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 who works there and he was very helpful indeed. Soon Chris provided me with a quote for £2,200 (incl VAT) for collecting my Harley-Davidson Road King, crating it, shipping it to New York and back. The price also includes for UK export formalities, ocean freight, import clearance and transfer to the bonded warehouse in New York. Plus, the price also includes for return journey costs including export charges to the UK, re-packing, inclusive of customs clearance and arrival fees at Liverpool Port.

Compare that cost for shipping against a rental day rate of about $135 per day (roughly £85 per day) and a simple calculation shows that to rent a motorbike for any longer than about 25 days means it would be cheaper to ship my own bike. As I would be on the tour of the USA for about 120 days, it was a simple decision to make. As well as being far cheaper, shipping meant that I could use my own bike which I would prefer to do anyway!

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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 take forward in my main tour of the USA........

• Some airlines do not allow you to take crash helmets in hand-luggage (carry-on luggage). Put them in your main checked luggage
• When you are on your trip, where will you leave your suitcase? We stayed at the same hotel on the first and last night’s of the trip, so were able to leave these with the hotel
• Clearly carrying enough clothes for two changes a day is un-realistic. Each afternoon, when I arrived at that nights hotel, I showered and changed meaning I had fresh clothes for that evening. I then put the same clothes the next morning.
• I did take enough clothes for 14 days – a change of clothes for each day. This was bulky and I could have taken half that amount and simply washed them half way through the trip.
• We stayed in good but quite expensive hotels. This is a very much a personal issue, but booking ahead (before we left the UK) gave us almost no flexibility to change what type of place we stayed at. We could easily have stayed at cheaper places, but we liked our comforts.
• We bought really cheap waterproof saddlebag liners so all we had to do was to lift these out when we arrived at the hotel for that night.
• Booking ahead took away lots of hassle, but it also took away some sense of freedom to do what we wanted.
• Due to the heat, I couldn’t ride in my thick protective riding trousers or my thick FXRG leather jacket. I wore a lightweight leather jacket and Kevlar jeans.
• Due to riding in that lightweight gear, I chose to ride relatively slowly and defensively. I generally do this anyway, so no problem.
• I did however had to carry my main thicker bike gear on the bike which took up a huge amount of space – a real mistake
• In the intense sun, protect your neck! A small bottle of sun-tan lotion solved this.
• We used bike-to-bike radios to communicate with each other. These were great but the batteries generally only lasted about a day or so. It would have been much better to hard wire these into the bike.
• I took quite a few tools. I didn’t really need to carry quite so many.
• In the USA put the items you might need during the day in your right hand saddlebag – then when you need to access this you won’t be standing next to the moving traffic.
• In a larger group, agree what time you will leave each morning and stick to it. Try not to keep each other waiting!
• If riding as a group (we did) and you get split up by heavy traffic, red lights or similar, don’t stop every time. The others will soon catch up. But, make sure you all know the route you will be taking so you can wait somewhere and re-group knowing that everyone is on the right road.
• Try to get like minded people as fellow riders. Some might want to just ride all day. Some might want to stop a great deal to take photos etc. This can be difficult to achieve though, so try to agree how your group will ride each day.
• We did 168 miles a day average, including days with almost no riding. Highest mileage day was 369 miles which for our group was about the limit we could do. Even that was probably too much.
• We tried to keep away from cities, which was a good thing. Riding in a group in a big city is a pain.

















I will write more about these sorts of issues later in the part of this blog about preparing for the main USA tour, so this list is just a taster.

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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 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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