First part of May 2009 – Preparing for California

Back in November the previous year, I had agreed to join a bunch of guys (that I didn’t know) on a two week tour of California on rented motorbikes. I was now preparing for that trip and I was struggling with the decisions about what to take. Everything had to fit in the two panniers (or are they called saddlebags?) on the bike and a specialist piece of motorcycle luggage made by Nelson-Riggs.

One of the problems I had to consider was what bike clothes to take. The route we were planning included coast roads, inland roads, mountain passes, near desert conditions and just about everything else in between. Checking on the internet showed that we could expect a pretty large temperature variation - anything from snow in the mountains to high temperatures in the glorious California sunshine.

Being a lover of writing lists (it drives my wife mad) I wrote out everything I thought I might need to take. I will write more about this later in the part about preparing for the main USA tour, but for now, it’s enough to know that I found this very helpful. This list was split into the main sections of clothes, bike clothes, tools, bathroom stuff, electronic gear etc. Weeks before I was due to leave I laid everything out on a spare bedroom floor and needless to say, it didn’t fit into the luggage I was able to carry on the bike.

I set aside those items I didn’t think were really necessary and eventually it did fit without having to leave behind anything crucial.

Regarding the logistics of the trip, I was lucky that two of the guys worked together and they used their brilliant secretary to find and book hotels, flights and all the necessary paperwork. There was quite a lot of this as I found out when I was presented with a file of what I would need.

For the trip of California, we rented bikes from a company called EagleRider. They can rent a wide range of bikes from Harley-Davidsons to Honda, BMW’s, Yamaha’s and many more. Harleys are their speciality and we paid around $135 per day, plus a little more for top-up insurance. This bought unlimited mileage and a wide network of rental locations that meant we could have returned bikes to a different location than we started from if we had wanted to do that. I went for a Harley-Davidson Electra Glide.

As we were on a fixed timescale we pre-booked accommodation ahead of time. I had mixed views about this – it was good that we didn’t need to worry about this at all during the trip as we knew exactly where we would stay each night. The bad point was (and this happened a few times) we arrived at out designated hotel way too early in the afternoon and it would have been better to carry on riding. As we were a sizeable group (seven of us) on the whole it was better to book in advance to make sure we had somewhere to sleep.

The preparations seemed to go ok and there was only one last thing to do – meet the guys in a local curry house about a week before we left. It was a good job I liked them as 2 weeks with people I didn’t get on with could have been somewhat challenging!

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April 2009 – Detailed Planning Begins

Having now got an overall very rough route worked out, it was time to start the detailed planning stage for the tour. I had stuck pins into my big map of the USA which showed the places I definitely wanted to go to. I had previously marked onto the map the rough position of the roads from the “Most Scenic Drives In America” book. I had an overall plan, but now I needed to start the detail. I knew roughly where I wanted to go, but it was now time to join up into one continuous route those places I knew I wanted to visit.

I did consider whether doing detailed planning was appropriate for my tour. Of course, I could have taken a chance just gone from place to place using my gut feeling without any detailed planning and I must admit, there was an appeal to that. The freedom that this type of touring would give could be very exciting. Not knowing what you would be doing or where you would be going from one day to the next could undoubtedly have its benefits. However, the thought of having missed something really good very close to where you have been because you didn’t know it was there would (to me) be very frustrating. This being a once in a lifetime tour, I would want to make the most of everything I could. So, for me, detailed planning was a must.

To do this detailed planning, I took the overall route I had worked out and then looked at each State in turn that I would be travelling through. For each State I had purchased a road map of that state which showed all of the main roads, cities, towns, and key features of the state. The maps I purchased are by Rand McNally and they cost about £6 each. These are folded maps which are all 9 inches x 4 inches, or roughly 230mm x 100mm when folded. The scales vary depending on the actual size of the state. The ones I have vary from 7 miles to the inch to 21 miles to the inch.

To help you find these maps, if you enter the following ISBN number in Amazons website, you will find the map for New Hampshire and Vermont. This will lead you to the full range of Rand McNally maps. ISBN 978-0528856068

There is one really important point about these maps. Some of the roads have green dots shown alongside them. See below.



These green dots signify what Rand McNally consider to be scenic roads. I found that very often when doing the detailed route planning that I had a choice of many roads that I could take from city to city, or across a particular state. Given such a choice, I always selected a road with these green dots, as they will gives the best views, run alongside rivers, through valleys, over mountains or similar – all very tempting when on a motorbike!


So, all I did was to look at which roads I wanted to travel on and marked these in pencil on the maps. I did every State like this, forming one continuous route that matched (as near as I could) the overall rough plan on my big map.

This didn’t take too long, but it became obvious to me that having the route marked on the maps was all well and good, but practically speaking, having to constantly refer to a map when on the bike was not going to be a very good solution. I also needed to write down what roads I would use, mileages and the like. That would be the next stage of the detailed planning, State by State. But, that would have to wait as the tour of California was coming up!

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February / March 2009 – Decision time!

For the next month or so, I talked to a few people about the potential of really doing the tour. Firstly and most importantly, my wife. Being away from home for 3+ months isn’t what most husbands plan to do, but Jackie knew that I longed for the adventures that I had missed out on in my early life. I was relieved when she thought the idea was a good one and was fully supportive. We talked about her coming to meet me at certain points on the tour and staying a few days. Jackie is an American, so that helped a lot – I sensed a sort of national pride that she was happy that I wanted to do this tour in her country!

Jackie does go on the back of my Harley-Davidson Road King occasionally, but the idea of doing the tour with me wasn’t really her idea of fun. I would be doing it without her.

I also spoke with a few pals about whether they wanted to join me for part of the tour. A few said they were interested and one or two were so keen, they wanted to sign up then and there!

I was working part-time during 2009, but at the end of this year my intention is to fully retire, so getting time away from work was luckily not an issue for me.

Ok, I had the route worked out, I had the time to do it, I knew how many miles it was likely to be and roughly how long it would take. I had the support of my wife. It was decision time – would I do this tour or not? I needed to know for sure and it was a big decision........

The next day, I bought a whole load of maps of each of the individual States I would be visiting.........!

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January 2009 – What sort of tour did I want?

The beginning of 2009 saw a change in my own personal circumstances which meant I would have more free time. I was very lucky that my plans to retire were coming to fruition and I was able to semi-retire at the end of that 2008. I was now only working about half of my time and the New Year saw me itching to get back to planning the tour.

So, in January 2009 I started to find the time to think about the main tour of the USA once more. I had put the previous abortive attempt behind me and instead of rushing in, like I did last time, I decided to go about this more methodically.

I knew that I wanted to do much more than just a motorcycle ride. I wanted to take in the best that America had to offer and for me, that meant stopping a lot, talking to people, learning about what I was riding passed, seeing the countryside, the towns and cities. I didn’t just want to experience the tarmac and the roads.

For some motorcyclists, it is all about the journey, the ride. I can understand that and indeed I enjoy just the ride sometimes, but to do that on this once in a lifetime journey I was planning to me seemed to miss the point. I recently read an American bikers website and the guy who wrote the site said that when he goes touring, he does 450 to 500 miles per day, every day. For some people this is fun. For me it isn’t. In the UK after those sorts of mileages, you could go the entire length of England and Scotland in 2 days, within 80 miles of 50 million people and end up knowing nothing about the country or the people. Whatever floats your boat I suppose!

For my tour, I was planning to ride an average daily distance of 125 miles. This would give me about half the day riding and half looking and learning. Depending on the area I was in, some days I would do much more than this and some days I would do a lot more. At this average, I could also easily afford to spend a few days in one place if I really liked it.

The next question was where would I stay at night – what sort of accommodation did I want to use? In America the choice is enormous, anywhere from 5 star palaces to camping. My needs are simple as providing I have a bed that is clean and comfortable, I am generally happy. That rules out the two extremes – top end hotels and tents are not for me. Regular hotels and motels are what I would go for. I would try to avoid the very low cost motels, as they can attract (in almost every country in the world) the wrong types of people. I don’t think I am a snob – I just don’t like getting into certain situations with certain people. Mid-range family run type hotels are my preference as they also give you the greatest chance of meeting people along the route.

Next, what were the absolute must see places for me? The list was not that extensive;

• California, especially the Pacific Coast Highway
• Chicago (one of my favourite cities)
• Death Valley
• Las Vegas
• Maine
• Milwaukee (home of the Harley-Davidson)
• New York City
• Niagara Falls
• Route 66
• San Francisco
• Sturgis (the best motorcycle rally in the world?)
• The Rockies, especially in Colorado
• Utah – cowboy film country
• Vermont
• Yellowstone

I got out my big map of the whole of the USA, stuck in pins in these places and a pattern very quickly emerged. Generally, these places were in an east-west line across the top of the States, or in a north-south line that roughly follows the line of the the Rocky Mountains Range.

I began to see a picture emerging that the route would start in the top right hand corner of the States n the Atlantic, head south down the coast to New York, then head west about two-thirds of the way across, then head most of the way down south, then head west again to hit the Pacific coast.

I did a very rough estimate of the mileage and determined this was about 10,000 miles. At an average of 125 miles a day, that would mean 80 days riding. Add say another 10 for rest days and I was looking at a 90 day tour, which seemed about right for me.

The route looked something like this.......
















I ended January 2009 which a much better idea of what my USA motorcycle tour might comprise. The route might have only been in outline, but I knew roughly where I would go, how many miles it was and how long it would take.

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November 2008 – Two week bike trip to California?

The rest of 2008 was very busy for me. I spent a lot of time that year working in Moscow and we finished renovating a house in Spain that we would use as a second home. We spent our first few long weekends in Spain and these wiped out any time that I might have had to start planning the main USA tour again.

In 2007 I had heard about a company called Brett Tours (http://www.brettours.co.uk) that organise excellent road trips in Europe for Harley-Davidson owners. I decided to go on one of these and chose a trip to Le Touquet in France. These are highly organised tours for about 20 bikes led by an experienced road captain where everything is done for you. The routes are planned in advanced, the hotels are booked and this means that all you need to concentrate on is enjoying the riding!

On this trip to Le Touquet there were about 20 riders and as you can imagine, we spent the days riding and the evenings eating and drinking together. One of my fellow riders was a guy called Mike, who hearing that I was having a custom bike built for me, gave me the name and phone number of his brother (Russ) who already had a custom bike and who lived very close to me. I learned that Russ sometimes organised local bike rides for him and his friends and I contacted him with a view to joining him once I had my own custom bike. Not much came of this until the second half of 2008 when Russ let me know he was organising a two week tour of California and did I want to join him and about 6 others?

Yes was the answer. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Please.

So I had just agreed to do a two week trip in May 2009 on a rented Harley with 6 guys, none of whom I had met before! As well as being really good itself, this trip would be a great taster for my main USA tour and would probably teach me a lot about preparations, what to take, what type of touring etc.

I was looking forward to this!

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May 2008 - Russian Olympics get in the way!

So, it was now May 2008 and I had spent 4 months developing a route that clearly wouldn’t work. I dumped the idea of the tour going to all of the individual States and to be honest, I didn’t have the heart to look at this again for many months. In fact, I had started working in Moscow assisting the Russian Government with their preparations for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, so I didn’t have much time to do any planning of the motorcycle tour. As it often does, work had to take priority and this prevented me from spending any decent amount of time on looking at the bike tour.

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January to March 2008 – Overall Route Planning

Where to go, for how long, what mileages and what type of touring?

These are, without a doubt, the biggest and most important questions I needed to ask myself, for they help shape everything about the tour.

Did I want to do as many miles as possible each day thereby covering as many miles as I could in the time available, thereby making the ride itself the most important part of the tour, or did I want to do take it easier and take in what the country had to offer along the way? My personal preference was to do the latter – for me, being a keen photographer as well, meant that I did want to stop and find out about the places I was riding through. How could I possibly just pass by places I would never see again without knowing about them?

It was time to consult a map. I had a 1:3450000 scale single sheet big map that covered the whole of the USA and this was good for looking at what was where. New York – top right. California – bottom left. Great Lakes at the top. Rockies down the left a state or two inland. I found Yellowstone and decided that must be on my route. I saw Milwaukee and thought I should go there to see the Harley-Davidson factory and museum. I saw the Florida Keys and thought that must be included on my tour. It went on like this for a few days with me looking at some of the places on the big map and working out what I might want to see and where I might want to go.

Hang on! This was useless, for I was like a kid in a sweet shop – eyes darting everywhere, not deciding anything. This was not the way to plan a long tour. I needed to be more methodical.

The problem I had was that I simply didn’t know the USA well enough to plan such a tour. I knew a few cities and a few places that I might like to go to, but I just didn’t know enough and the big scale map I had only showed the main roads. It certainly showed all of the Interstate Roads but like most bikers, I don’t like riding on roads like motorways as they are mainly characterless and boring eyesores that are only any good if you are in a hurry.

I decided to buy two things – a pin board to put the map on and a couple of books about touring in the States. The first was easy – a quick trip into Stevenage to one of those stationary superstores and an hour later my big map was firmly attached to a big pin board.

Finding any good books about touring in the USA was not so easy. Sure I found a few on the Internet about touring the States in a car, but touring on a motorbike is a different thing altogether. A couple of the books I purchased have hardly been used at all since I received them. These are the type that concentrate upon listing great places to see, but hardly discuss possible routes, road types, scenery, twisty roads and all the other things I was interested in. I could only find a couple of books that seemed to be useful.

The first is “The Most Scenic Drives In America” which is a large Readers Digest book of 400 pages. It gives maps and descriptions of 120 road trips of varying length and it is not only incredibly useful, but it is well laid out and gives as much information about the route itself as it does the places along each route. The book is divided into 4 sections; the Western States; The Rocky Mountain States; The Central States; The Eastern States. Each section has between 24 and 41 routes and each route begins with a simple map showing which roads the route takes and numbered highlights to see along that route. Each trip is described on about 4 to 6 pages.

The second book was the Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways (the 275 best drives in the U.S.) which is a National Geographic book. At 463 pages it is thicker than the other book and crammed full of the same sort of information - routes, small maps, what to see along each route etc. Although it has more pages, the size of this second book is smaller and could be taken with you on a motorcycle trip. The amount of information it contains is huge and I have no doubt it would be very useful during such a trip.


These two books were the catalyst for deciding where I might go on my own tour. With a pink highlighter pen I drew on my big map all 120 of the routes the Most Scenic Drives book. I put different colour pins in the map to indicate the places that I definitely wanted to go to. Next I used a very high-tech method to begin to plan my intended route – a ball of string! Like many things in life, simplicity is the key and I simply used the string and pins to join together those pink routes that I wanted to go on and very soon I had developed an outline overall plan of my tour. At that time, it meant I would ride in every one of the 48 contiguous (all except Alaska and Hawaii) States and this felt just right – seeing the whole of America – fantastic!

This overall plan took quite a long time to develop, about the first 4 months of 2008 in all. I started to list out the roads I would take and the places I would visit. It wasn’t until I took the string off the pin board and measured it against the scale of the map that I realised I had a problem, indeed an enormous problem. The total mileage of the tour was about 30,000 miles which at 150 miles per day would mean 200 days, or over 6 months!

For my circumstances, that would be wholly unrealistic. I knew that I was soon to retire, but 6 months away from home and my wife was never going to work. Time to think again!

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