T Minus 5 Days - Over the hills and far away

Some people have asked me why I chose the rockies over anywhere else. A few things came to mind. First off, what I'm really looking forward to the most on this trip is amazing scenery, and fun roads. I think that the mountains would be a great place for both of those. Also, for my first big trip like this I would like to stay in Canada. If I were to get stopped and searched at the border, it would probably hours for them to go through all of my stuff and repack it again. Also this way I don't have to worry about getting health insurance in case anything happens.

But really, I think the reason for heading to the rockies should be self evident:

The only problem is that I'm heading from Winnipeg, and although Winnipeg is a great city, it happens to be in the middle of the prairies. Flat land, straight roads, and 13 hours of torture lay between me and the mountains. Unfortunately there really is no good way around this, so I'm going to do my best to cover the prairies as quickly as possible and get it over and done with. That first day will probably have me sore, tired, and hating life, but I need to push through it to get to the fun stuff.

Speaking of which, I really don't have a specific destination or a plan. I always shake my head when people come back from a trip and claim that they're tired and need a vacation to recover from their vacation. Clearly, they're doing it wrong. I want to make sure I enjoy this trip as much as possible, and for me that means being able to go wherever I want on a whim. I'm not going to force myself to be in a certain city at a certain time. If I want to explore a highway, stop at a random town, or take a day off, then I will. The small caveat to all this is I have a few different friends in Calgary, so I'm going to be stopping there along the way to visit for a day or two.

This whole freedom thing could go horribly wrong as I have very little direction besides "West", but that's fine by me. I'll probably spend each evening in the motel looking over my road maps and picking out which highways look the most interesting for the next day. To me, that sounds like a pretty good vacation.

T Minus 6 Days - Skills acquired in Clown Car College

Today I finished packing for the trip. Yeah, almost a week in advance. But really, packing for a motorcycle trip is like a horrible game of Tetris, where you end up throwing out that straight piece that would give you a billion points because the damn thing just won't fit right.

Yeah, it's a crap load of stuff. And that doesn't include clothes. I tend to err on the side of caution though. Ideally there won't be any problems on the trip, but I don't want to be stranded on the side of the road because my headlight went out at night, or I pick up a flat, etc. I read up on tips online for touring and what to bring, and the lists ranged from "Credit card and keys" to "Everything under the sun, including a fire extinguisher." Seriously, one list recommended a fire extinguisher. If my bike sets on fire, I'm going to take it as a sign from the gods and walk home.

With alot of planning and some creativity, everything fits nicely into my motorcycle luggage. I have two saddlebags, a tail bag, and a tank bag. I REALLY tried to see if I could just take the tank bag and the tail bag, but there's just no way I could swing it.

On a side note, I really need to pimp this luggage. It's all by Cortech, which I think is a sub-brand of Tourmaster. It's not overly expensive, and works very well. I used this stuff last year on a camping trip out to Whiteshell. That trip was even harder to pack for since I was camping. In the next picture, the bags are fully expanded, and I had to add a bag on top for a foam pad, tent, and sleeping bag. It was a little much but I made it there alright.

This trip I won't have any crap strapped on top, and the saddle bags won't be expanded, so the load will be much easier to manage. I'm hoping that handling isn't hurt too much, since really what I'm looking forward to the most for this trip is hitting the twisties.

Tomorrow will be going over the projected plan for the trip. Or rather, the lack of plan. :)

T minus 7 Days - Bike preparation

For those not in the know, I'm going on a trip next week for 11 days on my motorcycle. I'm going to use this blog to post about the planning for my upcoming trip, as well as my experiences during the trip itself.

Destination? Rockies!

T Minus 7 Days - Bike Preparation


The bike I'm taking on the trip is a 2008 GS500. Touring bike it is not, but I read up on a guy who does touring on a CBR125R, so I'm not about to be beat by a machine with 13HP. The GS has good power, is stupid easy to maintain, and a a whopping 20 litre tank. I once had a gas station attendant wondering if I was pouring gas on the ground because the meter kept on going up.

I usually keep pretty up to date on my maintenance, but since I'm going to be covering over 4000km in 11 days I figure it would be best to do a complete service to the bike and make sure it's running top notch. Since I've owned this bike I've learned to do every piece of maintenance myself. I am no mechanic by any means, but I pick it up as I go. My moto is that it isn't a day wrenching with me until something goes wrong.

On the list for the full once over is an oil change, chain cleaning and oiling, air filter change, suspension adjustment, throttle and clutch adjustment, and a few miscellaneous items. I would have liked to do a valve job but that's one feat I haven't quite attempted yet, and I don't really have time to wait around for shims. Unfortunately I have no garage, so I do all my maintenance in the driveway at my parents' place.

As luck would have it, it was raining all day today, but hell if rain is going to stop me now then I'm not going to make it very far on the trip. Realizing I have lost my windbreaker though, I borrowed the easiest jacket I could find in the house. Donning a snazzy pink jacket which promptly removed all manliness in wrenching on a motorcycle, I went to work. Over the past two years I've added a bunch of mods to the bike to make it better suited for touring. The windscreen I only keep on when I know I'll be going on the highway. It may be ugly as hell, but it's a comfortable kind of ugly.

I managed to get almost all my maintenance done today. I also now reek of kerosene, but holy crap that stuff makes quick work of all the gunk that builds up on a chain. Stay tuned tomorrow when I practice my clown car skills by trying to pack a week and a half worth of supplies into the smallest luggage ever.

Rock on.