2geeks2bikes

A little more than a year ago I told my good friend Mark that I wanted to get a motorcycle. Initially I just wanted one to buzz around town since I worked out of my house. Mark convinced me I needed to get an adventure bike and watch the Long Way Round. I was pretty much hooked after the first episode. I took the motorcycle safety course, got my license, got a bike (the red BMW F800GS) and took Fran Tully’s Dual Sport course here in Utah. Then the planning began to ride the Idaho Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR). It took a year for me to get all of the gear, and put it together, including putting my communication set in my helmet last night at 10 pm. I think I received no less than 5 shipments the past week alone. We’ve plotted and planned for the past 12 months.

This morning at 6:30am, I got up, cleaned the chains, headlamps, put my pack on the bike, struggled to turn it around and get it up on center stand again (that’s a longer story involving Mark barefoot and me slipping in WD-40) and now we’re ready to go. The trip will be 2500 miles roundtrip. Roughly 1100 on dirt roads. Today we drive from Park City, UT to Jarbridge, NV. From there we anticipate 9 nights, give or take, traveling through the center of Idaho, a piece of Montana and into Canada. Very few towns along the way, and those that are have populations of 20 or so. We spend 2 nights in hotels and the remaining camping. Some times in actual campgrounds, some times wherever we find a spot. We expect little in the way of cell phone coverage, or internet access most of the route, BUT, we have GoPro’s (Mark does, I ran out of time to get one), phones and will post things as we can. Follow along on SPOT. It’s sure to be an adventure…

My bike made it not-so-safely to Salt Lake City. The upper crash bars took a beating during transit and are all bent up. The local BMW dealer has declined trying to repair them (and who can blame them). I had read bad reviews of these bars online but decided to purchase them anyway as they offered the most protection. Next time I’ll pay closer attention to the reviews and not rely on the brand name (Touratech).

 

So far, trip planning has gone very well. I spent yesterday afternoon chatting off and on with my riding buddy discussing what we are going to drink (bourbon and vodka) , what we’re going to eat (freeze dried) and what exactly a poop kit is (a shovel apparently).

All that chatter had me amped up to get this trip started so I changed my flight to August 17th. I’ll have 3 days on the ground before officially heading out on the bike on August 21st. I’ll get my new crash bars installed and have plenty of time to sort through all the gear and get it packed onto the bike.

The trip has officially started!

From the beginning planning stages I debated whether to ship or rent. The cost is comparable but in the end I decided to ship my bike. This gives me some flexibility in the overall schedule and allows me to ride a bike I know.

The ride to Lowell, MA was hot (90 degrees) but uneventful. It took about an hour to go through the motions at the shipping company but in the end, the bike was strapped to a pallet without incident.

To my amazement, when I checked the tracking info later in the day, the bike was already headed west. These shippers do not mess around.