip at all, though some folks advised that this is half the fun for them. But I'm with you, I just want to get on with it.

The only real pre-planning I'm doing is in finding the ways to do it all on the cheap. And since the starting point is a given, I am setting a goal of reaching WY and MT for a few days. Other than that the only "plan" is just to head out in a general direction that avoids going through the congested Midwest cities, if possible, adjusting the route to avoid any shitty weather situations that arise, and finding cheap places to stop each night along the way, whether that be solo camping, or 2-up moteling.

As for the cooking, yeah... I think I'm going to pass on that. I'm sure it is cheaper, but it has to be fun to you. Otherwise it is just cutting into the available time you have to do other stuff.