THIS THREAD IS ABOUT HELPFUL ADVISE ON TOURING
I'm interested in helpful advise on touring with a motorcycle.
Touring to me means going FAR AWAY from home on my motorcycle, for days if not weeks on end and then returning home with me, my equipment, my gear and everything else I brought with me relatively intact.
I'm starting this thread in the HOPE that when I come back to read the posts they will be on helpful tips and advise on touring.
I would like to know what you bring with you?
Why you bring those things?
How you pack them?
Where you can get them?
How much they cost?
Where have you gone and would you suggest those places to others?
What about fuel? Where do you eat? What do you eat? Where do you crap?
Who do you bring? How do you deal with bad weather?
And all the other things that make touring fun and safe.
Thanks in advance

I have a bunch I'd like to contribute but short on time right now. I would like to say the 2 main must haves after all the trips are something comforting for my arse and more gas. Over the winter I have purchased an air hawk seat and a 2 gallon aluminum gas tube.

https://www.airhawkseatcushions.net/c-7- ... ize=999999

If I was a taller fellow I get the air zepplin seat. greatest seat ever. ts expensive because its worth it.

Do you have a link to your two gallon gas tube?

Here ya go Tourist. The have cooler looking beer barrel type tanks that can be mounted permanently on a luggae rack and hardwired into your existing gas tank:

https://www.tourtank.com/TourTubes.html

Okay here we go:

First and foremost PM the shiet out of your bike. Change all fluid and filters whether needed or not. Check tire thread and pressure(bring tire pressure gauge with), cable age(throttle,brake,clutch). Replace now rather than being stranded. If battery reasonably a couple years old and your gonna be gone for a couple weeks, just put on a new one. Check primary chain and secondary belt tension and wear.

I ride 2 up, me and my wife. She is ridiculous. She bring 3 pairs of shoes, clothes that she never uses. She has 2 jackets.

I have to my disposal 2 saddle bags,a tour pac and a large bag straped to the tour pac. My wife gets a saddle bag and the tour pack. I get one saddle bag. Since I travel in Tour Master Goretech riding pants and touring 3/4 jacket I only bring one pair of jeans. I wear the touring pants 100% of the time. They are awsome. Water proof too.

I bring about 4 pairs of under wear, 4 under shirts,4 pairs of socks and 4 tee shirts. A sweat shirt. I was in the Army so I packed tight and efficient. I bring a small container of laundry detergent w/. Don't forget you can do laundry every couple of days. I don't need rain gear. I prefer riding with leather gloves so I also bring a pair of rain proof gloves. I have a pair of shower shoes for walking around the hotel. When 69'd they take up minimum space.

The bag on the tour pac is virtually 1/2 to 3/4 empty to put the jackets in on hot days. We also pack nutritional snacks and bottles of water. For organizing little items I bought the tour pack lid organizer. Little things being cell phone,paper spouts for adding oil,first aid kit etc...

If necessary a cool little obvious trick is to mail souveniers home every so often. Post offices are every where. When passing thru on stae rts and going thru towns you literally pass right by one almost all the time. Those souveneir t shirts and other odds and ends one tends to pick up along the way can be safely and reasonably priced, sent home. They have those one price box' of varying sizes.

Also some form of flat tire repair kit. I go cheap and only carry fix o flat. Its a murphys law thing.. I figure if you carry it you won't need it. Thats another thing I need to get as there are many cool options available to include pumps tha run either off your cigarette lighter or spark plug hole.

Also a couple 2-3 qts of oil. Its been my experience that the HD's thru out the country seem to cater in priority to on the road riders. I've always been taken in and out ASAP.

I also carry a botte of start tron gas sabilizer since the ethanol epedemic. Best stuff on the market,can be found in the marine section of Walmart or most Auto stores.

Then we take a video camera and digital 35mm camera. I really enjoy viewing the photos and watching the videos of my past rides over the winter.

Eating...most hotels have outstanding hot buffets and we never paid more than $70-80 dollars a nite. We chow down at breakfast, take an apple,banana or bagle with us when we eventually head out in the morning. Not really hungry much thru out the day and nibble on those healthy snacks (granola bars,fruit,yogurt bars,chgesse sticks etc..)for lunch and stay hydrated.

For supper... there is a cool website that when you get where you getting for the night using the hotel computer the web site can help direct you to some of the better known local eateries where you've landed. Its called roadfood.com:

https://www.roadfood.com/Restaurants/Sea ... aurantname


Fuel...stay as close to nationally known brands. Those off brand mom amd pop gas an go's can leave you stranded. Almost screwed us in Gardner,Kansas. If not for a good samaritan warning us not to get this gas. Unbeknownst to us the 20 or so people milling in the parking lot could not even get out of the service area the gas was so bad.

Bad weather...jusgement call, what you personally feel safe with. Sometimes it may even mean calling a day short. Once when 50-60 miles out of Anamosa,Iowa our destination all hell broke loose. It went from bright sunny to extremely dark and onimous. The it started raining hard. We pulled off to a gas station. I was wanting for my wife to gear up, she thought we were waiting out the storm. She doesn't have much experience with rain usually being a fair weather passenger. I told her no, gear up we will be fine. If it starts getting windy too then I will pull over. It didn't get windy just rained like a biotch. The deciding factor was we weren't on the high speed interstate much longer when it started raining and going 35-45 mph the rest of the way (45 or so more miles)once off the intertstate wasn't bad.

Great info badinfluence63! Just like to add, that if you need something like a sweat shirt you can stop at a Walmart of any dept store and get one. If you need anything that you might have forgotten it is easy to get at these stores.

I'm sure that this post will help many newbs and seasoned touring members.

+1 Great thread I am glad that you started it RK. Many good points! badinfluence63 makes touring easy.

Part II....KEEPING IT SAFE and FUN.
I figure we live in a predatory world now. Couple things I do as a rule:

* When the end of your day is ending near a big city, consider getting a hotel 10 or more miles before or 10 or more miles after the city. Why? To avoid the scum and the muck that is usually big cities. I got bumped once pretty much in the middle of Albuqueque,NM once. My only solution was to head to the most expensive hotel hoping that would minimize the sh*tbags of the area and it was a good idea. Plus many nice eateries were in walking distance. Hotel security was A1 allowing me to park my bike under the front desk's nose.

* If having been done for the day near a big city consider starting your day early enough to avoid the going to work crush if during a week day. Not much of a worry on weekends

* I absolutely never toured a big city at the end of a days ride unless I'd arranged to meet someone there from that city. Why? Simple. Every major and minor city has huge gang issues and if you don't know your way around it'll be your luck to find yourself in the no whites welcome zone. Its happened and innocent people have died. Whats the difference between Boston,Providence,Columbus,Chicago, Des Moines,Kansas City,Indianapolis,Hartford,Scranton,LA, etc... not a GD thing. I had friends in San Diego and Des Moines so we got the locals safe 2$ tour. It was cool.

* Stay away from the cheaper hotels like Days Inn, Super 8, Motel 6 or worse and the like. Don't be tempted with the cheap rates, it'll be a shat hole and suspect. We stayed with Holiday Inn, Holiday inn Express, Ramada's,Mariott, Clarionsome Comfort Inns and similar types. You'll get an on the spot feel about it. Of course unless you get slim to not much choice. A bad room is better then no room if thats what the choice comes down to.

* Don't over do the amount of miles for the day. I treated it like 8-5 job and which averaged me 5-600 miles a day. I'm cutting down to 400 and no more than 500 maybe on occasions as my wife cannot crush the big days well. She tries to suffer silently and which is stupid. 400 mile days are wonderful enough. On one occasion and while passing thru Barstow,CA it was 110 degrees at 1pm. My wife was saying nothing but I was like this is BS, its too hot. So we pulled off and got a room. Only then did my wife tell me she was almost passing out. She actulayy almost dies coming home from Arkansas one time because she wouldn't go to a hospital when she had a stomack ache. Turned out to be a bruised spleen from a fall a couple 3 days earlier. I pulled over thinking it was heat exhaustion and put her in the cooler of a Cumberland farms and told the manager to call 911. Luckily the hospital was only 10 minutes from the store. She was on bed rest for 3 months.

* On the hotter days stay hydrated. Make it a priority. When pulling over for either a rest area or fuel or lunch head for the shaded area.

* Carry a spare roll of TP for the special moments,lol. Bathroom are usually ever where except when one starts into the mid and sourhwest,they can get sparse.

* we opt to do our touring either in spring or fall. Why? Simple. The roads are clear of the summer vacation traffic and hotels cheaper and more available. Plus the weather tends not to be too extreme. The interstates during the summer are jamming with mini vans and traffic is higher tha usual. Reservations may be necessary...I don't know. This upcoming Alaska ride will teach me some things as I am going between June 25th thru July 31st. Peak summer time. I have no choice as Alaska in the spring and fall is still wintery.

* Parking your bike at a hotel...I spoke about this on another thread. Most hotels let you park under their front entrance awning. If unable to locate where your room window is and park underneath it. A non descripte cover over your bike helps a little as the theif doesn't know if its a cheap metric HD knock off or the real deal. Bottom line though is have 100% insurance coverage.

* Comfort. Comfort is and makes a difference in the experience. I got a shorter windshield to see over the top. A air hawk seat to keep my arse bone happy and the recent tour tube gas container for the extra 2 gallons.

* In the evening when all need to do things are done I get on the computer and recon the next days whats a head in terms of towns, miles between the towns and amenities at each town. I write it down in a little pocket flip note book. So once on the road the next day I can look at that book see what town we are near, whats there and how far is the next one and what amenities are there.

* When calling it a day and hopefully that day ends at 4-5pm is a great time to wipe the bike down. All hotels have rags that if you ask they happily give you as many as you need. I carry polish and after we have checked in, unloaded and had supper I come out in shorts and flip flops and check my fluids and wipe and polish my bike down. In the mean time my wife is either doing laundry or swimming or both

*Last but not least if you are riding with your sig other discuss individual responsibilities while on the road. Initially my wife thought I was gonna be mister everything. Fck that. When we stop for gas she checks the cell phone and gets us something to drink and checks the strappings on the outside bag. Me I get gas and check fluids and visually look all over the bike. Similar with stopping at a hotel. She checks us in and out. I unload and load the bike, both need to repack, take inventory and prepare for the next days jaunt.

In preparation:

Prior to any major touring I took day rides. Starting at say 175-250 miles initially to see how I felt, working my way up to 500 mile day rides. These day trips a re very instrumental for making adjustments to what will make the ride better for you in all ways. Equipment adjustments, creature comfort amenities like for me an XM radio,shorte windshield and different handle bars.

After many day rides I bumped it up to 3-4 multiple day trips. Packing was the learning issue du jour here. One of our first rides was to Oak Island,Nova Scotia and boy did we over pack and under maintaineced the bike we paid the price at both ends. We didn't use half of what we brought plus I broke down on the St Stephens,CN/ Calais,ME border. Lesson learned and stream lined packing a little better and more proactive on PM'ing bike before trips.Then we started going on week long rides. Then the 3 week ride to San Diego.

Each ride whether a day or week or weeks you should for future rides critique the good, the bad, what you should add, what you should eliminate in all aspects of the ride. Each trip no matter how long or how short is a learning experience.

Recent, last couple years day rides: So far we have been to in no particular order:
1) Lake Placid (380-400 miles)
2) East Providence (500+miles)
3) Arundel/Wells Beach, ME ( forget)
4) Mohawk Trail (forget)
5) Presque Isle,VT (forget)
6) North Conway,NH (forget)

Recent,last couple years mutli day and week rides, in no particular order:

1) Asheville, NC
2) Nova Scotia,CN
3) Ocrakoke Island,NC
4) Paintsville, KY
5) Marble Falls,AR
6) Key West,FL
7) Kill Devil Hills,NC


Recent last couple years multiple week rides:

1) San Diego,CA

I wanna do Alaska. When I get back I'm selling everything and going Sporster and staying local

badinfluence63,
First - Thank You!! For your time and the meticulous posts.
I think anyone that reads this thread will be helped and hopefully if they are smart enough to heed your advise will have a better trip. I know I will.
I have little to add but maybe some of the trips I've taken into and around the South West Region where we camped in very secluded areas and enjoyed the peace and quiet of nature.
I can't stress the importance of what you said about Pre-Maintenance of a motorcycle "Before" a trip.
There are little to no services on my camping trips so bringing what you need-might need is very important.
Keeping the rider(s) hydrated is just as if not more important as gassing up the bike. Making sure you can get to the drinks during the ride is very important. I drink water mostly, but in the real heat add some Gatorade to the water as the electrolytes are very important. Snacks, and meals on the road keep me alert and focused, eating small portions more often instead of a big meal mid day reduces the need for a nap...
The "extra" roll of TP is a good tip, I use it for everything including what it was made for
I also carry a can of Fix-A-Flat, like you said if you have it you probably won't need it.
I have the 2 hard case saddlebags and I have the luggage rack - I bought the T-Bag that was made for my bike and it adds quite a bit of extra storage. I've packed my bike with camping gear for 2 week trips and had plenty of room for souvenirs from the road on the way back.
I know I've been very lucky in the past, I don't have any real horror stories - yet - but running out of gas or dehydration have been close calls and I learned my lessons there.
If in doubt, gas it up and take a drink.
I try not to "have to" ride at night but on a few occasions I thought it better to ride at night when going through the desert on my way through South Eastern Cali and Arizona. Seems New Mexico is also hot but for whatever reason it didn't "hurt" as much... LOL.
On my one trip from New York to California, I stayed in the "cheap" motels along the way but was given the advise you mentioned about staying far out of town and it seemed to work.. very well. I was able to park my bike right out side of my room making it very easy to unpack and repack.
While the bike was unloaded I did my running around getting, breakfast and any provisions for the day. Then I'd finish up with a good trip to my bathroom and shower and pack the bike and head out for the next destination.
Touring is a blast, especially when you are prepared.