Welcome to the Two Wheeled Texans community! 
Feel free to hang out and lurk as long as you like. However, we would like to encourage you to 
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2004
- Messages
- 18,742
- Reaction score
- 6,732
- Location
- Sun Lakes & Show Low, Arizona
- First Name
- Brian
Vacation Ride Report - Arizona and Utah - June 24/30, 2010
Use the map controls to see the whole route
I'm going to break this into several postings as I don't know the forum limitations on a single post with photos. I'll input all the text first and then follow up with the photos. If you want to jump ahead and just look at photos with captions I have put 200 (of the 1500+ to choose from) on Flickr...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bethorn/sets/72157624276754827/
This was the first multi-day, multi-state trip that Brenda and I have been on and we were joined by some friends from Southwest Rides (www.swrides.com): Mike and his wife Mary, and our mutual friend Sabine.
Lessons learned and general observations:
Pack the bike days in advance to make sure everything fits - don't assume that the laptop will fit in the side saddlebag just because you think it looks like it would and then find out the day you're supposed to leave that it won't and you have to juggle everything around again. And don't assume that the spousal unit also packed everything in the test. It's not fun to have packed saddlebags only to discover that now she needs to add just a "few" more things.
Once you get everything packed, get rid of about half of it because you're not going to need it or you can find alternatives on the road. For example, we each took a pair of sneakers but never once used them. The bathing suit stayed in the trunk as did most of the t-shirts. The jeans and flip-flops came out once but the shorts never did.
A netbook is now on the wish list for these trips. A full size notebook is not needed for the basic email and photo storage needs of a road trip.
LD Comfort "undergarments" rock! I wore the shorts one day but I wore the tights the remaining days along with the turtleneck long-sleeved shirt. No monkey-butt at all. I'll be buying another pair of tights and another long-sleeved shirt for me and Brenda. One of the great things about this product is that you can wear it all day, wash it out in the tub or the shower that night, roll it up in a towel to help get most of the moisture out and then hang it up to dry that night. In most cases it will be ready to go the next morning. If not, and if you have a spare pair to wear, just bungee net the damp clothes to the bike and they will be perfectly dry in short order. Since we were riding in dry climates, the slight amount of dampness I had in the hems dried out very quickly after putting them on.
Look very closely at your intended route (unless you're a "just go for it" rider). On our ride from Bryce Canyon to Torrey we went through the mountains, cresting at 9600 feet while wearing mesh gear. The temp dropped from 77 to 51 in a matter of minutes. Brrrrrr...
Use Sunscreen EVERY day, no matter how cool the temps are or how cloudy it is or how geared up you are. Slather up the back of your neck and don't forget to do your face even if you have a tinted shield.
Write your ride report EVERY night, or at a minimum write some notes about the day.
When resetting your trip meter, make sure it's the A meter for your gas mileage and not the B meter that was tracking your entire miles for the trip.
When the road sign says "Open Range", believe that you're going to run into horses/cattle until you have reason not to believe it.
When you stop in a pouring rainstorm and get off your bike to put on your rain gear, be sure to protect the sheepskin cover so that when you sit back down you're not sitting on a wet wool blanket.
When you're going to make arrangements to meet other riders at some point on the journey, be very specific as to when and where.
If you're going to share cell phone numbers to stay in contacts with other riders, make sure your phone carrier has coverage in the areas where you're going to be.
If your cell phone carrier doesn't provide coverage in areas where you are going to be, your phone will go into "search" mode (which really chews up the battery) and you will find out that you have a dead phone when you least expect it.
Be proud of yourself for buying the National Parks Annual Pass last year because that $80 really pays off in spades when you hit multiple parks and monuments in a week's time.
Even if you haven't been sick in two years Murphy's Law dictates that you will come down with a cold the day of your departure and you will find that all the convenience stores in all the podunk towns in the country will not carry any cough syrup, so carry Nyquil and Dayquil gel tabs with you even if you are feeling fine to begin with. I discovered that carrying Imodium was another good thing.
Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Drink water. Lots of it. And keep drinking it. Especially in this dry part of the country. Even if that causes you to stop more often to offload some of those fluids, it will be better for your muscles and your overall comfort. If you're getting cramps in your legs you probably don't have enough fluid in you.
Alieve is your friend. Two tablets before leaving in the morning would leave me pain-free for many hours.
A back brace / lumbar support is also very beneficial if you're in my age bracket. The pain I develop after many hours of riding is more up by my shoulder blades instead of being in my lower back.
Buying the Wing was the best decision I could have made. When I think about doing this kind of mileage on the Connie, I am so glad I took the plunge.
Make sure the settings on your GoPro are for Video, not for individual images every two seconds or you will have wasted a lot of battery life and digital space.
GoPro really needs a kit so that you can wire the camera to the bike for constant power, and they need a remote control so that you don't have to stop to turn the camera on/off.
When pulling photos and videos off the SD cards to store them on the portable hard drive, don't remove the folders or you'll wind up renaming a lot of files because they were duplicate names of the previous day's efforts.
When making motel reservations in advance, ensure you get a ground floor room. Carrying lots of stuff up stairs at the end of a long riding day is not fun, plus you don't have the bike right outside your door in case someone decides to mess with it.
The exchange rate between the Dollar and the Euro must be pretty good as we saw/heard lots of Germans, some French, and a smattering of tourists from various other countries.
Check the forecast the day of your trip as the one you looked at a week prior may have changed by quite a bit.
A side benefit of having full saddlebags is that when your spouse finds some great Indian artwork or pottery on the trip all you have to say is "we don't have room".
Use the map controls to see the whole route
I'm going to break this into several postings as I don't know the forum limitations on a single post with photos. I'll input all the text first and then follow up with the photos. If you want to jump ahead and just look at photos with captions I have put 200 (of the 1500+ to choose from) on Flickr...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bethorn/sets/72157624276754827/
This was the first multi-day, multi-state trip that Brenda and I have been on and we were joined by some friends from Southwest Rides (www.swrides.com): Mike and his wife Mary, and our mutual friend Sabine.
Lessons learned and general observations:
Pack the bike days in advance to make sure everything fits - don't assume that the laptop will fit in the side saddlebag just because you think it looks like it would and then find out the day you're supposed to leave that it won't and you have to juggle everything around again. And don't assume that the spousal unit also packed everything in the test. It's not fun to have packed saddlebags only to discover that now she needs to add just a "few" more things.
Once you get everything packed, get rid of about half of it because you're not going to need it or you can find alternatives on the road. For example, we each took a pair of sneakers but never once used them. The bathing suit stayed in the trunk as did most of the t-shirts. The jeans and flip-flops came out once but the shorts never did.
A netbook is now on the wish list for these trips. A full size notebook is not needed for the basic email and photo storage needs of a road trip.
LD Comfort "undergarments" rock! I wore the shorts one day but I wore the tights the remaining days along with the turtleneck long-sleeved shirt. No monkey-butt at all. I'll be buying another pair of tights and another long-sleeved shirt for me and Brenda. One of the great things about this product is that you can wear it all day, wash it out in the tub or the shower that night, roll it up in a towel to help get most of the moisture out and then hang it up to dry that night. In most cases it will be ready to go the next morning. If not, and if you have a spare pair to wear, just bungee net the damp clothes to the bike and they will be perfectly dry in short order. Since we were riding in dry climates, the slight amount of dampness I had in the hems dried out very quickly after putting them on.
Look very closely at your intended route (unless you're a "just go for it" rider). On our ride from Bryce Canyon to Torrey we went through the mountains, cresting at 9600 feet while wearing mesh gear. The temp dropped from 77 to 51 in a matter of minutes. Brrrrrr...
Use Sunscreen EVERY day, no matter how cool the temps are or how cloudy it is or how geared up you are. Slather up the back of your neck and don't forget to do your face even if you have a tinted shield.
Write your ride report EVERY night, or at a minimum write some notes about the day.
When resetting your trip meter, make sure it's the A meter for your gas mileage and not the B meter that was tracking your entire miles for the trip.
When the road sign says "Open Range", believe that you're going to run into horses/cattle until you have reason not to believe it.
When you stop in a pouring rainstorm and get off your bike to put on your rain gear, be sure to protect the sheepskin cover so that when you sit back down you're not sitting on a wet wool blanket.
When you're going to make arrangements to meet other riders at some point on the journey, be very specific as to when and where.
If you're going to share cell phone numbers to stay in contacts with other riders, make sure your phone carrier has coverage in the areas where you're going to be.
If your cell phone carrier doesn't provide coverage in areas where you are going to be, your phone will go into "search" mode (which really chews up the battery) and you will find out that you have a dead phone when you least expect it.
Be proud of yourself for buying the National Parks Annual Pass last year because that $80 really pays off in spades when you hit multiple parks and monuments in a week's time.
Even if you haven't been sick in two years Murphy's Law dictates that you will come down with a cold the day of your departure and you will find that all the convenience stores in all the podunk towns in the country will not carry any cough syrup, so carry Nyquil and Dayquil gel tabs with you even if you are feeling fine to begin with. I discovered that carrying Imodium was another good thing.
Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Drink water. Lots of it. And keep drinking it. Especially in this dry part of the country. Even if that causes you to stop more often to offload some of those fluids, it will be better for your muscles and your overall comfort. If you're getting cramps in your legs you probably don't have enough fluid in you.
Alieve is your friend. Two tablets before leaving in the morning would leave me pain-free for many hours.
A back brace / lumbar support is also very beneficial if you're in my age bracket. The pain I develop after many hours of riding is more up by my shoulder blades instead of being in my lower back.
Buying the Wing was the best decision I could have made. When I think about doing this kind of mileage on the Connie, I am so glad I took the plunge.
Make sure the settings on your GoPro are for Video, not for individual images every two seconds or you will have wasted a lot of battery life and digital space.
GoPro really needs a kit so that you can wire the camera to the bike for constant power, and they need a remote control so that you don't have to stop to turn the camera on/off.
When pulling photos and videos off the SD cards to store them on the portable hard drive, don't remove the folders or you'll wind up renaming a lot of files because they were duplicate names of the previous day's efforts.
When making motel reservations in advance, ensure you get a ground floor room. Carrying lots of stuff up stairs at the end of a long riding day is not fun, plus you don't have the bike right outside your door in case someone decides to mess with it.
The exchange rate between the Dollar and the Euro must be pretty good as we saw/heard lots of Germans, some French, and a smattering of tourists from various other countries.
Check the forecast the day of your trip as the one you looked at a week prior may have changed by quite a bit.
A side benefit of having full saddlebags is that when your spouse finds some great Indian artwork or pottery on the trip all you have to say is "we don't have room".
Last edited:
