6 months until the start

It is now 6 months today until I start my tour.The preparations are on track; the route is set, shipping of the bike is being sorted, dates all known, packing lists being developed, the hotel for Sturgis is booked. There is snow here at home in London and my bikes are put away for winter. The tour...

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To Cover or Not to Cover?

I am not sure about whether I should take a bike cover with me. Opinion seems to be divided on this with security of your bike being compared to the amount of space a bike cover takes to carry when touring.Essentially it comes down to this – where are you going to park your precious and maybe beloved...

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Which Sat Nav?

Using a Sat Nav on a bike has benefits and disadvantages. Some say it takes away some of the freedom of the road that we all adore so much. Some say it simply helps us from getting lost! I am somewhere in the middle – I use one when I really need to, but leave it off the bike most of the time.When I...

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You Tube Video - The Great Ocean Road

Sit back and watch, get a taste for what its like to sit on the back of a Harley davidson and ride the Great Ocean Road between Lorne and Apollo Bay. This is an experience which you will only appreciate fully - after you have done it!BTW - this video has been sped up (we don't actually ride at this speed), but it does give you the nearest I can give you to the way it feels - less the wind in...

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HOG Assistance in the USA

Many of us Harley-Davidson riders in the UK have taken out a bike recovery insurance policy called HOG assistance. In the event of a breakdown, this covers transporting your bike to the nearest H-D dealer, transport costs, overnight accommodation etc.I have enquired if the UK cover is applicable if you take your Harley to the States, and the simple answer is yes. The UK and USA organisations have...

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USA Times Zones

One of the things I will have to think about on the tour is the different time zones across the USA. On the main (contiguous) States, there are 4 times zones which are (from west to east) Pacific, Mountain, Central and Eastern. These range between 8 and 5 hours behind the UK. The map below shows approximately...

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Top Road Trip Songs

When on the tour, I want to listen to the most relevant music that I can. Therefore I am putting together a list of my Top Road Trip Songs. I have my own ideas about what to include, but I’d like some suggestions, so why not suggest a song or two using the comments link below this post and maybe add...

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USA Helmet Laws

Being somewhat confusing for riders from outside of the USA, each State has its own helmet laws that say whether you must wear a helmet, you can choose to wear one if you are over a certain age, or there are some States that do not have a helmet law. The map below shows what the current situation is...

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Pannier / Saddlebag Liners

I forgot to mention something very useful that we used on our motorcycle trip to California – Pannier or Saddlebag liners. We purchased these in the UK before we left and took them with us. As we were renting bikes, we wanted to be able to put our belongings in a bag that we could lift out when we arrived...

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Who might join me?

Over the past few days, I have contacted a small number of friends to ask if they want to join me on part of the tour and a few have already expressed a wish to join me. I am not sure how many will eventually come on part of the tour, but a few seem very interested. I think it will take some time to...

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19th September - Detailed Route Planning Completed!

Over the past few days, I have been doing the detailed planning of the tour route through the States of Utah, Arizona and California. They are the last three States and the total distance that I now intend to travel is 13,409 miles in 121 days.My intended route is shown right at the bottom of this page....

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4th September – Contacted the Harley Owners Group

It had been about a month since I attended the SOFER Rally and met Marjorie Rae from HOG where we had briefly discussed my intended tour.Since then I had started this blog and it had developed well enough for me to contact Marjorie again. I did that yesterday to ask her opinion about how the blog could be promoted – after all, if I am spending time writing this, I want people to read it!Marjorie wrote...

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1st September - Detailed Planning Part 6

I spent yesterday planning the tour through Colorado. This sounds like it will be one of my favourite States. The mountains, passes and rivers will mean this could be a stunning State to ride in.When I did the planning for Colorado I used an excellent site which is full of helpful information to people planning to ride here. This is called Passes & Canyons – Motorcycle Touring in Colorado.Today,...

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31st August 2009 - Saddlebag Locks for my Road King Classic

Having done a few long trips through Europe on my Harley-Davidson Road King Classic, I had learnt that not having locks on the standard leather panniers is a real pain. This means that I could not leave anything of value in the saddlebags.I had heard that you could buy locks for these saddlebags and...

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24th August 2009 – Do the tour solo or with others?

The time I spent reflecting about the tour the previous day had also given me the time to think some more about if I wanted to do this tour on my own, or with others. I had given this some thought previously and I had even spoken to a few friends about this.I was in two minds. Both doing the trip on my own has its advantages, as does doing it with others. Doing it on my own meant I could start each...

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24th August 2009 – The different types of roads in the USA

What is an Interstate? What is a highway? A turnpike? Is a freeway free?I was certainly confused by the different types of road in the US, so I did a little researching.Here is my quick guide (with thanks to far too many websites to mention).Interstate. This is a country wide system of limited access...

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23rd August – Detailed Route Planning Part 5 – Time for Reflection

I spent a few hours today planning the detailed route for Utah. What a stunning State this will be!I did take time to reflect and take stock about the journey I was planning.Including Utah, I had now done the detailed planning for about 7500 miles to be done in what I calculated up to that point, including a few rest days, to be about 63 days. That is an average of just 119 miles per day and I was...

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16th / 20th August 2009 – Detailed Planning Part 4

I had a few days to spare, so it was back to the detailed route planning. So far I had planned two of the major parts of the tour (the Atlantic Coast and the Central States) but for me, I was now about to start the most interesting part – travelling south down the Rocky Mountains.The mountains themselves,...

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8th / 9th August 2009 – The SOFER Rally

This was the weekend of SOFER, the South of England Rally, a multi-chapter Harley Owners Group (HOG) event held at Bisley in Surrey. This was a 3 day long event and my eldest son and I decided to camp. I hadn’t actually slept in a tent for years and I now know why! This weekend made me decided that...

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18th / 31st July – Detailed Route Planning, Part 3

My wife Jackie is American and each year we try to take a family holiday somewhere near Seattle in Washington State. Seattle is where most of Jackie’s family live so it is an obvious location for us to holiday to. This year, 2009, we rented a house at Lake Whatcom, near Bellingham and this gave me an...

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27th / 28th June 2009 – Detailed Route Planning Part 2

From this point on for about 3 months, I periodically got out my State maps, books and spreadsheet and I worked my way through each State that I would be visiting.This weekend I did the detailed route planning for the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and one of the smallest States, Rhode...

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20th / 21st June 2009 – Detailed Route Planning, Part 1

I had decided back in April that I would need to do some detailed route planning to determine which roads I would use to go through each State, rather than just deciding n the route as I went along. I had bought maps of each State and I had started to mark on those maps in pencil which roads I would take. To help do this, I used the two books “The Most Scenic Drives In America” and the “Guide to Scenic...

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12th June 2009 – Importing a motorbike into the USA

Chris, the really helpful guy at Dynamic International proved to be a fountain of useful information and (especially) contacts. Without being asked, he contacted somebody he knew in the business who then sent to me a link to the website of a very informative Government Agency called CBP (Customs and...

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9th June 2009 – Should I use my own bike, or rent one?

This turned out to be a really easy decision, based mainly on the cost of renting versus the cost of shipping my own bike to the USA.I used the Internet to find a company that ships motorbikes to / from the USA and I found Dynamic International (www.dontpanic-calldynamic.com). I spoke to Chris Merson...

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Second half of May 2009 – California warm up trip

The 14th May saw the seven of us doing the tour of California gather at Heathrow for the long flight to San Francisco. Without writing a long piece about what happened on this trip, here is a list setting out some tips and hints about the California trip that I found to be useful and I will certainly...

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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...

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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...

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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....

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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Christmas 2007 - The idea for a Motorcycle Tour

There are many great things about Christmas; seeing family, spending time relaxing from work, giving and receiving of gifts; seeing or telephoning those relatives you don’t see very often and of course the timeless repeats on the television. This is quickly followed by the New Year celebrations. Out...

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Photography Book Collection

Click on one of these images to view some of these books, that contain photos taken by me: ...

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You Tube - Ride The Yarra Boulevard with us

One of the great things about Melbourne is its parklands. The Yarra Boulevard is just one such location and its very close to the city. And what a Harley Ride it makes!We quite often integrate this route into our Harley Rides when we takes someone out for one of our motorcycle joyrides. Its the only place I know where you are actually in the middle of a city like Melbourne, but you feel like...

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Harley Davidson Softail Deluxe FLSTN 2009

New Harley Davidson Softail Deluxe 2009 has a redesigned, narrow-profile rider seat with collapsible pockets in the shell that make the seat narrower when straddling the motorcycle at rest. Motorcycles Harley Davidson Softail Deluxe is do not come around very often, So... Don't miss your chance to Own...

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Harley Ride Virtual Tour - Melbourne

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You Tube Across My handlebars

What's it like? What can you see - seated on the back of a Harley Davidson motorbike on one of our Harley Rides?This is the first in what I hope will become a series of You Tube clips where I attach a camera to my bike as I take people for joyrides around Melbourne.So enjoy this and let me know what you thi...

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Ride for the Hills - Bushfire Fundraising Ride

 Areas north of Melbourne and across Victoria were devastated by fire on Black Saturday in early February 2009. Several thousand homes were destroyed and over 300 people lost their lives. The Victorian Motorcycle Community are organizing one of the biggest Charity Rides ever seen in Melbourne on Sun...

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New Free Online Harley Rides Book Edition 2

What can you do with a Harley Davidson motorcycle? You would be surprised by some of the Harley Rides requests that we get. They range from taking someone for a joyride on their birthday, displaying our machines at Conferences right through to appearing in TV Shows and in Television Travel Documentaries.While taking out tourists may appear to be all we do - there are many other things which we...

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New Harley-Davidson 2009 Sportster XR1200

In the end of 2008, The Harley Davidson released motorcycle sportster platform in Europe which called as Harley-Davidson Sportster XR1200. But it didn't take Harley long to mend its ways and announce the release of the XR1200 in the U.S at early 2009, the company is banking on the enthusiasm of the...

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