Thanks everyone. Felt pretty good to be home. Burned another mild Dominican cigar last night as a sacrifice, giving thanks to the weather gods for smiling on us in our travels.
So, as for the final wrap-up. The trip was a total of 15 days and 6500 miles. We hit 18 separate states and provinces, some twice, traveling through NH, VT, NY, ON, MI, WI, MN, SD, WY, MT, ID (just touched), MT, SD, NE, IA, MO, IL, IN, OH, PA, NY, VT and NH in that order.
We stayed at 13 different hotels along the way. None were totally disgusting. Probably the least nice ones were the first night in Niagara Falls, and the 2nd to the last night in Dayton, OH. Both were "Days Inn"s. Coincidence?
I wouldn't go back to either one of those again.
The other 11 were all fine, and their prices ranged from $65 to $150 a night, with the most expensive ones being in the towns closest to the big National Parks (Cody, WY and Kalispell, MT). They all gave us an FCB (Free Continental Breakfast) of varying proportions, saving us about $15 to $20 over going out to the waffle house, and all had Free WiFi included that was mostly functional. The only one where I had to resort to using my iPhone as a portable hot spot was in St Ignace, and that hotel had so much other stuff going for it I really did not mind that the WiFi was substandard.
Here's what our final the GPS track looked like:
Now let's talk about what worked well, and then what didn't:
Getting a hotel room each night for the following night seemed to work well for us. There is an entire thread going on about "Booking Schemes" so I won't regurgitate all the caveats there. Let me just say that you do want to do a little homework as you find room for the next night.
I found that the most reliable source of reviews is TripAdvisor.com. Some of the reviews on Google or other booking sites are whacked. TripAdvisor will also give you some pricing info about what all of the booking sites are charging for rooms, but you also may do better at the hotel's own web site.
Another scheme that I used was the AMA member 15% discount on "Choice Hotels." We tended to like the Quality Inns and stayed at several.
Eating the FCB each morning, taking rest breaks every 2-3 hours along the way and just snacking at those breaks, and only going out to eat one big meal a day (usually for dinner) helped keep the food bills and midsection growth to a minimum. That seemed to work well.
Bringing along a stainless steel, screw top bottle for carrying the "evening's libations" worked well. Thanks to Gina McD for that suggestion. I filled the 1 liter bottle before we left home, and then needed to buy two 750ml replacements along the way to refill the bottle. I bet a slightly smaller bottle would work as well and waste less valuable trunk space since the adult joy juice only comes in 750ml and 1.5L bottles. Maybe try to find a 750ml size SS bottle if you decide to try it yourself
Travel days we aimed for ~ 500 miles and/or 7 to 7 1/2 hours of seat time. Getting out of the hotels early, by around 7 - 7:30 AM at the latest allowed us to roll into the next hotel between 3 and 4PM. This was good. It was easier to maintain that pace for two weeks straight than if we had tried to do a couple of bigger 700 mile ,10 hour slab days on the front end. Getting to the hotels early gave us time to kick back, relax, have a drink, and start processing ride reports of course.
I've already said this several times in the RR, but I think making your way via state and US highways is a far better way to see things than the interstates. I hate the mid-west and eastern interstate highways, even more now than I did when we first set out. It isn't the roads or the boring-ness that I hate so much. It's the friggen trucks. Not just because they are
Big and
Scary, but more-so because
they are the cause of the majority of the ever-present wind turbulence that really makes riding a bike on the interstate suck.
The few interstates we hit out in the wide open west were not nearly as bad because the truck density never reaches the point that is does in the heavier traveled areas. And then there are the asshole operators that think they own the road. On one 3 lane highway in Misery they were three abreast, all running at almost the same speed, dropping well below the speed limit on inclines, jockeying for position, while the rest of the traffic backed up behind them.
I hate them all. I wish we could go back to moving stuff by trains, or limit trucks to only operate during certain hours. At least they tend not to use the State or US highway systems as much, so that makes those roads even more attractive.
The FJR worked well (of course).
With our Russell seats, comfort was seldom an issue.
Sticky Strings FTW!!! Having a e-pump and tire repair kit saved our trip.
The Cee Baily +4" windshield mounted on a Rifle Tuning block, with the Laminar Lip mounted on it worked very well. The little sticky things to hold the lip on failed, but that can be made more permanent with screws and spacers.
The V-strom hand-guards were a good thing to have. When it would rain, even hard, my hands would stay relatively dry without using any over-gloves. They do block most of the wind from your hands, so they also prevent the wind from blowing up your sleeves, which would be sort of nice in the afternoon heat, but they also help the same way in the chilly AMs.
The Vista Cruise Throttle lock was also a good thing to have along. A
good cruise control would have been better. More on that later.
The Wild Bill highway pegs I borrowed for the trip from bbdig were a huge benefit. Not just to stretch out your legs, but having your legs in front of you keeps them cooler (on a 1st gen that can be an issue) and allows you to more easily support your body weight if you have a big windshield up blocking the wind. IU'll definitely be buying a set of these before our next LD trip..
The old war horse zumo 550 worked flawlessly (knock on wood). I had a paper road atlas tucked away in the trunk, but only took it out to consult in the evenings when strategizing the next day's route. I had loaded up three 8 GB SD cards with the entire US map sets and 1000 different MP3's on each card. We did not listen to music much during our touring days, but did on the highways and "travel" days. We still only managed to listen to 530 songs on the first SD card.
Our old school, hard wired Starcom1 headsets functioned well. They were good for listening to the music with our earplugs in, but it was hard talking to each other at highways speeds, especially in the afternoons when I would drop the shield down for added ventilation. I'm not sure that anything else out there would work any better for those of us who wear earplugs.
Now... the things we would probably do differently:
This list is not very long. For neophytes at distance touring, we did OK, I guess, due not doubt to all of the great advice that was given (and taken) above.
The Conti Motion front tire was a disappointment. I knew I should not have tried a new, unfamiliar brand of tire for a trip like this, but I took the chance. And paid for it. Don't be like me. Use a well known and reliable tire on your vacation.
We wished that we had more time to spend at the touring end. We traveled the first 4 days to Pierre, toured SD, WY and MT for 5 days, then spent the last 6 days in getting back home from Great Falls, though at least one extra travel day was required to make the stop at Josie's brother place in MO. Had we done this trip over three weeks the added time spent in the mountain states would have made all the grueling travel days more worthwhile. And if we were going to hit the left coast I'd want to make it 4 weeks.
I'd also be trying to do a bit more pre-planning and have enough time in the schedule to use US routes all the way back instead of dicing it up with the teamsters.
I might be somewhat tempted towards getting rid of the B4 and maybe trying a different bike to do our next long distance trip on. Maybe one with intrinsically better aerodynamics and heat management, slightly taller gearing, and a cruise control built in? Since TMJ and I are in agreement that there will be more such adventures in our future, and Ole' Blue is getting a bit long in the tooth, I think we have agreement about this move too. I'll have to work on that.