I really enjoyed that we had time to wander the show on our own schedule, so I vowed we’d go up and down EVERY aisle to make sure we saw everything! And boy, was there plenty to see.

No Urals at the show this year, but we ran across this oh-so-interesting sidecar hack. It looked even more uncomfortable than the Ural, but Kay had to try it out! He said that the ergonomics were actually quite good, with the swept-back handlebars and an actual footbox on the right side. The sidecar has been dubbed insufficiently sizable for the dogs, though, so we’ll stick with the Ural for now!

An aisle or two over, and we run into Helmetlok. We LOVE our Helmetloks. They live in the pocket of my motorcycle jacket, and Kay keeps clipping his to various things. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re lockable carabiners where you can set your own number combination to lock. We love them because we can clip them to so many things – lock our helmets almost anywhere, and we also use them to lock up other stuff. We enjoyed the opportunity to check out the new style lock, and discuss a problem we had with one of our old locks that we had to replace. Helmetlok folks made it right for us and we were totally blown away by their customer service! Can’t recommend highly enough. Love their product and they turn out to be great people, too.

Another aisle or two away, and we see a small table right next to a pillar at the end of the row. It dawns on me as I’m walking past the pillar that the books on the table are Lois Pryce’s books – Lois on the Loose and Red Tape and White Knuckles. I vaguely wonder why there would be a woman there with Lois’s books. Kay notices that the woman has red hair… noooo, it can’t be. But it is! It’s Lois Pryce! She’s in the US and just happens to be at IMS NYC!

HOLY COW! It’s LOIS PRYCE! We walk around and introduce ourselves, and tell her what an inspiration she’s been. She’s one of my absolute moto heroes and I was a bit awestruck to meet her. There are so few female adventure riders, and Lois has gone off on her trips solo – and she’s been all over the place! How could I not look up to someone with all that hutzpah – she’s a fantastic female motorcyclist and I’ve just loved reading about her adventures. It was a real treat to meet her. It totally made my day – it was the highlight of IMS for me. I was SO glad that Kay had noticed the red hair, and realized it was ACTUALLY Lois there!

After that, I wandered up and down in a bit of a daze. We found and took a picture of a product that was a bit of a dirty joke, in order to get a 15% off code at Twisted Throttle. Wandered around the Twisted Throttle area a little. There’s a ton of stuff we need to buy from there for the Ural so it’s always nice to poke things.

Next to Twisted Throttle, I ran into an Ohlins guy. My custom rear shock is Ohlins, and my front fork seals are going so now it’s time to replace the fork seals… which means disassembling the forks. And that makes it the perfect time to upgrade my front forks to match my rear. Spent a while talking with the Ohlins guy but didn’t learn too much, alas. Dunno if I’ll call him when I’m ready to move on that, or look for someone local to help me out.

Wandered over to the Arai booth to get fitted. It turns out that I’m wearing the correct size (although I should switch out my cheek pads since my face is so round, but I’ve already compressed the heck out of them so I don’t suppose it matters). Kay wandered over and tried on a Shoei helmet, which I had no desire to do because I love my Arai.

Somewhere along the way, we run into the BMW display. I ponder the Husqvarnas a bit. I think they have potential but I want to see how they do over the next few years. Then I wandered over to check out the Sertao again, which is BMW’s modern version of the Dakar motorcycle. I’ve always sorta envied the Dakar for being slightly more off-road oriented than our GSes, but the inseam is too high for me on the Dakar so I haven’t seriously considered it. But the Sertao looked slightly lower, so I sat on it… and discovered that I kinda dug it! If I were buying a new GS today, I’d get the Sertao. It has a totally reasonable MSRP and it’s offroad oriented… it wins. I dug it.

Then we got a little silly. We’ve been a bit enamored of the quads in this year’s Dakar, so we tried a few quads. They actually seem like they’d be a lot of fun!

Last year, we discovered the Can-Am Commander and pondered how much fun it might be to take the dogs around the world in that. Apparently it’s possible to make it street legal. Kawasaki had something similar, so Kay wanted to try both. The Can-Am totally wins for being more offroad oriented – the Kawi variant is just a glorified golf cart. But the best thing about this comparison was this kid. He had an exhibitor lanyard and tag – presumably he belonged to someone at Can-Am. But he was opening the door for people to get in and out of the Commander, and when Kay wanted to try it, the Youngest Exhibitor got in the passenger seat with him and started a sales pitch. It was absolutely awesome. I hope that kid makes a ton of money someday!

I pondered the KLR and the KTM a little bit, and we looked at some of the pretty but totally not our style cruisers… and then we had pretty much covered everything so we were ready to bounce.

I’d highly recommend IMS to any motorcycle enthusiast who is nearby! You get to drool over bikes you might want, talk directly to vendors, buy pretty much anything you might be looking for – and occasionally meet a real gem like Lois Pryce!

Discover Your Bike’s “Known Issues”

All bikes have “known issues.” These are things that are known to go wrong on a bike. This may range from the KLR’s infamous “doohickey” to the F650’s notorious water pump – most bikes have one or more things that routinely go wrong. You can discover your bike’s known issues by lurking in a forum for your motorcycle – most motorcycles these days have their own Internet forum. Or you can just ask in the forum about the known issues, if you don’t have the time or patience to lurk and learn.

Once you learn about your bike’s known issues, you should decide whether you need to carry spare parts to address the issue, or whether it’s something you’ll just have to find a dealer to resolve if it happens while you’re on the road. (We carry a set of water pump spares for our F650s, for example, just because it’s such a common issue, and it’s a relatively easy roadside repair.)

Take Care of Your Tires

Your tires are arguably the most important part of your motorcycle (next to your brakes!) Your tires give you traction and keep you safe in a variety of weather conditions, road conditions and handling faux pas. You want a tire with good tire tread if you’re starting out on a long trip.

Try to discover the tire’s expected lifespan before you go – if you’ve got a tire that’ll only last you another 2,000 miles, and you’re planning a 5,000 mile trip, you’re gonna need spare tires along the way. Some people prefer to buy spares at home and load them on the bike. Others prefer to find a dealer along the way and stop for spares when they need them. Decide which solution works best for you, and have a loose plan for dealing with the tire question.

If you want to be able to fix a flat by the side of the road, you should carry a tire patch kit or tube patch kit, depending on your tire type. If you’ve got tube tires, you’ll also need the tools to dismount your tire, break the bead, remove one side of the tire from the rim, extract the tube, replace the tube, and put it all back together. Some people prefer to carry spare tubes so they can hot-swap on the road, instead of figuring out where the bad tube is leaking and trying to patch it. Carrying spare tubes can also save you if you get a slash or gash that’s too big to patch in your tube.

Keep in mind that you’ll need some way to reinflate your tire and set your bead if you fix a flat. We prefer the CyclePump, which is a portable air compressor made for motorcycle use that can plug into an SAE cable or connect directly to your battery. If you plan to use CO2 cartridges to inflate your tire, make sure you have enough of them – most tires take more than one, and you could find yourself carrying a lot of them if you want to plan for the possibility of more than one flat.

Carry Wear Parts

Depending on your bike model, you’ve probably got certain wear items and maintenance items you’ll have to replace along the way. This may include oil filters, air filters, spark plugs, fuses, O-rings and gaskets. On a chain or belt-driven motorcycle, you’ll also need to replace the chain or belt at some point – possibly in the middle of the trip.

At the very least, you should carry what you’ll need to service these wear items, such as chain lube and spare links. But if you’re going to need to replace wear items on the road, it’s a lot easier to carry spares with you than to hope you’ll be able to find them when you need them. In a pinch, you can typically cobble together something from a hardware store, an auto store or another motorcycle’s parts to get you going again. But it’s always easier to have your own wear parts handy when you need to change them.

Replace What You can with Reusable Parts

Many motorcycles have reusable parts available that you can buy instead of replacing wear items all the time. For example, we’ve bought Scotts Performance reusable oil filters and K&N reusable air filters for our F650s instead of carrying around a bunch of spare filters. If you install cleanable and reusable parts, that’s fewer spares you have to carry, and you won’t have to worry about being in the middle of nowhere and not finding a replacement if you run out.

Carry Compact Bike Tools

As a general rule of thumb, any time we use a tool to do something on the bike, we add it to our motorcycle tool kit. If we need a new socket size or torx bit for an aftermarket part, we add it to our motorcycle tools in case we need to tighten the fasteners or service something under the part. We also carry a complete set of our motorcycle’s tool kit (upgraded versions, anyway – the stock BMW tools are crap) so we can do things like change the oil, tighten torx fasteners, access the battery, check the air filter, change tires and do other routine maintenance on the road.

We’re probably not experienced enough wrenches to do any serious repairs on the side of the road, but it’s really handy to have a complete set of bike tools just for routine maintenance and fixing flat tires. And if you do find yourself needing to do serious service in the middle of a strange mechanic’s shop far from home – a mechanic who doesn’t work on your bike and doesn’t have the right tools – you’ll be glad you’ve got your own bike tools with you.

Always Carry a Good First Aid Kit!

Bike service notwithstanding – one thing we ALWAYS carry on the bikes is a good, comprehensive first aid kit. Make no mistake – motorcycling is dangerous. Anyone who tells you otherwise is in denial. But by wearing good protective gear and carrying a good first aid kit, you can mitigate those dangers.

I’ll do a full writeup on first aid kits sometime in the near future, but don’t neglect this important bit of kit. In fact, if you’re the “credit card” kind of wrench and you bring no bike-related tools or spares at all – bring a first aid kit. Just make it an essential part of your motorcycle gear. You’ll be glad you did if you ever need it.

What tools and spares do you bring with you? Is there anything I missed here? Tell me about it and I might add it to the post!

For us, the trip was a life changer. In many ways.

When we told people about our trip, one of the most common reactions was: “Wow. That sounds like an incredible once in a lifetime vacation.”

For us, it was far more than a vacation. And we had always intended it to be the first of many overland motorcycle trips. But after actually going on the trip, not doing it again simply isn’t an option. We have to go back out on the road.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning…

Overland Motorcycle Travel is Life-Changing

For us, anyway, overland motorcycle travel has proved to be life-changing. You hear about a few overland motorcycle travelers who go out again and again, or who go out for a pre-planned trip and end up staying on the road. I think there’s a good reason for that. Overland motorcycle travel gets into your blood. It’s compelling. It changes the way you think about life, and the things you prioritize as important.

Once you start, you can’t stop.

Why does overland motorcycle travel elicit this reaction?

I think it’s a lot of things.

There’s something incredibly powerful about crawling over our world, inch by inch. Tracing the path you’ve taken becomes extremely satisfying. Connecting the dots between point A and point B involves a whole set of memories of its own, and the adventures, sights, sounds and experiences that come along with it. To me, that is the essence of motorcycle travel. Sure, you can see some amazing, world-famous sites along the way. But the truly compelling thing about motorcycle travel is all of the in-between bits. It’s all the stuff that people who fly in and out don’t get to experience.

When you travel overland, you get a much more accurate, detailed picture of a country. You learn about its infrastructure. You smell the smells. You meet the people. You typically have a much more genuine experience outside of the large tourist centers where people who fly in and out spend their time. It’s a way of truly getting to know the world.

I now have a rich tapestry in my mind’s eye when I think of Mexico, Central and South America. I can recall the beautiful rolling hills of western Guatemala, and the way a big brother looked after his little brothers while they watched us eat our tacos at a roadside stand. I remember a woman’s bright smile at a small truck stop where we had one of the best meals of our trip. I remember the Mexican tortillas (awesome!) I remember the kindness of the Colombian people, and their friendly interest in us and our bikes.

And then there is the beautiful landscape that connects all of it. The Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico leading into the eastern flatland, into Guatemalan rolling hills, the mountain range in western Nicaragua, the verdant jungles of Costa Rica… and in South America, the beautiful Andes mountains in Colombia, so unlike what I had expected, the continuation of the beauty through Ecuador, the transition to desert in Peru, the change of the character of the desert in Chile, and the flatlands of southern Patagonia in Argentina. And again, the magnificent Andes marching down through all of it, changing character as it goes, but always awe-inspiring.

It’s like the world’s best geography lesson. All of these places on the map become more than meaningless names and news stories; they become landscapes and experiences. Their people have faces. And when you realize how much more there is out there in the world, you can’t help but want to see it.

There’s also the element of experiencing things so unlike what you know at home. The food changes constantly; frequently surprising, sometimes unpleasant, but always an adventure. The culture changes, too, and it’s evident in the buildings, the way people dress, the interactions you have with them – it’s like moving through a giant sociology experiment.

And you get to see things that enrich you as a person. We experienced abject poverty throughout Latin America, but that didn’t always go hand-in-hand with squalor. Sometimes there was beauty and simplicity in the poverty.

It became inspiring to see people who were working hard to improve their lot in life. I will always remember the guy we chatted with over a late breakfast in Peru, who owned his own restaurant and two cars, and made around $5,000 per year. He was well-off by Peruvian standards, and we were embarrassed to compare our lives to his. It was incredibly humbling. And it really makes you think hard about the lifestyle you lead “at home” – and what you’re really getting from that.

But there’s more to it, too. Every day on the road, I had a moment where I felt grateful and blessed to be doing this. It was a gift to be there, in that moment, seeing that vista or having that conversation with a local in a country far, far from home. None of the mundane things from our every-day lives could hope to compare. And that leads to problems.

Coming Home Presents some Challenges

For both Kay and I, coming home again presented some serious challenges. Neither of us felt particularly good about the work we were doing. We both wanted to be doing something more meaningful with our lives, after the travel we’d done, the things we’d seen and the people we’d encountered. The endless quest to make money and acquire stuff just lost its appeal completely. And what else is life in the United States for, if not to acquire stuff? That’s the crux of our culture. And it was off-putting to come home to it.

When I came back to Boston, I felt like a stranger in a strange land. It didn’t feel like home anymore. It felt weird to be around people speaking English, and to overhear snippets of petty conversation. One woman was angry about what another woman had said. One guy couldn’t wait to buy the latest video game. A family argued over which food to buy at the store. It just all seemed so… unpleasant. So far from what we wanted to be doing.

It felt sort of ugly – not like the kind, hard-working people we’d met on the road. Here were people who had everything, and didn’t feel it. They didn’t feel blessed. They took it all for granted. I was very unhappy at being surrounded by it, and didn’t really know my place in it all.

Our apartment felt huge. It seemed so excessive. After living out of our motorcycle panniers for four months, I couldn’t imagine what we were supposed to be doing with all of this stuff. So we started selling it. I sold off hundreds of books and DVDs, and we used the income to pay our rent since neither of us had work immediately when we came home. We simplified and de-cluttered, and it felt good to be clearing out some of the excesses of American life.

And the work. The work was a necessary evil, because we’d spent every penny we’d saved when we were on the road and we needed money to buy food and pay bills. But neither of us wanted to be doing what we were doing. Both of us felt the work to be soul-killing. I fell into a low-grade depression; I didn’t really notice, but I became a lot more unproductive at work and my income fell off drastically. Kay did the same, to a lesser degree; he’d work and then come home and we’d just want to sit and veg all night, because we were miserable.

It didn’t take long before we started talking about being back on the road again. And then we began the early stages of planning for our next trip. Within a year, things had taken shape and we’d made some significant investments in equipment for our next trip – notably the Ural, which will enable us to take the dogs with us on a much more extended trip where we needn’t be bound by dog-sitters or rent.

Over time, it has gotten easier to be back at home. We’ve gradually become more comfortable immersed in American culture again. We’re back to our old spending habits, but now our expenses are all trip-related in some way or another; kit for the bikes, kit for the dogs, kit for ourselves. Or technology to improve our efficiency at work, make more money and build up our cash reserves for the next trip faster. With a firm goal of being back on the road, the things we initially found so irksome at being back in American society have downgraded to a low-level irk.

But we’ll never be the same people we were before the trip. We’ll never be able to share our experiences fully with our friends, because unless you’ve experienced something similar, all the words in the world can’t explain it. And we’ll never be content living the sort of life we lived before the trip.

So if you’re anything like us, taking a big overland motorcycle trip is a life-changing experience. It’ll be more than you can possibly comprehend before you leave. And it’ll have a lasting effect when you return.

One of the questions that often comes up when I’m talking about our Boston to Ushuaia trip was how we dealt with sleeping arrangements. We brought a tent, camp stove, dishes and cooking supplies, because we were intending to camp during much of the trip. Various things conspired to prevent us from camping as often as we had intended, and end the end, we had to conclude that rough camping just wasn’t a viable option most of the time for us traveling as we were on a schedule. People don’t always understand why I say that – unless you’ve tried rough camping, you don’t necessarily think of all of the considerations that go into it. So here’s what we discovered about rough camping on a motorcycle trip:

You Have to be Opportunistic

If you’re planning to rough camp on a motorcycle trip, you have to be opportunistic. If you pass a good side road, or drive by a place that seems to have good coverage, you need to be prepared to stop – even if it’s only 3 in the afternoon and there’s plenty of good light left for the day. We found that we often passed good spots in mid-afternoon, but when evening rolled around and we were pressed to find a spot before dark, we never did. We’d end up pushing on to the next town without seeing a good spot. So if you intend to rough camp, you have to be prepared to stop early if you pass a good stop – which means that you’re not going to cover as many miles in a day. It’s a trade-off.

It’s Tough in Densely Populated Areas

Because we were on a four-month timeframe, we spent a lot of time traveling through densely populated areas – particularly in Mexico and Central America. We were often looking for paved, direct routes between towns or destinations on our map, because we were pressed to cover miles in a day to make it to Ushuaia. And paved, direct routes were often densely populated. There were long stretches of Mexico and Central America where it literally wasn’t possible to get away from the people without riding miles out of your way down side roads to try to get away from the densely populated areas… which meant you had to stop making forward progress and start looking for a place to camp way early. Like the 3 in the afternoon posited in the “opportunistic” scenario.

This is fine if you’re not on a timetable and you can take your time exploring side roads and getting “off the beaten path” – but if you’re on a schedule, you may not have time to get away from the people and find good rough camping spots. Otherwise, you’ll be asking to camp in someone’s back yard. Which can be ok in some circumstances, but you should have a good feel for the region and the people.

Sometimes Rough Camping Involves Challenging Off-Road

Rough camping is a lot easier if you’re up for challenging off-road conditions. One of the first times we tried to rough camp in Mexico, we went down a steep dirt track and up the other side of a hill, and I had a bit of a melt down. I wasn’t that comfortable with off-road conditions yet and I found the stretch to be pretty challenging. In retrospect, it wasn’t so bad – but it was a lot for me at that point in time.

Further on in the trip, we encountered real challenges in terrain. In the deserts of Peru and Chile, rough camping often would have involved literally driving miles across the sandy deserts – a challenge I wasn’t thrilled to approach. (Plus, camping in sand is one of my pet peeves.) In Patagonia, the land is flat with clumps of scrub brush, and it seems like it would be easy – but finding a spot to set off cross-country with no fences is a challenge, and the scrub brush and seemingly flat terrain is more difficult than it looks.

Yeah, if you’re an experienced off-road rider, getting to a good rough camping spot isn’t too bad. But if you’ve only done mild off-road, you may find it challenging to find good spots to leave the road for rough camping.

Rough Camping and the Evening Meal

Finally, there’s one more challenge to rough camping that resulted in us doing it less frequently than we expected: the evening meal. On our Boston to Ushuaia trip, we mostly rode until it was getting dark, found a place to stay, secured the bikes and then went hunting an evening meal. It was often after dark when we ate. When you’re rough camping, you’re typically doing it between towns – which means no easily accessible evening meal. That means you either have to stop during the day to pick up food to cook for the evening meal, or stop for evening meal well in advance of dark, then get back on the road and find a place to rough camp for the evening.

We did both on our trip. But it takes a surprising amount of time to stop and get food to cook in the middle of the day. Every time you get off the bike, you lose more time in removing gear and gearing up again. If you stop two or three places to find food to cook for the evening meal, you’ve easily lost between 30 and 60 minutes of prime riding time. And that’s if you’re in a small town and places to stop are easy to find. If you’re in a city, you might ride around for a while looking for a grocery, butcher or other food purveyor. And if you’re in a tiny town, there might not even be a place to buy food.

You may have luck buying food off a local, or getting food “to go” in a restaurant – but don’t count on it. For us, we found that the time spent during the day sourcing food for an evening meal was time we’d rather spend riding. (And don’t take it for granted that you can find canned foods or dry goods throughout much of Latin America. We rode through plenty of places where the only food was fresh or restaurant-prepared,with no dry goods to speak of.)

If you opt to stop early and eat your evening meal in a restaurant, that’s certainly an option. If you’re going that route, you should stop at least two hours before sunset – give yourself an hour for a meal (which may take only a fraction of the time, but may take more) and an hour to find a spot for rough camping. But giving yourself such a short timeframe is sort of a crap-shoot. You may make it, or you may not. Best to be flexible if this is your preferred method of dealing with evening food. And if you do go this route, you’re effectively losing an hour or more of riding time – again, we mostly preferred being on the bikes to stopping early, which is part of why we often found ourselves in hotels.

You are Not Other People

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to motorcycle travel. You may find that what you’re comfortable doing is something entirely different than other people do. You may find yourself more comfortable with approaching strangers and asking if you can camp in their yard. Or you may find that you’re only comfortable rough camping in complete isolation, far from the nearest signs of civilization. You may find that stopping in the middle of the afternoon suits you, making rough camping less of a compromise… or you may find that you want to be riding every hour of daylight you have, so you need to compromise on things like sleeping arrangements and dining options.

Our experiences with rough camping were partially defined by how we travel, and partially a result of our personal preferences. But we do intend to do a lot more rough camping on the next trip, since we’ll be traveling with dogs, and are prepared for the compromises that will require. We probably would have done it more on our Boston to Ushuaia trip, if we’d had more time. But we also love riding, and the idea of stopping with hours of daylight left, and sitting around “in camp” is a bit boring to me.

Find your preferred method of travel and go with it. Be flexible. Be prepared to change your plans. But also be realistic about your schedule, your wants and your needs, and give yourself a financial cushion if things don’t turn out as planned.

When we got home from this trip, Kay’s dog was “broken.” Some negative interaction he’d had with the dogsitters had turned him into a biter – and he’d *never* been a biter before we left. We had to buy him a muzzle and work for months to help him become more comfortable and reliable. He’s only *just* getting back to normal, and we’ve been home for over 8 months now.

Suffice it to say, I’ve decided after this experience that the next big trip is going to include our dogs!

We’ve been tossing around ideas, and at this point it seems the option we’re going to try is to buy one Ural with sidecar. We’re going to see if we can travel with both dogs in the one sidecar (one 30 pound Puerto Rican street dog and one 40 pound Border Collie mix). If that works, we’ll take one Ural with sidecar and one of our Beemers, and switch off riding the sidecar rig/BMW. That way we can still have the fun of riding a motorcycle, and we can also bring the dogs along *and* enjoy the different but hopefully still fun experience of driving a sidecar rig.

I haven’t talked to Kay about the timeframe yet but I’ve decided just this morning that we need to buy a Ural this summer so we can try the dogs out with it and see how it works out. (Unless anyone knows someone who has a Ural in New England who would let us try a test trip with the dogs?)

Obviously traveling with dogs is going to change the dynamic quite a bit. We’ll be limited to staying places we can stay with the dogs, which probably means a lot more camping. (Which means upgrading our tent – we went car camping with the dogs over the summer, and have concluded there’s no way our 3-person tent is big enough for us, the dogs and our motorcycle gear.) It’s also going to take some customization of the sidecar to make it someplace comfortable for the dogs. And we’ll be limited to traveling places that will let us cross the border with dogs.

I intend for us to do some test trips over the summer with the dogs to see how things go – probably a couple of short local trips, maybe 3-day weekends – and then maybe a longer tour around the U.S. where we can easily find camping/dog-friendly places to stay, try the dogs on a longer trip and not have to worry about the border crossings.

But honestly, I’m totally psyched. Everyone I’ve talked with has said that driving a sidecar rig is totally different than riding a motorcycle *or* driving a car. I’m psyched to experience it (and also psyched that this solution, if it works, will mean we’ll still have a regular motorcycle to ride and can trade off driving the sidecar rig for the fun of a regular bike). I’m also psyched about bringing the dogs along, how it’s likely to change our trip and all of the adventures (and misadventures) I think we’ll have as a result of adding the dogs.

And I think I’m going to have a blast sharing those stories with you guys.

What’s more ridiculous than a newb rider taking off and riding the Americas?

Attempting a RTW with dogs on motorcycles!

Ben - my dog - next to Kay's bike

Bandido - Kay's dog - next to Kay's bike

Well, ok, we’re planning to be back around the end of March if all goes as planned.

But it’s that time. The time is finally here for us to leave on our overland trip from Boston, MA to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. Along the way, we’ll pass through Mexico, Central America and South America. The idea is to document the heck out of this trip, as we want to create a super-comprehensive ride report full of good information for other people who are considering a ride like this.

To that end, we’re keeping a website where we’ll upload photos, video and blog posts, and we’re also creating a monthly iPad magazine from the road. Check us out on Corporate Runaways. We’re also on Twitter, and we’ve got a SPOT tracker so you can follow along on our travels. I’ll try to post here when we get our first issue of the iPad magazine up (we’re currently putting together a prep issue and will then be preparing issues monthly from our travel).

Happy Holidays, folks, and I hope you enjoy following along on our adventure!

We had Max BMW in New Hampshire come down to pick up the bikes on Saturday – a service that was extremely painless and cost-effective, by the way – would definitely recommend. The plan was to get my bike its 6k service, her bike a 12k service, and have them give the bikes a thorough once-over before a trip this big. Tom from the shop called today to give us an update on the bikes, what they’ve done, what we want them to do about a couple of things, and an estimate on cost.

My Bike
My bike – the 2007 BMW F650GS – was pretty much fine. They didn’t find anything unexpected. My bike has just over 5,000 miles on it, so we didn’t really expect them to find anything. They replaced the brake pads and sprockets, and have replaced the air filter with a reusable, cleanable air filter. Other than that, my bike is in good shape.

Masukomi’s Bike
Masukomi’s bike is a 2003 BMW F650GS with just over 10,000 miles, I believe. The prior owner didn’t really service it very well, and it had some known issues. There was some corrosion in the airbox because he didn’t have a sealed battery and it leaked battery acid at some point. The speedometer also doesn’t work, but she’s using an aftermarket speedo because it’ll cost over $500 to replace the factory speedo. She’s been having some problems with it acting fuel-starved between 4,000 and 5,000 RPMs, but that problem hasn’t been a big issue in a while – she was wondering if it was bad gas and ran some Sea Foam through it.

For her bike, the shop replaced the fuel filter and fuel pressure regulator, as that can be a known issue and fits the symptoms. They also drilled out the oil drain plug, re-threaded it and replaced it with a new plug. They’re replacing the parts of her air box that were damaged by the battery acid corrosion and cleaning up the battery tray a bit. Like my bike, they also replaced her air filter with a reusable model, and replaced her sprockets and brake pads.

The Bill
The dreaded bill? For my bike, it looks like approximately $500. They had very little to do for my bike, but it was reassuring to have them look it over and give it a clean bill of health. For Masukomi’s bike, it looks like approximately $700. They’ve done a lot more work on her bike, but we knew about some of these issues going in and some of the other items were cheap enough that it was inconsequential to have them done. More than we’d planned on spending right now, certainly, but the bikes have been reviewed and we’re confident they’re good for the road.

We Still Need…
We still need to replace our batteries with sealed AGM batteries, which they didn’t have in stock at Max BMW for our bike models. We also need to change the chains on both bikes. We’d counted on replacing the chains ourselves, because we’re going to have to do it on the trip and we want to have done it first here at home to make sure we know how. We told Max BMW not to bother with the chains; we’ll put on new chains when we get the bikes back.

For the trip, we’re planning on taking spare sprockets for both bikes, and a spare chain for each bike. We’re also planning on taking brake pads and a front and rear tube for each bike. We think that should cover consumables, since we’ve got reusable, cleanable oil filters and air filters. The only other thing we’d need to worry about is tires, but we’re not going to try to carry those ourselves. Too much weight/hassle on the bikes. We’ve toyed with the idea of leaving spare tires here with a friend and having him ship them to us at some point along the way, or just trying to find some on the road when we need them. Haven’t made a call yet on that.

Still, now the bikes have been officially vetted and approved for the trip! One more detail to cross off our lists before heading out.

Just spent some time poking around on flight arrangements and have a tentative flight schedule for us:

• Fly out of Boston at 9:30AM on Sunday, December 5 or Monday, December 6
• Layover in Washington, DC from 11:30AM till 3:30PM
• Layover in Bogota from 9:00PM till 10:10PM
• Arrive in Buenos Aires at 6:25AM the following day!

From there we’ll have to get to cargo, get our bikes out of customs and probably pass out for the rest of the day after 18+ hours traveling. Hopefully we’ll hit the road the next day – either Tuesday, December 7 or Wednesday, December 8, depending on when we fly in, and book it to Viedma, Argentina for the Horizons Unlimited Meeting on December 10.

It’s much more exciting (and real) now that we can start planning these details. Psyched!

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out the way we’d planned.

Puppy Dog Route Day 1 – Boston to Troy, VT – 237 Miles

We planned to do the PDR over a three-day weekend. The route itself is a two-day route, but we’d need an extra day to get to/from the Canadian border where the trail begins/terminates, depending on which direction you go. I had a bit of work I needed to finish up on the day we headed out, plus we hadn’t had time to pack ahead of time, so we knew we were going to get out late that day. It made the most sense to hit the slab hard to get up to the Canadian border and camp at the start of the trail, and do the PDR north to south. Theoretically, Google Maps said the route should take around 3 hours 45 minutes. We got out of the house right at 12:00PM, and figured we had plenty of time to get to the campground and get the tent up before the sun set at 6:20PM.

What we failed to consider was Columbus Day Weekend traffic in New England. This is really the last big hurrah three-day weekend – by the next three-day weekend in November (Veteran’s Day) temperatures will have dropped and it won’t be good outdoor weather anymore unless you’re into winter sports. It was also close to peak foliage, and foliage in New England is a big deal. Long story short, it took us over three hours just to get to Franconia, New Hampshire on the slab – almost an hour longer than it should have.

Did I mention that it was also the worst wind I’ve ever ridden in? The wind was GUSTY. Steady winds weren’t a big deal, but there were heavy gusts that were blowing us all over the road. Combine that with the regular wind speed of being on the interstate, and it was an exhausting, heavy slog. Also? The ambient temperature kept dropping. By the time we got to Franconia, I wanted thermals in my motorcycle clothes. Unfortunately, my Rev’It! Sand Pants are quite tight, and I don’t have enough space in the pants for the thermal liner – just for the Hydratex waterproof/wind liner. I did put the thermal liner in my Rev’It! Sand jacket (which fits fine, albeit snugly, although it’s a size smaller than the pants), put the Respro Foggy in my helmet and made my Buff into a balaclava to give me some extra warmth on my head and chin. It was also time to bust out the heated grips.

Still, the clothes were inadequate for those temperatures on the highway (low 40s, in summer-weight gloves with no heated gear and no thermal liner in the pants). Based on the info I could find about calculating wind chill on a motorcycle, that put the effective temperature around 24 degrees. It was time for a break and some food. We asked a guy at a gas station in Franconia what restaurant he’d recommend, and he sent us down the interstate a few miles to an exit that had an Applebees and a Shaw’s grocery store. Since we’d also wanted to pick up some food to cook at the campsite that night, it was the perfect place to stop.

We sat in a warm restaurant and had warm food and warm drinks. It really helped to get my core body temperature up again. We also got some soup and hot cocoa from Shaw’s to cook at the campsite, as well as some eggs and oatmeal to make in the morning, and hit the road again. Unfortunately, at this point it was 5:17PM, which meant we had just over an hour to make it to our campground before sunset – and the GPS estimated that our campground was around 1:15 away.

In the end, we were on the road headed toward our campsite during sunset. The sunset itself was beautiful. The mountains formed a lovely backdrop to the oranges and reds that just kept getting more and more dramatic as we rode onward. Here are a few videos I took with my new ContourHD. Unfortunately, the camera over-exposed and you can’t really see all of the beautiful colors of the sunset, but it’ll give you an idea:

Foliage in Northern Vermont – PDR from Corporate Runaways on Vimeo.

Foliage and Sunset from Corporate Runaways on Vimeo.

Foliage in Vermont – Long View from Corporate Runaways on Vimeo.

We arrived at Barrewood Campground right as the sunset was wrapping up. The office door was open but the guy who runs the campground wasn’t there, so we just grabbed a spot that looked like it would be somewhat sheltered from the wind and started setting up the tent, trying to beat the dark. Luckily, the REI Quarter Dome T3 tent is a cinch to set up, and it only took us a few minutes to get the tent up and offload the stuff from our panniers that was going into the tent. Masukomi worked on getting the stuff laid out in our tent, while I started the stove and started boiling water for our soup. By the time the water was ready, Masukomi had the tent all laid out and I went to change out of my motorcycle clothes while she tended the noodles. Then we sipped our soup in the tent and offloaded our video from the day before settling in for a cold night.

DC Video Diary Entry – PDR Day 1 from Corporate Runaways on Vimeo.

Camping was cold. Temperatures got down into the high 20s. We were in the REI Quarter Dome T3 tent, and I had an REI Siesta +30/+40 Sleeping Bag, which is rated for either 30 or 40 degrees, depending on which side is facing up. We’ve also each got the Sea to Summit Thermolite Reactor Extreme Mummy Bag Liner, which is rated to add up to 25 degrees to a sleeping bag. I started the night wearing my thermal liners from my motorcycle gear, my calf-high motorcycle socks, my Cyclone Buff as a balaclava, and an Eastern Mountain Sports Power Stretch Skull Cap. I was really cold when I went to bed, but I attribute this partially to still getting over a cold. Sometime during the night, I was overheating in all my gear, even though it was only high 20’s outside the tent, so I took off the thermal liner pants. Stayed warm and snug through the rest of the night, even in the extreme cold.

Puppy Dog Route Day 2 – Troy, VT to Williamstown, VT – 161 Miles

Day 2 started well. We woke up around 7:30, and had everything out of the tent and into the panniers on the bikes by 9AM. Unfortunately, we’d thought the night before that we would cook oatmeal and eggs in the morning, so we left the stove out and we needed to clean the dishes. When we woke up, we changed our minds – we decided we’d spent a night in the cold so breakfast in a warm building would be good for our bodies. Unfortunately, this meant we still had to put away the stove and clean the dishes. We ended up somehow putzing around for another hour, meaning we didn’t get out of the campground until close to 10AM.

We headed down the road to the start of the PDR, which happened to be right around the corner from our campground. The Puppy Dog Route started in the parking lot of the Junction 101 Restaurant, and we decided that would be a good spot for breakfast. Turned out to be perfect. Simple, tasty fare well-executed. The home fries were crispy and simple; the bacon was cooked just like bacon should be; it was a warm meal that provided us with the energy we’d need for a long day of dirt.

After breakfast, adjusting our liners in our gear and otherwise prepping for the road, as well as gassing up a bit further down the road, it ended up being around 11:15AM before we really started the Puppy Dog Route. This delay ended up causing us problems later in the day.

Almost immediately when we hit dirt, we started seeing beautiful scenery. Here at the very northern tip of the Puppy Dog Route, foliage was slightly past peak, but the colors were still gorgeous and vibrant. We pretty quickly ran into a pretty spot with river, some interesting rocks and changing foliage, and stopped to take pictures. This set the scene for the rest of the day.

Beautiful Foliage River Scene

Masukomi and the bikes on the PDR

I was also excited to be taking video on my new ContourHD camera. Due to my month-long enforced hiatus from the bikes, I hadn’t had an opportunity to mount and test the new video camera before the trip. As we discovered from the video I took on Day 1, the camera was pointed slightly too far down and slightly tilted. I moved it up and tried to adjust the angle, but unfortunately I adjusted the angle the wrong direction.

Puppy Dog Route Day 2 – Beautiful Foliage and Northern VT Mountains from Corporate Runaways on Vimeo.

Foliage on the Northern Half of the PDR from Corporate Runaways on Vimeo.

But the foliage was just so beautiful and I couldn’t get enough of the colors.

Masukomi and foliage in Northern VT on the PDR

Typical road and foliage on the PDR

We discovered pretty quickly that the GPS waypoints were going to be challenging to follow. Masukomi had the waypoints on her GPS, and I had printed the route sheets that the BMW Motorcycle Owners of Vermont folks had put together for the Puppy Dog Route. We never did figure out if it was the way the GPS waypoints were entered, or the way we imported them into our GPS, but Masukomi had a hard time telling where we were supposed to turn. We figured out pretty quickly that the route sheets were better about telling us where to turn, and the GPS could help us look ahead to find the roads. Between the two of us, we were able to navigate, but there was a fair amount of missing our turns and having to backtrack, and we had to rely far more heavily than I’d anticipated on following the route sheets. We definitely lost time with all of the turning around and backtracking.

The road itself was relatively not-challenging. The dirt was mostly hard-packed, with bits of gravel but not too much to worry about. We encountered one single-track ATV-style trail that was a bit more fun, but for the most part, the roads may as well have been paved. Frankly, the only thing that kept it from being too boring, in my mind, was the beautiful foliage we kept encountering.

Masukomi, the road and the beautiful colors

Masukomi and a different but beautiful road

Shortly after commenting on the relative ease of this road (and, unfortunately, only around 12:30PM – around an hour and a half into riding the PDR) I ran into a problem. The day before, I’d stuck my EZPass to my motorcycle windshield so I could stop pulling it out of my tank bag every time we got to a toll booth. Masukomi had hers on her windshield for months, and so I never thought it would be a problem. Apparently I was naive.

We were on a road much like the one above, going downhill, when my EZPass dropped off my windscreen and bounced over my dash into my forks. I immediately said over the intercom “Shit! We need to stop, now.” Unfortunately, we were going downhill on a curve around a one-lane bridge. But I knew I needed to get stopped ASAP to get the thing out of my forks, or face who knew what kinda problem – from losing it to having a serious mechanical issue because the thing was stuck in my forks. I tried to pull off to the left side of the road, where I wouldn’t be in the line of traffic coming down the hill and people going around the curve over the one-lane bridge could see me.

Alas, I have problems with my footing and my bike on hills – I put my right foot down to steady the bike and slipped on some loose gravel, and the bike went down on the right. It was one of those slow-motion things – it reached a certain point of critical mass where I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stop the bike from going over, and it sort of threw me clear on the right. Unfortunately, I landed on my hands and knees, and landed particularly hard on my right hand. The bottom outside palm of the hand took the brunt of the landing. It HURT. I jumped up and hit the kill switch on the bike, and Masukomi was already on the way back to help me pick the bike up. We got it upright – no damage to the bike, as usual. Just some dirt on the Barkbusters and my pannier. The damage was to me, in this case.

My hand was already having problems, and I could tell it was only going to get worse, so I busted out the Ibuprofin and took 800MG – prescription strength. Then we got back on the bikes and I insisted on going ahead, even though my hand was killing me and I had to really fight hard not to whimper every time I had to brake, push on the bars or even use the throttle. I knew that if Masukomi heard me whimpering through the headset, she’d make me stop and rest it, and we were already behind schedule. We were going to have to push hard to make it to the campground before dark.

The one-lane bridge where I dumped the bike

After that, I was pretty much out of commission for a while. I was quiet, trying not to let on how much my hand was bothering me. I’d mention every once in a while that it hurt, and Masukomi kept asking me if I wanted to rest it, but I knew we were crunched for time so I said I’d let her know if it got worse. I didn’t really try to take any more pictures for a while – I just followed along, watching the trip sheet for our turns and thinking about where to stop for gas and a bathroom break where I could rest my hand.

Unfortunately, sometime during this point, Masukomi’s microphone stopped working. We’d had the same problem with my microphone unit roughly a month before. The microphone was emitting static, but her voice got quieter and quieter, and eventually I couldn’t hear her anymore at all. She could still hear me, and the GPS would cut in with directions when needed, but she couldn’t talk to me. I hadn’t realized how much I’ve come to rely on being able to talk to her until she couldn’t talk back, and then I was extremely frustrated and felt quite alone on the bike. It got very solitary after that.

At close to 90 miles, we were on a state highway for a short jaunt and we missed a turn. We ended up following the state highway into the next town a mile or two down the road, which happened to be Stow, Vermont. We arrived in Stow around 2:30PM, and the traffic was horrendous. We’d been on the road for a little over three hours, and I wanted a restroom break. We stopped at a gas station to gas up the bikes, go to the restroom and regroup over our remaining route.

I was concerned at this point that it was 3pm and we still had 90 miles to go. We’d only come 90 miles in the past 4 hours, and another 4 hours would put us at 7PM – after dark. We also hadn’t had lunch yet, so we knew we’d have to eat. Masukomi noticed that the gas station had a little shop inside that made custom sandwiches to order, so we grabbed some sandwiches and took a break for lunch while we examined our route and discussed our options.

With a little help from my iPhone and Google Maps, we discovered that while we still had 90 miles of dirt to cover, the end of our route was actually only 60 miles away. And the campground where we were planning to stay was only 30 miles away. If we followed the PDR dirt route, it would be around 50 miles to get to our campground. We decided we’d follow the PDR until it crossed the road that would link up to our campground, and then break away from the route and head directly to the campground. By this time it was close to 4PM, but we figured that would give us plenty of time to get to the campground.

Got back on the PDR, and it was more pretty like the morning section had been. The Ibuprofin was helping my hand a bit, although it was still bothering me. The road itself was more of the same. We’d have a nice section through the woods, and then it would break out into a beautiful view like this one:

More beautiful scenery on the PDR in VT

While we’d stopped, some clouds had moved in off to the east. So while it looked like the beautiful, sunlit scene above to the west, the east was a bit more dramatic:

Clouds moving in on the PDR

Still, it was beautiful and I found myself enjoying the route in spite of my pain. It was still frustrating that I couldn’t hear Masukomi, but the weather was beautiful, the foliage was beautiful, and it was so good to be back on a bike after my month of enforced hiatus. We followed the route and encountered more pretty, until we hit the road that would lead us to our campground. We headed that way, and arrived at our campground at around 6PM – with plenty of light to set up the tent and get situated for the night.

There couldn’t have been a bigger contrast between the campground of the night before and the one from Day 2. The guy who ran Barrewood Campground was really friendly, and the campground itself was small but well-maintained. We were limited on our options for Day 2 – because it was so late in the season, most of the state campgrounds were closed. There is a campground near the mid-point of the route, but it was closed so we were forced to look further afield for a private campground that was still open. We ended up at Limehurst Lake Campground, and immediately got off on a bad footing.

I took off my helmet and ear plugs to deal with the check-in process, as I was our elected spokesperson for this night of camping. Masukomi followed along, but didn’t take off her helmet or earplugs – she was just there to think of any questions I might forget, etc. I spoke with the woman about registering, and I got a very busybody, negative sort of vibe from her. She asked immediately if we’d be going back out again, as the “gate” would close at 7PM and we’d be locked in unless we paid an extra $20 for a gate key. Sometime during this process, Masukomi asked a question and the woman seemed flabbergasted. She said something like “Why don’t you take that thing off so I can see your face?” as if it offended her that Masukomi hadn’t removed the helmet. Masukomi explained that she’d just have to put it back on again, and I tried to jump in again to distract the woman. It just wasn’t a good vibe.

She told us that the restrooms in the tenting section of the campground had been turned off for the season, and the tables had been taken off all the sites except the first two – 1 and 6. If we wanted to use a restroom, we’d have to walk around the lake back to the RV section of camp to the bathhouses. She tried to recommend that we stay in the RV portion of camp, but we like the primitive-style camping, so we declined. Then she told us not to walk in the woods, as it was bear season, and moose season, and partridge season, and it was very dangerous.

We rode our bikes over to the tenting section, on the other side of the lake, and started to unpack. We chose the site away from the lake, as the trees went right up to the edge of the site and it seemed a bit more sheltered from the wind. We theorized that the temperatures would be a bit warmer away from the exposed lake. We laid out the tent, and sometime during this process, I absolutely crashed. I didn’t literally crash the bike – I just crashed mentally and physically. I was exhausted and cold, and my right hand was really bothering me again. I couldn’t do any of the camp tasks that required me to twist my right hand or put any weight on my hand. I had no energy, and Masukomi quickly recognized the symptoms and sent me into the tent to lie down. She finished unpacking and setting up the site, and she even walked over to the store where we’d checked in to see if they had any food more substantial than the eggs and oatmeal we had, since we were going to be locked into the campground.

The trip to the convenience store turned up nothing but a text from our dogsitter. It turns out, she’d texted us around noon saying that my dog was being too much of a problem and she wanted us to cut our trip short and come home and get him. We didn’t get the text until close to 7PM, and we already had the tent set up. The gate would be locked at 7, and there was no way we could get re-packed and out the gate before it closed. Plus I was exhausted and crashy, and Masukomi wouldn’t consider the idea of me riding home 4 hours in the dark. She didn’t think I’d be safe. We decided we’d have to get up at first light to pack and get home so we could pick up the dogs, and the dogsitter would just have to deal until then.

Thus ended Day 2. We were going to have to completely skip the second day of the Puppy Dog Route, and ride home on slab to pick up the dogs. The second day would have been in the southern half of the state, where the foliage was still peak. We were expecting a gorgeous, fun day on dirt. Instead, we were going to have to get up early and hit the slab.

I didn’t sleep well. My wrist was bothering me, and I couldn’t seem to get cold. I think I was partially dehydrated because I hadn’t drunk enough water during the day, and partially in need of calories. I kept waking up. At one point, I heard noises shortly after I woke up, and they started getting closer and closer. I ran through the possible animals that could be causing the noises, and the only thing I could come up with was possibly a moose. I’d never heard or seen a moose before, but it sounded like a very loud, deeper sorta mutant-cow-lowing. It started far off and to our right, and got closer and closer. At one point, it was directly parallel to our tent – essentially our tent was between it and the lake. Then it started getting further off to our left, until eventually I could barely hear it.

I must have laid awake listening to the sound for close to an hour before Masukomi woke up. I explained what I’d heard, and she was annoyed that I didn’t wake her – partially because I confessed that I’d been laying there petrified, and partially because she’d never heard a moose before, either, and felt like she’d missed out on the moose chanting. We ventured out of the tent for a call of nature, and thankfully I couldn’t see or hear anything while we were standing in the dark.

I explained that at one point, I’d heard movement in the brush, twigs snapping, etc. close to our tent, like the time we heard the bear on our Trans-Mass Trail trip. It kept going through my head that the woman at the office said it was bear season, and very dangerous, and that’s all I could think about. Laying there in the dark, listening to those noises, my heart was pounding and I was torn between lying quietly in the tent and hoping whatever-it-was wouldn’t notice us, or hopping on the bike and driving around the lake to the more populated RV section. Then I heard the probably-moose-sound from near the head of the lake, and immediately nixed the idea of riding the bikes around, as we’d have to pass the moose. So I laid there quietly for well over an hour, until the noises finally got too far away to hear and my exhausted body dropped back into sleep.

Puppy Dog Route Day 3 – Williamstown, VT to Boston, MA – 177 Miles

Masukomi’s normal weekday alarm woke us up at 7:15AM, which it turns out was only 15 minutes after sunrise. We crawled out of the tent to start packing up the bikes, and were greeted with a beautiful, eerie scene. The lake was steaming like a cauldron of boiling water. I didn’t think my camera was up to it, but I tried snapping a few shots.

Steam coming off the lake at Limehurst Lake Campground

Tent site next to steaming lake at Limehurst Lake Campground

We started packing up the bikes so we could hit the slab home to pick up the dogs. I wasn’t moving particularly fast, because my right hand was still bothering me and I was also upset about having to skip the second day of the PDR and cut our trip short. Ironically, this was the fastest we ever managed to break camp – we started getting ready around 7:30 and were on the road by 9AM. I wasn’t moving particularly fast, and I don’t think Masukomi was, either, which gave me hope that maybe we’d get this camping routine down faster once we’ve done it a bit more.

We hit the slab and started riding toward home. At around 9:30, we passed a random exit and Masukomi indicated that we should get off there, as we hadn’t done breakfast yet. We ended up stopping at Eaton’s Sugarhouse, which was the first random restaurant we found at the exit. Turns out that this was another random breakfast stop that we found to be quite tasty. The food wasn’t quite as well executed as the meal we’d had the day before at Junction 101 Restaurant, but I got sausage and biscuits and gravy, which I hadn’t had in years, and it was quite tasty. Reminded me of my grandma’s gravy, which is very hard to do. This warm, nostalgic meal (and the coffee, probably) put me in a good mood, and I couldn’t be angry even though we were cutting the trip a day short to come home and pick up the dogs.

Masukomi and the bikes at Eaton's Sugarhouse in VT

We gassed up and got back on the slab shortly after 11AM. From there, it was I-89 down to I-93 into Boston. It was a long slog on slab, which neither of us particularly likes, and I was frustrated that Masukomi couldn’t talk to me. We kept running into traffic, which I assume was people coming home from Columbus Day Weekend – had us slowed/stopped a few times on the interstate. Still, we made fairly good time, and we got home around 1:30PM.

What We Took Away from the Weekend

In the end, the weekend was informative but disappointing. I’m concerned about using the Sena SMH-10 headsets on the big trip, as now both my microphone and Masukomi’s microphone have failed. Maybe we got a bad batch, but it’s not a good sign. Now we’ve got to turn her microphone in to the warranty folks for replacement, but luckily I’ve still got the replacement for my old mic to use as a backup (since I also bought a new microphone assembly).

We know we can camp in temperatures probably as bad as anything we’ll encounter on the road. I think I probably want an electric liner jacket for riding in really cold temperatures, as I was getting borderline hypothermic on the bike on the first day on the slab. I also need to hit the gym hard in the next 6 weeks so I can loose enough weight to wear the thermal liner under my pants, too.

We think we probably have enough room in our panniers for everything, as we carried everything we’ll be bringing on the big trip except spare parts. (We’re only planning to bring tubes, a chain and sprockets, though, and we had spare room in our panniers, so we think we’ll have room for parts.)

We’ve determined that our plan for dogsitting has fallen through. The dogsitter who had the dogs over the weekend doesn’t really “get” dogs. She’s friendly enough, but my dog is a ‘special needs’ dog – he was a rescue who may have been abused, and has bonded to me very exclusively. I’ve only left him alone a few times – twice in his own home with people who have visited/walked him or stayed with him, and once in someone else’s home. He did have some accidents when he stayed with a different dogsitter once before, but she really “got” dogs and knew how to react. After a couple of days, he was fine with her.

This dogsitter, who we were planning to use for the 4 months we’ll be gone on the big trip, doesn’t “get” dogs the way the old one did. She got frustrated when my dog had accidents, and apparently crated him to confine the damage. When I picked him up, he was covered in his own pee, and he had unexplained scrapes on his nose. I think this dogsitter would be fine with Masukomi’s dog, who is friendly and gets along with practically everyone (and who knows the dogsitter very well), but my nervous dog who didn’t know anyone in the household was just not a good match for her. This leads to some potential long-term difficulties. Now I have to figure out a new plan for my dog, and I only have 6 weeks to do it.

It was frustrating that the trip got cut short, but I did enjoy the day of riding we were able to do. We’re hoping to maybe take a weekend and do the southern leg of the route in the next week or two, so at least we will have completed the Puppy Dog Route. We’ll need to make some minor gear changes before the trip (gloves, heated jacket liner, thermal layer, etc.) but it was a good test of our gear in the cold, and our camping routine. I think, on the whole, it was a productive trip and we had some good riding.

Monday Q&A: Saddlebags for a Ninja 250

Last week, I got a question from a reader about this picture of my old Ninja 250, wanting to know more about the saddlebags on the bike:

I can’t claim credit for that picture. That’s a pic from when Masukomi had the bike, and she took a two-week tour around the United States on the Ninja 250. The saddlebags on the bike were Fieldsheer Expander Saddlebags. Here were my responses to the guy asking the questions about saddlebags on the Ninja 250:

“In that picture, you’re looking at Fieldsheer Expander Saddlebags:

http://www.newenough.com/parts/closeouts/luggage/fieldsheer/expander_motorcycle_saddlebags.html

Honestly, I can’t recommend them. Those saddlebags actually belonged to my roommate when she had the Ninjette, and she had trouble with the rain covers (one actually blew off while she was riding), the zippers weren’t large enough to enable her to fully access the contents, and she found that it was tight and she had to take a lot of things out to get to what she wanted. Plus, over the two-week tour that she took with those saddlebags, they started to sag closer and closer to her hot exhaust pipes. She said she wouldn’t use them again.

For my trip, I got some saddlebags from RevPack:

http://www.revpack.com/motorcycle/products/SaddlePack.html

The ones I got are listed on a different page – they’re the super deluxe expedition saddle bags and they’re huge. They actually turned out to be a bit too large for the Ninjette – I was able to do some creative things with the handles and the strap mechanism to keep them high enough to stay off the pipes, but it required a little finagling. For most traveling, I think the Deluxe Saddle Packs would be a better choice for the Ninja in terms of size (and they’re also $100 cheaper than the ones I got). They’ve got a wide top open so you can easily access the stuff inside, and I found them to be good quality and full of thoughtful design details.”

And a subsequent response after I exchanged some emails with the reader, and got more details about the trip he’s planning:

“The Fieldsheer bags are inexpensive if you’re looking for a cheap option, but they’re annoying and I was happy I spent the money on better bags for my trip. So if price is a concern for you, the Fieldsheer bags would work – just put something flat/hard in the bottom of each bag (like plexiglass or something lighter) so the bags won’t sag onto the pipes and you should be good to go.”

So there you have it. I wouldn’t recommend the Fieldsheer bags – in fact, I spent precious farkling money on replacing them immediately, even though my roommate offered to give me the Fieldsheer bags for free. I decided they’d be too annoying and were too poorly designed for me, so I shelled out close to $300 for the RevPack saddlebags I’m now using on my BMW. If you’re looking for a cheap set of saddlebags for the Ninja 250, the Fieldsheer bags would work (as long as you correct the sagging problem with some sort of structural reinforcement). But for my money, I’d rather have something better designed that won’t drive me crazy while I’m on the road with my bike.

Bring it on, readers! Send me your questions! What do you want to know next?