Joy on Two Wheels

I don’t know if you’re a planner, but I am. I like to work out many of the details in advance and try to prepare for anything.

So, once we decided to move forward with our epic adventure, I started researching routes, bike setups, weather, etc. I have an “awesome” spreadsheet to help us plan. I’ll touch on the evolution of these items in this post.  

Routes: 

When I began my spreadsheet, I had a separate tab for each of the routes we were considering, with miles, temperatures, fuel and travel times to help us make our decision. We live in the Kansas City area and initially we considered riding from here to California, but honestly, riding across Kansas or Oklahoma to start the trip sounded terrible! I rode back from Sturgis last year via Colorado and the trip from Denver to KC was brutally boring. That trip is exhausting and sounded like a terrible way to start the trip. We want to be fresh and excited when we get into the scenic parts of the trip (which is basically everything from Denver west). 

The second idea was to haul our bike to Denver and find a place to leave the truck. I researched a bunch of parking areas and struggled to find something I was confident in. I just kept thinking it would suck to have an awesome trip and return to find something had happened to the truck, not to mention the cost.  There would still be that boring drive as well. The only advantage would have been that Joy could have helped with driving between here and Denver. 

Finally, Joy mentioned the possibility of renting a bike to me. I did a bunch of research and landed on Eagle Rider. It does add some cost, but my handy spreadsheet let me compare the cost vs. gas in the truck, parking for 2 weeks and 2 more nights of lodging. Ultimately, outside of the flights, it’s almost a wash. We’ll have a well maintained, late model motorcycle with GPS and a bit better ride than our Harley. Here are some screenshots of our routes out and back.  

Bike: 

We currently have a Road King, and we love it, but it does lack a fairing and on-board GPS.  I typically use my phone for navigation, and it works great, but 13 days in the hot sun and whatever other weather we may encounter could be very rough on it.  The built-in navigation on a road glide sounded like a much better option. The larger screen and the ability to load GPX files with our routes will be a game changer as it is all pre planned. Heat was also a concern with the motor on the Road King so an oil cooler would have to be added, but the Limited is water cooled and handles heat better. Tires were also a consideration as I have around 4000 miles on my current set, and they would likely need to be replaced upon our return. Additionally, the Limited has on-board power for the passenger, music, better shocks and in general is just a bit better for touring.  We’re interested to see how we like it and may consider owning one in the future based on this trip. 

Weather: 

This is the big variable.  I keep thinking the temps would have been better in the spring, but then many of the mountain passes may have been closed and the potential for ice is much greater. I feel like we can mitigate heat, but ice is a nonstarter. As I mentioned in my first post, this trip is bookending our family trip, and this is the timeframe that worked for the girls as well. Hoping for minimal rain in the mountains.

We are both packing long sleeved sun shirts, cooling vests and cooling towels. We also plan to ride early and relax in the afternoon/evenings. We have a saddlebag cooler so we’ll have cold drinks on board as well.  Ultimately, it’s part of riding and we’ll get it figured out.

Ultimately you can’t plan for every eventuality and we’ll have to be able to pivot, but a good plan goes a long way.