Hey everyone!
I've been a lurker around this board for quite some time, only posting here and there. I'm taking a trip at the end of this week from Winnipeg to the Rockies, and I decided to start a thread about the preparation and the trip itself. Hope you guys enjoy! :icon_mrgreen:
(Note that this is also posted on another forum, so some of the things I talk about for the GS you guys are already well aware.)
T minus 6 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 has 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.
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/001.jpg)
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.
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/002.jpg)
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.
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/003.jpg)
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.
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/004.jpg)
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.
The crash Bars (for crashing) is my favorite part, good luck on the trip :)
This thread is off to a great start lol. I look forward to updates on your adventure. :thumb:
Sweet dualies hahahah love to hear about how it goes down.
Great start! Looking forward to your report.
This thread is greatness in the making. The captions are priceless. Hahaha......enjoy the ride.
T Minus 5 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.
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/005.jpg)
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.
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/006.jpg)
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 not expensive, and works really 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.
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/007.jpg)
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.
+1 :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:
Waiting waiting....
Michael
keep it coming
this is gonna be a good'un!! Thanks, and have a GREAT trip. The Rockies are just spectacular, amazed me when I went to Colorado/Utah.
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:
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/008.jpg)
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.
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/009.jpg)
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.
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/010.jpg)
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.
This thread is so full of win it almost hurts me to read it.
Best.
Thread.
Ever.
Just based on the pics :D
:cheers: :thumb: :thumb:
Yah man, I love the pics, so cool.
Look forward to more!
this is some funny ish. love it. MORE MORE MORE!
It looks like you are all set. Why wait, just go and you can start posting from the road. BTW, are you bringing a laptop or do you have one of those phones that you can use to post?
-Porkchop
T Minus 1 Day - Music to my ears
Finally, tomorrow is the big trip. I'm pretty pumped. I haven't posted in a few days since I was pretty busy running a million little errands and tying up loose ends. There's a seemingly never ending list of things to do and get when you're preparing for a trip like this. On the plus side, the next trip should be much easier, especially since I'll already have everything I need. Today I got all my bags put by the door and the clothes set aside that I'm going to be wearing for the trip, so all I need to do tomorrow is wake up on time, which is a challenge in itself.
A couple people were wondering how I'm going to be documenting the trip. For pictures I've got an old Sony Cybershot digital camera. I don't even know what model it is since it was discontinued about 4 years ago. Still takes decent pictures though, so it will do just fine (besides, I'm mostly broke at this point anyways). As for posting updates, I have a Blackberry that I'll be using, providing I have reception in whatever motel I happen to be in. The Shoei gets in on the glamor shot just because it's an awesome helmet.
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/011.jpg)
One thing that will probably prove to be a lifesaver on this trip will be good music. I have 13 hours of prairies to cross before I reach the mountains, which is nothing but flat, boring, straight highway. I tried for a while to find a set of headphones that fit comfortably under a full face helmet. Eventually I ended up taking some old Sony earbuds, tearing off half the plastic with some pliers, and then using a hot glue gun to close up the wires. End result? Pretty good actually. I figured I'd give my Franken-buds a test run to make sure they were comfortable.
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/012.jpg)
I think it's too easy to get a little carried away when it comes to tech gadgets. I watched a youtube video of a guy showing what he brings for a touring trip, and the main message I got from it was "My job pays me in futureshop gift cards". If you need more than 2 power cords, you are bringing too many electronics. Isn't this supposed to be to get away from it all? Pretty much every site I came across listed a GPS as a must. I have one, but I'm not bringing it (here's hoping I'm out of the province before my parents read that). GPS units can be a great tool, but they only became popular for average consumers in the last decade, and people have been making road trips successfully for a hell of alot longer than that. So I'll do without. In a pinch, my Blackberry has a built in GPS anyways. Besides, I have a pretty useful tool that will take its place:
(http://members.shaw.ca/kioe/greatmountainescape/013.jpg)
I'm not quite sure what to expect of this trip, but I'm sure it'll be quite an experience either way. If anyone would like, send a kind word to the motorcycle gods!
I don't know if there's another thread I should be looking at since no one's commented since the last post, but I think you're about half way through now, I hope it's all going well! I look forward to hearing about (and seeing the captions) from your travels!
Ed
(http://s3.amazonaws.com/advrider/lurker.gif) Subscribed
Which other forum, I wonder. Tried to find skimhitz on advrider.com....
Man, ANYONE hear from Skimhitz?!?! A little disconcerting to know how far he was going and not hear from him........ :dunno_black:
Looks like he made it, just forgot about us, thread here: http://www.winnipegheights.com/forums/showthread.php?t=219220
Glad to hear he made it ok!! Too bad about the rain, though. Thanks Ed.....
the OP should post this on ADVRider. haven't noticed many ride reports featuring GS's. O0
Whoooooooooops.
Yeah, sorry about that guys. Here's actually what happened. I couldn't figure out how to post on this site from my blackberry, and figured there must be something wrong with the mobile version of the site. Then after I got back from the trip, only THEN did I realize this whole time I just wasn't logged in. Yes, I am mildly retarded like that. At that point since I hadn't made any updates I thought it would be weird to post everything at once, so I just kind of put it off...kinda like when you forget someone's name, but it's at the point where it's too late to ask...
Yeahh.....but the trip was great. You can check out all of the posts on my blogspot account here:
http://greatmountainescape.blogspot.com (http://greatmountainescape.blogspot.com)
Most of the pictures can be found here as well:
http://picasaweb.google.com/106675983569221628634/TheGreatMountainEscape?authkey=Gv1sRgCIG7p8rbrqruUA&feat=directlink (http://picasaweb.google.com/106675983569221628634/TheGreatMountainEscape?authkey=Gv1sRgCIG7p8rbrqruUA&feat=directlink)
Overall the trip was great and the GS did very well. I mentioned in the blog that the GS is burning oil, and after further investigation I've determined that it's not burning it, it's actually leaking oil. Whenever I park the bike after riding it for a while, it builds up a few drops of oil on the ground. At first I thought it was chain oil, but the chain oil is black and this is brown like engine oil. It looks like it's leaking from the side of the oil pan but it's really hard to tell. Unfortunately since I don't have a garage and the season is close to over for this Winnipegger, it will probably be a project for next year. When that time comes I'll definitely be asking the fine people here for some help diagnosing and fixing the issue.
So once again, sorry I didn't make any updates, but thanks to those who were concerned and followed along anyways.
P.S. How did you find me on winnipegheights?
Man, cool trip! I'm jealous,'redneck and all!! Been a long time since my last big road trip, and this got menthinking hard about another. glad you are ok and had a good overall trip! Thanks!!!!!
Hi Skimhitz,
I was worried about you, too, man, and I don't even know you. :)
It sounds like you had a great trip.
Nice to meet you, bub.
Best wishes,
Trwhouse :)
woohooo! you made it! nice write up and pics! That's a lot of miles to cover in 11 days :cheers: