RossKean
Well-known member
This post is in reference to my trip planning, execution and the ultimate aborting of an EPIC motorcycle adventure. I thought I would do it as a stand-alone thread rather than tacking it onto the original planning thread.
https://www.fjrforum.com/forum//index.php/topic/163426-cross-continent-ride/page-1
This is not, per se, a ride report but includes some of what went into this venture and what happened. Perhaps some of the lessons I learned along the way may be of some value to others planning big trips. Maybe not. In any case, I wanted to write some of this up for myself as much as anything. The trip was not a waste of time and was, by no means, all bad. Most of what I did, in fact, was pretty good.
Introduction:
For my 60th birthday present to myself, I decided that I would take a bike trip of a lifetime. This was to be a one-month solo trip designed to allow me to see and experience many places and things that were entirely new to me. It was to include mostly camping along the way - to help defray accommodation and food costs as well as the fact that I enjoy it (under the right circumstances). Most of my riding is solo and I have done a few trips that were on the order of a couple of weeks. I didn't think this would be all that different other than in scale.
Planning:
I started by making a long list of all of the places I wanted to see. Spent a day on the Basecamp tutorial. Threw it all onto a map and started connecting the dots with some nice (as possible) roads. I received a lot of useful information and suggestions from a number of people on the forum. Even some offers for a maintenance depot (mid-trip oil change) and a couple invites for an overnight stay/beer/meal etc. I came up with a pretty amazing route after some considerable editing and playing a bunch of different scenarios.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rrj2q3zatvpx0om/2015 Big Trip.gdb?dl=0 (Should open in Basecamp or Mapsource - download to computer and open)
With the mapping done, I was able to consider whether it would be possible to do in the allotted month - the math said that it could be done if I could sustain an average of 500 miles per day with no more than a couple days off (or at lower mileage). Total was close to 14,000 miles without any unplanned extras along the way. I THOUGHT I would be able to do it so got stuff ready and tidied up some stuff at work. June 27 was my departure date.
The Trip:
You can see some of the details in the other thread but it turned out that it couldn't be done; at least not by me. Although I knew better, I made insufficient allowances for a whole host of issues that should be expected. As the trip progressed, I was feeling more and more pressure to push myself so I didn't fall (further) behind on my overly-ambitious itinerary. Setbacks due to weather (rain and heat), holiday traffic (and lack of campsites), construction slowdowns and a couple of major traffic accidents that blew hours of time made it more and more difficult to keep up the pace. I suppose fatigue was also beginning to cloud my judgement. I found myself bypassing places I wanted to see (Gunnison NP) or paying a flying visit to other places - Mesa Verde NP received about 2 hours of my time instead of the full day it really needed. I was passing up all sorts of photo ops because each inevitably takes 10 minutes by the time you park, get the camera out, take the photo(s) and get rolling again. After spending a night camped on asphalt in a (mostly) RV campground on July 4th, getting very little sleep, breaking a tooth eating breakfast the next day, dropping my bike in the parking lot in a convenience store parking lot when I failed to fully deploy the sidestand, I was not in a great mood. This was also the day I chose to bypass Gunnison and rushed through Mesa Verde. I decided to forego the alternate route (discussed in other thread) up to the Natural Bridges and ended out taking a motel rather than ride through a major electrical storm. That is the night I decided that I had enough and that THE PLAN wasn't going to work.
Yes, it was a bad, awful day but revealed to me the fundamental flaw in my planning. For a longer trip, it is a virtual certainty that shit will, in fact, happen and you have to allow for it. It has happened to me before and I was simply in denial that it could royally screw this trip. I knew that after eight days on the road under some adverse conditions, I was in need of some down time. Unfortunately, a day of rest was not in THE PLAN. After some considerable soul-searching (and a couple drinks of rum), I came to the conclusion that I would head for home with the full intention of trying this again; applying what I have learned for the next time. In the nine (I think) days before turning back, I had accomplished about a third of THE PLAN but some of it was in a rather half-assed manner. If I had started with the same itinerary but with six weeks to do it, it would have been much more enjoyable and could have been done in a relatively stress-free manner. Similarly, a shorter loop could (should) have been planned since the needed six weeks was not available. Anyway, I decided to "Run away and live to fight another day". Five long days on the road back home for a total of 7400 miles in the two weeks.
I saved the extra two weeks of vacation so I can either do a couple of more (shorter) trips this year or see if I can scrape together the needed six weeks for a similar Grand Tour in a year or so. Part of the trouble with the shorter trips is that its hard to see a bunch of really new stuff. I have to ride at least a couple of days each way before I get into things that are truly new. More than half the time getting to and from makes it difficult to accomplish much if the object is to see new stuff. The big loop as per THE PLAN can accomplish this quite efficiently.
Lessons Learned (in no particular order):
1) The FJR is an awesome machine for this sort of venture. I guess we all knew that but its worth saying again. At 138,000 miles on the clock, it didn't burn any measureable amount of oil in 7400 miles. Other than a headlight burning out two days before getting home, it was completely flawless.
2) The FJR LOVES to run at higher altitudes. Above 4000 ft., it seemed to be smoother and certainly got better fuel mileage - even doing 75 to 80 MPH on Colorado highways.
3) Car Tire - Just say NO to it for a trip like this. I have done the Darkside before and didn't find it to be a completely negative experience. I decided I would give it another go and mounted a General Tire GMAX a couple of weeks before the trip. I was hoping that I could squeak 15,000 miles out of a front but figured there was no way for the rear. The car tire is good (maybe even superior) for Interstate riding getting to the destination and even pretty good on higher speed sweepers. I found it truly nerve-wracking on tight twisties and in slow speed maneuvering almost anywhere; especially on uneven road surfaces. This was made much worse since the bike was quite heavily loaded with camping gear and was quite top-heavy. I was getting less confident with it as the trip (and fatigue level) progressed.
4) Bridgestone T-30 GT front still has half its tread left so I think it would have made the whole trip - aggressive twisty riding wasn't the principle venue.
5) Garmin Basecamp is an awesome program for setting up a trip like this. I am still learning and haven't progressed beyond the fundamentals but I am pretty happy with it. I hope that Garmin continues to refine it. One IMPORTANT point. When you finish the route on Basecamp, ZOOM in to quite close and examine the route segments in detail. I received some mis-direction because I hadn't placed a waypoint quite right. Don't ever assume that Garmin hasn't done something really foolish when it routed you a particular way. ALSO, check the route in detail once its been transferred to the GPS. Harder to do but could be worth it.
Now for the real stuff...
6) ALLOW ENOUGH TIME!!! At least 50% more than what is "needed". It would have made a tremendous difference to me.
7) On a relatively short trip (i.e. a week), planning is MUCH easier. For the most part, you can have a reasonably good idea of the weather you should expect. If shit happens, not much is lost and you can head for home and be there in a day or two. You can also seriously make plans on where you are going to stay and maybe even where you are going to stop to eat. I had nothing more than a general idea where I might be more than a couple of days out. As a consequence, I sort of just let accommodations "happen". As a result, I ended out in some crappy and/or too-expensive motels when suitable camping couldn't be found. For future trips, I will work on a 48 hour short-term plan with some definite targets for camping locations (making reservations the day before). Its worrisome to find yourself riding down the road with dusk approaching and NO idea where you are going to end out for the night.
8) I have the camping thing fairly well worked out. I need to give food a little more thought. Heated up canned soup/chili/beans etc. is OK but becomes a little tiring after awhile. Again, I do not worry too much about "proper" nutrition for a short trip but for a month, I need to have some better attention paid to what I eat. Alternative is ending out sick.
9) Still have to experiment (on weekend trips) on how I can pare down the amount of camping stuff I have with me. I am doing some reading and will try stuff. Rapid setup and pack up is really important.
9) DRINK MORE FLUIDS. Easy to forget while riding - especially in hot, dry weather.
10) EAT properly during the day. Helps stave off fatigue and I am much better focussed. What works best for me is to have a good breakfast, eat lightly during the day and a good dinner with lots of calories. Avoid the junk and limit alcohol to a couple of beers (just for re-hydration). Obviously, the beer is just for after the riding is done for the day.
11) Take tons of pictures. Next trip, I am bringing a backup camera with me in case of problems. I will also force myself to stop and take the time!
12) Spotwalla is a wonderful application and Bubbler GPS (for Android phones) provides an extremely functional interface to collect and transmit data to Spotwalla. You can even upload photos which will display on the map. My trip is here:
https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=dc45558bdc3c07703
13) GET BETTER RIDING GEAR - I found that my equipment was not up to the task. Jacket does not provide adequate ventilation in hot weather and is not entirely waterproof. Similarly, my armoured pants are too hot and not dry with sustained downpour. My so-called waterproof gloves had not been properly tested in heavy rain and let's just say they were found wanting.
14) Get custom earplugs. I have been using foam earplugs for many years without major issues. I typically wear a pair a few days and dispose of them when they get dirty or wet. After the first 8 or 9 days, my ear canals began to get quite irritated. By day 11 or 12, they were downright painful. The use of lotion and (eventually) Neosporin helped a bit but not enough.
15) I found that I can still do multiple successive long riding days; even on a stock FJR seat. (I may have to bite the bullet and upgrade before the next attempt.)
16) Simple tiredness can be dealt with easily. If this becomes fatigue due to multiple long days of riding coupled with a fairly high stress level, judgement will be clouded and you cannot ride safely. This is what I felt was happening to me and ultimately why I decided to turn back. Under the circumstances, it was the correct decision although one of the more difficult I have had to make.
Feel free to comment on any of this stuff. I may add to it later...
Thanks again for the planning help as well as the support and comments along the way!
https://www.fjrforum.com/forum//index.php/topic/163426-cross-continent-ride/page-1
This is not, per se, a ride report but includes some of what went into this venture and what happened. Perhaps some of the lessons I learned along the way may be of some value to others planning big trips. Maybe not. In any case, I wanted to write some of this up for myself as much as anything. The trip was not a waste of time and was, by no means, all bad. Most of what I did, in fact, was pretty good.
Introduction:
For my 60th birthday present to myself, I decided that I would take a bike trip of a lifetime. This was to be a one-month solo trip designed to allow me to see and experience many places and things that were entirely new to me. It was to include mostly camping along the way - to help defray accommodation and food costs as well as the fact that I enjoy it (under the right circumstances). Most of my riding is solo and I have done a few trips that were on the order of a couple of weeks. I didn't think this would be all that different other than in scale.
Planning:
I started by making a long list of all of the places I wanted to see. Spent a day on the Basecamp tutorial. Threw it all onto a map and started connecting the dots with some nice (as possible) roads. I received a lot of useful information and suggestions from a number of people on the forum. Even some offers for a maintenance depot (mid-trip oil change) and a couple invites for an overnight stay/beer/meal etc. I came up with a pretty amazing route after some considerable editing and playing a bunch of different scenarios.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rrj2q3zatvpx0om/2015 Big Trip.gdb?dl=0 (Should open in Basecamp or Mapsource - download to computer and open)
With the mapping done, I was able to consider whether it would be possible to do in the allotted month - the math said that it could be done if I could sustain an average of 500 miles per day with no more than a couple days off (or at lower mileage). Total was close to 14,000 miles without any unplanned extras along the way. I THOUGHT I would be able to do it so got stuff ready and tidied up some stuff at work. June 27 was my departure date.
The Trip:
You can see some of the details in the other thread but it turned out that it couldn't be done; at least not by me. Although I knew better, I made insufficient allowances for a whole host of issues that should be expected. As the trip progressed, I was feeling more and more pressure to push myself so I didn't fall (further) behind on my overly-ambitious itinerary. Setbacks due to weather (rain and heat), holiday traffic (and lack of campsites), construction slowdowns and a couple of major traffic accidents that blew hours of time made it more and more difficult to keep up the pace. I suppose fatigue was also beginning to cloud my judgement. I found myself bypassing places I wanted to see (Gunnison NP) or paying a flying visit to other places - Mesa Verde NP received about 2 hours of my time instead of the full day it really needed. I was passing up all sorts of photo ops because each inevitably takes 10 minutes by the time you park, get the camera out, take the photo(s) and get rolling again. After spending a night camped on asphalt in a (mostly) RV campground on July 4th, getting very little sleep, breaking a tooth eating breakfast the next day, dropping my bike in the parking lot in a convenience store parking lot when I failed to fully deploy the sidestand, I was not in a great mood. This was also the day I chose to bypass Gunnison and rushed through Mesa Verde. I decided to forego the alternate route (discussed in other thread) up to the Natural Bridges and ended out taking a motel rather than ride through a major electrical storm. That is the night I decided that I had enough and that THE PLAN wasn't going to work.
Yes, it was a bad, awful day but revealed to me the fundamental flaw in my planning. For a longer trip, it is a virtual certainty that shit will, in fact, happen and you have to allow for it. It has happened to me before and I was simply in denial that it could royally screw this trip. I knew that after eight days on the road under some adverse conditions, I was in need of some down time. Unfortunately, a day of rest was not in THE PLAN. After some considerable soul-searching (and a couple drinks of rum), I came to the conclusion that I would head for home with the full intention of trying this again; applying what I have learned for the next time. In the nine (I think) days before turning back, I had accomplished about a third of THE PLAN but some of it was in a rather half-assed manner. If I had started with the same itinerary but with six weeks to do it, it would have been much more enjoyable and could have been done in a relatively stress-free manner. Similarly, a shorter loop could (should) have been planned since the needed six weeks was not available. Anyway, I decided to "Run away and live to fight another day". Five long days on the road back home for a total of 7400 miles in the two weeks.
I saved the extra two weeks of vacation so I can either do a couple of more (shorter) trips this year or see if I can scrape together the needed six weeks for a similar Grand Tour in a year or so. Part of the trouble with the shorter trips is that its hard to see a bunch of really new stuff. I have to ride at least a couple of days each way before I get into things that are truly new. More than half the time getting to and from makes it difficult to accomplish much if the object is to see new stuff. The big loop as per THE PLAN can accomplish this quite efficiently.
Lessons Learned (in no particular order):
1) The FJR is an awesome machine for this sort of venture. I guess we all knew that but its worth saying again. At 138,000 miles on the clock, it didn't burn any measureable amount of oil in 7400 miles. Other than a headlight burning out two days before getting home, it was completely flawless.
2) The FJR LOVES to run at higher altitudes. Above 4000 ft., it seemed to be smoother and certainly got better fuel mileage - even doing 75 to 80 MPH on Colorado highways.
3) Car Tire - Just say NO to it for a trip like this. I have done the Darkside before and didn't find it to be a completely negative experience. I decided I would give it another go and mounted a General Tire GMAX a couple of weeks before the trip. I was hoping that I could squeak 15,000 miles out of a front but figured there was no way for the rear. The car tire is good (maybe even superior) for Interstate riding getting to the destination and even pretty good on higher speed sweepers. I found it truly nerve-wracking on tight twisties and in slow speed maneuvering almost anywhere; especially on uneven road surfaces. This was made much worse since the bike was quite heavily loaded with camping gear and was quite top-heavy. I was getting less confident with it as the trip (and fatigue level) progressed.
4) Bridgestone T-30 GT front still has half its tread left so I think it would have made the whole trip - aggressive twisty riding wasn't the principle venue.
5) Garmin Basecamp is an awesome program for setting up a trip like this. I am still learning and haven't progressed beyond the fundamentals but I am pretty happy with it. I hope that Garmin continues to refine it. One IMPORTANT point. When you finish the route on Basecamp, ZOOM in to quite close and examine the route segments in detail. I received some mis-direction because I hadn't placed a waypoint quite right. Don't ever assume that Garmin hasn't done something really foolish when it routed you a particular way. ALSO, check the route in detail once its been transferred to the GPS. Harder to do but could be worth it.
Now for the real stuff...
6) ALLOW ENOUGH TIME!!! At least 50% more than what is "needed". It would have made a tremendous difference to me.
7) On a relatively short trip (i.e. a week), planning is MUCH easier. For the most part, you can have a reasonably good idea of the weather you should expect. If shit happens, not much is lost and you can head for home and be there in a day or two. You can also seriously make plans on where you are going to stay and maybe even where you are going to stop to eat. I had nothing more than a general idea where I might be more than a couple of days out. As a consequence, I sort of just let accommodations "happen". As a result, I ended out in some crappy and/or too-expensive motels when suitable camping couldn't be found. For future trips, I will work on a 48 hour short-term plan with some definite targets for camping locations (making reservations the day before). Its worrisome to find yourself riding down the road with dusk approaching and NO idea where you are going to end out for the night.
8) I have the camping thing fairly well worked out. I need to give food a little more thought. Heated up canned soup/chili/beans etc. is OK but becomes a little tiring after awhile. Again, I do not worry too much about "proper" nutrition for a short trip but for a month, I need to have some better attention paid to what I eat. Alternative is ending out sick.
9) Still have to experiment (on weekend trips) on how I can pare down the amount of camping stuff I have with me. I am doing some reading and will try stuff. Rapid setup and pack up is really important.
9) DRINK MORE FLUIDS. Easy to forget while riding - especially in hot, dry weather.
10) EAT properly during the day. Helps stave off fatigue and I am much better focussed. What works best for me is to have a good breakfast, eat lightly during the day and a good dinner with lots of calories. Avoid the junk and limit alcohol to a couple of beers (just for re-hydration). Obviously, the beer is just for after the riding is done for the day.
11) Take tons of pictures. Next trip, I am bringing a backup camera with me in case of problems. I will also force myself to stop and take the time!
12) Spotwalla is a wonderful application and Bubbler GPS (for Android phones) provides an extremely functional interface to collect and transmit data to Spotwalla. You can even upload photos which will display on the map. My trip is here:
https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=dc45558bdc3c07703
13) GET BETTER RIDING GEAR - I found that my equipment was not up to the task. Jacket does not provide adequate ventilation in hot weather and is not entirely waterproof. Similarly, my armoured pants are too hot and not dry with sustained downpour. My so-called waterproof gloves had not been properly tested in heavy rain and let's just say they were found wanting.
14) Get custom earplugs. I have been using foam earplugs for many years without major issues. I typically wear a pair a few days and dispose of them when they get dirty or wet. After the first 8 or 9 days, my ear canals began to get quite irritated. By day 11 or 12, they were downright painful. The use of lotion and (eventually) Neosporin helped a bit but not enough.
15) I found that I can still do multiple successive long riding days; even on a stock FJR seat. (I may have to bite the bullet and upgrade before the next attempt.)
16) Simple tiredness can be dealt with easily. If this becomes fatigue due to multiple long days of riding coupled with a fairly high stress level, judgement will be clouded and you cannot ride safely. This is what I felt was happening to me and ultimately why I decided to turn back. Under the circumstances, it was the correct decision although one of the more difficult I have had to make.
Feel free to comment on any of this stuff. I may add to it later...
Thanks again for the planning help as well as the support and comments along the way!
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