It is said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. That first step is very careful planning, especially when that journey is on a motorcycle. You see, you can only carry so much when you ride a bike. But that is the beauty of the thing. Simplicity, lightness, freedom and a feeling of being unencumbered is what biking is all about. No hatchbacks here, no way.
So, you must take serious consideration what things are necessary to bring that are irreplaceable to you on the road, such things as a tire patch kit, a small air compressor, essential clothing, oil, as well as a little food and water. As a biker, it is a good thing to be a minimalist. Light and easy I always say. Don't get weighted down by all your stuff when you are trying to travel light and fast. Yes.
I try to get all my stuff into the three compartments on my Harley Davidson Ultra Glide. It is a "bagger" which means it has in my case, three stowage compartments into which to load essential gear. These compartments look pretty big until you try to load your stuff into them, then they look amazingly small. They also have little stickers on the inside that tell you their maximum weight capacity. My saddle bags? A maximum of 10 pounds of gear, each. My tour pack? A maximum of 15 pounds of gear. That isn't a lot of space as motorcycle gear is usually kind of bulky and heavy by nature.
So, with careful planning and sacrificial mindset I pare down my essentials until they fit within the limited confines of these small spaces. It is difficult because in Alaska, you never know what kind of weather you will encounter. It could be literally freezing one day and a heat wave the next and then the day after that, pelt you with rain. Do you chance driving your bike with hypothermia as you rumble down the road or do you swelter as the weather plays "gotcha" with you as the sun beats down mercilessly on the rider clad in black, heavy, insulated garb or would you rather enjoy riding soaked? You make some calculated guesses and pay a lot of attention to the weather forecasts. You can't take everything, but what will you wish you had with you?
I hate to admit this, but there is also the issue of vanity. What do you want to look like as you traverse the country side in your Harley Davidson? The Grapes or Wrath? The Clampetts? I've seen motorcycle riders with a rats nest of ratchet straps, bags, duct tape, bungees, and string securing monstrous containers of who-knows-what to a tiny little sissy bar on the back seat. It's a pitiful sight. The graceful lines of a beautifully designed motorcycle blighted with what looks like a biker bag lady owner. No, a bike should be freed from the extra weight and the ridiculousness of the jury rigged luggage. To the outside observer, it should be difficult to tell if you are on a long ride or not.
Days ahead of time you set out your essentials. Hmm...I'll be gone 5 days, If I take two pair of underwear and each day turn them inside out, that's four days worth. Since I won't be walking in the garage or outside in my socks, those will last at least two or three days each. You can really minimize if you want to.
This new Harley has some very neat "bag liners" that are little duffle bags that are designed to fit exactly into the saddle bags just right. That way when you go in for the night, you can pull all your stuff out all neatly stowed in the liner instead of several Wal Mart plastic bags and wads of dirty socks. The problem being, not much fits into the liners.
Once in awhile you check in with the other rider that you are taking this trip with. What are you bringing? How much stuff you got? Usually you admit that there is just too much to take with you and too many contingencies to cover with too limited of carrying capacity. What to do?
You decide to take drastic action. You invite the wives to go along. "Say, sweetie, how would you like to spend a few days with your bestie in the car and follow us on the bikes? Wouldn't that be fun? Remember how jealous you were last year that you didn't go with us? It will be fun. Sure it would, you could talk and see the sights and eat out. Oh, and could you bring your car with the hatchback? We have just a few things that would be better if we could put them in the back. It would save a lot of trouble."
So the wives chat and decide it sounds like a lot of fun. They take the bait! Now it is on. We can ride free and easy and the car can haul all the junk. No more economizing on gear, take it all. Take all the just-in-case stuff and leave the minimizing for the next time. Woo Hoo! Just like having cake and eating it too.
So it turns out, the ancient wisdom of the journey of a thousand miles? Invite the wives along to carry the big and heavy stuff. That's the real secret to traveling light.
You can tell it has been a long time of waiting to do something you really want to do when you start dreaming about doing it again in your sleep. So it was with my desire to ride my Harley Davidson motorcycle again. The winter was among the more mild ones to be sure and there wasn't a ton of snow to melt away before we could get out and ride, but maybe that is what made it a little more difficult to wait. The conditions to ride were so close to acceptable that it made me want to jump ahead a little just to get out.
A motorcycle rider has to accept a little more risk to do what he enjoys. You aren't as big as a car or truck so people don't see you as easily. Some drivers don't respect motorcycle riders and even go out of their way to make riding a little more hazardous - probably a whole blog topic in itself. The rider also has to worry about things that the driver of an automobile gives scant thought to such as, the little gravel bits that accumulate on the sides of the road and in intersections. The motorcycle rider sees those as little ball bearings scattered about ready to turn his banking turn into a roll on the pavement.
A particular concern in the late winter/early spring is the ground temperature. What may be melting snow in the sun could very well be ice in the shadow as the ground is still colder than the air temperature. Riding from the relative warmth of the sun on asphalt into the shadows could also produce an unexpected appointment with Mr. Pain.
Perhaps not finally except for this article is the presence of "road snakes". Snakes in Alaska? Yes, especially in the spring, big ones. The winter is very hard on Alaska roads and the pressures of frost and ice expanding in the ground produce fissures in the asphalt that sometimes resemble the San Andraeus fault. Yes, those "cracks' in the road that squiggle along are sometimes wide enough to swallow a motorcycles' front tire. Instead of going where you thought you were going, the road snake sends you in the direction it is going. The rider caught enjoying the scenery too much can get surprised and lose control of his bike and again, an unplanned meeting with the ground, bitten by a "road snake."
One small additional consideration for me in particular is that I live on a dirt road. For some reason right in front of our house the road builders must have run out of good road building material and substituted what is essentially mush instead. Honestly, our road is most of a mile long and we live in the middle. Before you get our our house the road is firm and dries quickly. When you get past our house, the same. But right in front of our house it is ooey, gooey, mush. Call me a priss but I don't want to ride my Harley through 30 yards of mush.
So, there is finally a day when all the conditions are acceptable and I get out to ride. Instead of taking a right turn out of my driveway, I can take a left and go the long way around our block to avoid the quicksands of death in front of the house and then hit the relatively new asphalt of the main street into our subdivision and I am off.
It is exhilarating to finally get out on the road. I was able to take my first short ride in the month of March this season. Unheard of. It was chilly and you have to dress in layers but it is pretty great to get that rumbling lump of V-Twin Harley under you again and sail down the highway after too long of waiting.
The first thing that occurs to you after the first ride is that it is too cold still to think about going too far. I discovered the dividing line for me is about +40 degrees. Any cooler and it is too cool. Anything warmer is better. I made the mistake of riding south about 50 miles to meet a fellow rider friend who came up about the same distance to have a bite to eat as an excuse to get out on the bike. It was about 40 degrees when I left home. While we visited and ate our meal, the weather cooled about 4 degrees. It was a very chilly ride home that evening.
Pretty much short rides are the rule. It helps, but what a person really yearns for is to go on a real ride, at least a 100 miles or more. It doesn't help that spring is a very intensely busy season for me. From mid April to mid May, most of my days are obligated in one way or another limiting my ability to take advantage of sudden nice days. This year, the month of April was more like the revenge of winter with more snow days than the rest of the winter season combined which didn't help.
This past week on Monday was my day off, the weather was decent and I had no obligations. I was anxious to get out and ride for real. I chose Seward, Alaska as my destination. It is about 180 miles round trip. I geared up, gassed up and got on the road. I am planning a 1500 mile trip in a couple of weeks and this will help me get ready for the longer ride.
It was wonderful. For some reason I seemed especially favored with the weather and traffic. There were rain squalls here and there and sometimes it was evident that I was mere minutes behind them but I never encountered rain. Sometimes the clouds blocked the sun, but sometimes the sun's rays would give their warmth to my leather clad body and all would be well again. It also seemed like the traffic all parted away from my path and allowed me an uncrowded road with nothing ahead of me the whole way, something that will be increasingly rare as the campers and motorhomes begin clogging the skinny two-lane roads of the Kenai Peninsula.
The ride to Seward was awesome, great scenery, open roads and no trouble at all. Getting to Seward was about a 2 hour ride, just right for taking a break and stretching the legs. I also rode around town checking the place out for anything new. I got a cup of coffee at one of our favorite haunts in town just to warm up my hands and to catch up on FaceBook via my phone. It was almost $3 dollars for a cup of regular drip coffee which the guy worked fiercely to pump from the bottom of the pot that had been standing there nearly empty for long before I got there.
What the coffee lacked in special was made up with the ambiance of the place and a chance to sit and relax. Finishing my unremarkable coffee I then rode through town checked out my options for lunch which was two Chinese buffets, a number of diners with the regular fare one would expect for a diner and a Greek restaurant. I chose one of the Chinese buffets. It also was unremarkable but was quiet and clean and I did find some spring rolls and ate all of the few California sushi rolls they offered.
Since there was nothing of note happening in Seward this early in the year, I decided it was time to head home. I fueled up and checked my miles per gallon, which figured out to 47 mpg, the best I have seen yet from this Ultra Glide. I powered up and headed out of town seeing the same sights in reverse order as I came in. For some reason the trip home seemed about half the time as it took to get to Seward, even going the same speeds.
I am still working up my riding stamina, my backside was pretty worn out by the time I got home and my shoulders were cramping up something fierce as well. Both things that tend to work themselves out over time. The bike had bugs stuck all over it and needed a bath, but I was ready to take a break, satisfied that I had finally been back on the road again.
