Ok, so the pics so far aren't that exciting, and I'm not even sure if I'll take enough on the trip, but we'll see....

This is the trip I'm taking with my motorcycle club at school:

QuoteThe plan:

- MEET at Abner's Restaurant in Sault Ste Marie at 1pm on Saturday, Aug 20th.  It's off exit 392 on I75.  Head east on the I-75 Business Spur. Here's there website if you need better directions: www.abnersonline.biz.  We don't have to eat there, it's just an easy place to find.

- We'll cross in Canada then follow 17 as far as we want.  It would be nice if we can make Sudbury.  Then we can be in NY by Sunday night.  whatever works.

- 22nd - 24th: figure this out as we go.  Work our way through New York and Pennsylvania toward Ohio.

- We'll be in Midland on the evening of the 25th or the 26th.

- We can split and head home the following day.

Right now I've packed my stuff for my move to the Houghton, MI area (where I go to college).  

Here's the bike in the truck ready to go


Here's my trip stuff packed in Kerry's tourmaster bags.............. And some of the rest of the stuff packed for moving

I'm heading out tomorrow morning, I'll call it the first leg of my journey.  It'll be just under 6 hours from SE wisconsin to the Keweenaw Penninsula of michigan.  Then I've got a couple days to unpack, settle in, and buy books since I won't have much time after the trip.  I also may not be able to access the internet at that time, depends on if I can get into my building on campus...

Have a GREAT time!!!!!  

pandy

Wahoo!

"Now, you DID remember to pack the rain covers...?" :lol:

Quote from: Kerry"Now, you DID remember to pack the rain covers...?" :lol:

Yup, they were the first things in, but in the outer pockets so they are easy to get at.  I'll probably end up repacking a time or two before I get underway too

Here's test fit #1, just a few more things to put in the bags
 

Lookin good, I hope those bungies are nice and tight, and I hope your sleepingbag case is water-proof.  I also hope it doesn't rain on you, but just in case I hope everything is water-proof.  Have fun, take pics, and post'em.

By the way school sucks, and I'm envious :x

Do you know the Beatles' song "You're Gonna Lose That Girl"?  ("Yes yes you're gonna lose that girl...")

Well, I'm thinking the same thing about that sleeping bag.   As I learned BEFORE having a bad experience, using LONG bungee cords isn't the best.

Check out my first attempt at packing for a camping trip, in [this post].  When I sent some of the pics to my Dad, he said (in part):

QuoteAbout your bungie cords, I have seen some of them loose their tension, and others when stretched so far will allow the load to shift and slide out from under the bands. You and Randy [my brother] will have to follow each other for a while to see how every thing will ride on both bikes after hitting a few bumps. I think you have packed the bike rather well and looks as though you had every thing you could need.

It's a good thing I didn't include that first pic in my email to him - the one that shows how I hooked the long bungee cords onto the shorter ones.

When my brother came out that summer to go on the long ride with me, he "schooled" me about packing things TIGHT.  See the "Ready to head out" link in [this post] a little earlier in the same thread.  Of course, things got sloppier as we went along (see the subsequent pictures) but those green bungee cords that I X'd over my stuff are stouter than most.

Now, my Dad has done a lot of riding and camping.  But check out his "stack-it-deep-and-strap-it-cheap" method of packing () in the first couple pics from [our trip together] the following year.  At the end of the trip (after he'd had trouble with his rubber tie-down straps) he said that I had converted him to larger luggage bags.

I realize that you don't have my hard bags, or even my tail rack (so handy!) but  try different arrangements to see how compact you can get everything.  You might use the "wrap the bag and pad in a tarp" trick like my brother and I did, and then figure out better ways to strap the bundle down tighter.  A large bungee NET could work well, or even two regular sized nets hooked together.  But keep using the longer bungee cords, as extra security.

Having said all of that, I can't "feel" how tight things are already just by looking at your photos.  Everything might stay put just fine, but ... :dunno:   If you still have time, go for an hour-long ride at the kinds of speeds you expect to do on your trip.  See if you can't fit in a few bumps, swerves, crosswinds, rain, etc. :lol:  Whatever you do, I'm sure you'll still learn a lot when the "real thing" happens.  I know I did.

Good Luck, and have a Fantastic Trip!

Thanks, I was wondering how good this arrangement was.  One bungee is pretty tight, but the other was a little softer to begin with, even though they are both the same length.  It seems pretty secure, but  :dunno:   Unfortunately I don't have much time to come up with anything else (1.5 hours), the only other thing I have right now is some cheap plastic rope.  I'll see what I can do and make everything as tight as possible.

Thanks for the well wishes, I'll take all the pictures I can (or that I remember to...)

Are you back?  How did it go?

I'm back (was back late saturday), I'm alive and well, and I have a few pictures.  But I've been pretty busy and the cable internet at my apartment that worked a week ago suddenly isn't working.  So I hate to leave you hanging but I'll try to post about the trip as soon as possible.

A quick summary: We decided we wanted fresh lobster dinner, so we went to Bar Harbor, Maine and put on over 3000 miles. :mrgreen:

Sounds like an awesome trip.

No worries on the pics ... I'm a patient man.

Finally got some time, though even now I should probably be doing homework, probably....

The trip was from Hancock, MI to Bar Harbor, ME and back again.  We left Saturday, August 20th and I returned Saturday, August 27th, an 8 day trip of 3000+ miles.  5 guys went (2 dropped out a day or two before departure), my GS being the only thing resembling a sport bike, everyone else had big cruisers.  No major mechanical problems on any bike and everyone got along well, both things made the trip go smoothly.  I was the youngest rider at 22; three of the others were Full Throttle Motorcycle Club of MTU alumni and one was one guy's dad.  I did not know Brad, Jim or Bill going into the trip.

Who - bike
Me - 1998 GS500E
Rob - 2005 Victory Hammer
Brad - 2004 Honda VTX 1800
Jim - 19xx Harley
Bill(Jim's dad) - 19xx Harley Electra Glide

Day 1
Rob and I left from Hancock and headed toward Sault Ste. Marie, where we were to meet everyone else who was riding up from downstate MI.  Our day started sunny buy I knew there was rain in the Eastern part of the upper penninsula.  I was having some stupid regrets for the first half hour or so, but I was happy to be on the road.  We had to stop just after Marquette to put on our rain gear and it rained on and off for the rest of the day.  When we got to the Soo about half an hour late, Brad was there, about ready to head to the Canadian border to see if he missed everyone.  The three of us ate lunch and waited for Jim and Bill, who eventyally called us and later showed up 2 hours late.  They ate and we all discussed where we wanted to go, as our trip planner was one of the people who had to drop out at the last minute.  Brad said he had his heart set on lobster so we set a course for Bar Harbor, Maine.  Our goal for the day was to make it to Sudbury, Ontario and we did.  Even with the rain, highway 17 from the Soo to Sudbury was a nice ride.  We showed up lateish and opted for a motel.  After settling in we found the beer store and Tim Hortens, then made more detailed trip plans using Bill's laptop with Streets and Trips.
...

Day 2
Started off sunny again, but this time the weather held for the day.  After stopping off at the carwash for the pretty bikes  :dunno: , we continued on our way across Canada on 17.  Here's a roadside park we stopped at to eat some sandwiches we picked up.

The road got straighter(boring) as we got closer to Ottawa and eventually turned into divided highway.  We made our way through Ottawa quickly, taking interstate(canadian equivalent?).  I believe we were on 417 most of the way to Montreal.  That wasn't very fun, it made my neck sore.  Once we got into Quebec, we the street signs seemed different for some reason, but we kept going.  Finally we decided to pull off the interstate to figure out where we were.

No, that's not english on that Days Inn sign.  With the help of GPS we figured out where we were in the maze of Montreal highways and kept going, there was going to be no camping in the big city.  We finally found some signs for camping somewhere towards Granby and they guided us all over the place before we got to a campsite.  Then they didn't allow motorcycles there.  Wish we had gotten a pic of that sign...  They pointed us to a campsite that allowed camping.  But they wanted to charge something like $25 canadian per tent.  It was getting dark so we hunted for a motel instead.  That ended up costing less than the camping would have.  Went looking for food just before 10pm, then it started raining.  Of course our rain gear was safely back in the rooms we had just rented.  Got soaked (my pants anyway, jacket is waterproof) looking for a place that was going to be staying open more than the 5 minutes it was to 10pm.  Found a pizza place that was pretty empty, then struggled with the french speaking staff to order.  After stuffing our selves, we went back to the wet bikes, rode to the motel and called it a night.

Day 3
When we headed out it was partly cloudy, and stayed that way all day.  We kept to backroads, though with their poor condition, I occasionally wished we were back on the big divide highway.  After getting lost in a few potholes and finding our way back out again, we made it back to US soil.  Maine to be exact.  I think we crossed at Canadian hwy 161/ Maine hwy 27.  The first few miles of roads were great, many fast corners and fresh pavement.  To be honest, the others were faster than me through the turns, even with bikes twice the weight of mine.  I partially blame it on not being used to all of the extra weight on my bike, but really they all have more experience than me and are better riders for the most part.  A few miles down the road we learned why some of the pavement was so good, there was recent construction which was still going on all across the state.  I figure we put on about 50 miles of off road riding on this trip where the roads were being redone.  By the evening we made it to Bar Harbor and found a campsite at a KOA.  After setting up camp we went find our lobster dinner at a shack called Down East Lobster Co.  It was actually the first time I had lobster and it was very good.  $16 for a meal with fresh lobster, corn on the cob, and rolls.  Afterwords, Brad and I struggled to strap 3 bundles of wood to his sissy bar and went back to make a fire.  We had an uninvited guest who called herself Juice from a neighboring campsite who kept us entertained, but also up late.

Here's a rest area we stopped at that day, but I don't remember where it was :dunno:

i want to see more of that TACO!

Here's a couple more pics of my Taco

I will continue with the day by day when I have some more time

i like that year but i like the 02-03(?) the best.  the style before the current.

Forget the Taco - more trip!  

So far your trip looks something like this:



Next installment?

PS - I laughed about the "pretty" bikes getting a wash on Day 2.  Did they get another one on Day 4?  :lol:

Quote from: manofthefieldHere's a couple more pics of my Taco

It's not a real Yooper truck, until you replace the bumpers with either:
-steel I-beam
-4-inch iron pipe (optionally filled with concrete)

Then it's a truck, Ya eh?