Lessons learned about motorcycle travel

James Williams — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 16:29:00 +0000

Part of the Far West 2024</a> series.

I’m a member on an old-school overlanding forum called Horizons Unlimited</a> which is full of folks who’ve ridden their motorcycles to every corner of the earth. When I threw my itinerary for Far West out there to seek advice, one of the old-timers opened his comment with this:

“I’m having some difficulty imagining your trip as it’ll unfold on the ground. You’re covering a lot of ground, but don’t appear to be actually seeing very much, mainly because so much of what’s worth seeing along your route requires either long side trips, getting off the bike and walking around, or both.”
— markharf, The HUBB</a> </blockquote>
I responded to the effect that I knew it was an aggressive itinerary, but three weeks was all I could pull off and that I’d have to make do. It was a motorcycle trip after all—shouldn’t that be the main activity?
Ummm, no. Not really.
Lesson 1: Slack</h2>
To qualify this a bit:

I still had a blast, and</li>
the somewhat impromptu 3 day hiatus in Palm Springs compressed the riding schedule to its limit, and I chose this tradeoff knowing it would make the ride more challenging.</li> </ol>
But the wise man was right. I spent a lot of time riding past places that I would have loved to have spent a day or two exploring. The motorcycling, fun as it is, is not actually the point. Moreover, I didn’t leave any slack to accommodate unexpected issues like not realizing my chain was about to snap until I was stuck at the Grand Canyon. Oh, mistakes were made.
If I subtract the three days in Palm Springs, I covered an average of 380 kilometres per day. That doesn’t sound like much in the context of four-wheeled road trips, but they are big days on a bike when you’re avoiding the freeway. My Garmin estimated 5-7 hours in the saddle most days, and that’s before you factor in a fuel stop or two, lunch, points of interest, trying and failing to find a god-damn banana over and over again, and coffee breaks. There is also hard work involved—packing and loading the bike, setting up and tearing down camp where applicable, bike maintenance, sitting around in laundromats, on and on. It was easily 10 hours of logistics each day. Sustainable for three weeks with a good break in the middle, but I wouldn’t do it this way again.
On the next trip, I will cut the target mileage-to-time ratio in half. 200 km per day average on an asphalt trip, less if aiming for dirt, which is the other thing I would have done more of if I had had a more relaxed time budget. If you’re using this as a guide it’s important to note that these are overall averages, but I would aim to ride only 4 or 5 days each week, so the actual mileage on a riding day would be higher.
Lesson 2: Gear, parts & packing</h2>
I did alright in this department. You can see my packout in my earlier post: Packing Lucia for a four-season motorcycle camping trip</a>.

Lesson 2: Gear, parts & packing</h2>
I did alright in this department. You can see my packout in my earlier post: Packing Lucia for a four-season motorcycle camping trip</a>.</p>

James Williams - far-west-2024

Lessons learned about motorcycle travel

James Williams - far-west-2024

Lessons learned about motorcycle travel

Lesson 1: Slack</h2> To qualify this a bit:</p> I still had a blast, and</li>