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 what time zones are where. Don’t get caught out by the boundaries – they don’t necessarily follow the State boundaries as you might expect!

The USA changes its clocks for summertime normally at the same time as the UK, but sometimes not.

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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 your suggestion to my list.

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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 with each State.
Red means you don't have to wear a helmet.
Blue normally means you dont have to wear a helmet if you are over a certain age (check on the link below)
Green means you must wear a helmet
(Click on the map for greater detail)
















For further information see http://www.iihs.org/laws/HelmetUseCurrent.aspx

Now I am definitely not saying that you should or should not wear a helmet if you are riding in the States – that is up to you. But, you should know what the laws are, so as well as looking at whether you have a choice to wear a helmet or not, there are other laws that you should consider like;

· Do you have to wear eye protection?
· Must you have a headlight on?
· Can you wear headphones?
· Is lane sharing / splitting allowed?

For the answers to these questions in any of the States you might be considering visiting, see
http://motorcycleinfo.calsci.com/PrintLaws.html

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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 at the hotel for the night. We each had 3 and everything we took went in these.

I have to say they were excellent – waterproof with a top that sealed and this formed a carrying strap. I would definitely recommend these for anybody going touring and renting a bike.

They are called Exped Shrink Bags, come in different sizes and are available in the UK from http://www.gearpac.com

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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 finaise who will come with me, but there is no rush!

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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. It strikes me that the route reflects areas of particular interest to me. The route is very twisty in the States of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Arizona. The reason for this is this is the area of the Rocky Mountains – I had planned many routes over this mountain range and the twisty route reflects this.

My route that takes in several passes (roads over mountains) that are at high elevations – this would take some thinking about in advance due to the potential for poor weather at these heights and even altitude sickness. I would need to look into these further in the future.

Having now determined the detailed route, I needed to fix the dates that the tour would take place. In thinking about dates, I only had two considerations to bear in mind. I didn’t want to be in the northern States when the weather was cold, nor in the southern States when the weather was too hot.

Also, I had wanted to go to the motorcycle rally Sturgis in South Dakota and in 2010, the rally takes place between 9th and 15th August and this meant I would need to start the tour on or about 24th June 2010 in Maine in the north east of the USA. This works well as it means I would be in the colder northern States in the summer. It also meant I would get to Death Valley (probably the hottest area in the south in October which is also okay as that misses the really hot months of July and August.

The dates of the tour were therefore fixed to starting on 24th June and finishing at the end of October. Perfect timing.

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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 back almost straight away and suggested that the blog could be mentioned in the UK HOG e-zine which goes out to all HOG members in the UK and Ireland. That would give it just the promotion I was thinking of, so thank you HOG!

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