North America tour planning update no.1

I have been planning my 2012 tour when time permits and finished a draft outbound/first half route.

I have been thinking about this ride and other major tours for at least 12 months before deciding to bring it forward to next year for reasons mentioned in my first post on this topic. During that time I decided on a rough route for a extensive tour of either North America or Europe. It came down to choosing which continent to tackle first and I have selected North America.

So my starting points where to ride were a mix. Having been to British Columbia previously I have held a long time desire to return and ride there. Then the American Rocky mountains and roads of New England have also been on my wish list as well as the Smokey mountains south. The more I read the more places I made a mental note of, a number of roads in Oregon and California and then Nova Scotia and before long I had shifted my thinking from a one or two small trips to a cross country ride. So then I took some time out for a reality check about this idea.

Australia is a big place and I am used to riding long distances. I also am very a very experienced traveller with countless trips under my belt, even a 4 month driving tour around Europe many years ago. I like riding solo but prefer company when not in the saddle but alas if that is not to be then I am confident enough now days to do my own thing. My last big tour here was 7,000km in two weeks and I am estimating this to be 20,000km over a generous 10 weeks. To sum up I cannot come up with anything major that concerns me or would foreseeably be too big of a problem as long as my health remains good.

And so with all that bedded down I start to research in more detail. Renting a motorcycle for more than a few weeks is prohibitively expensive and so as mentioned I have chosen ‘Get Routed’ as my preferred shipping agent to get my motorcycle to the USA. Dave of Get Routed has also given me some links for arranging insurance for riding there. My registration will allow me to ride in North America and I need to check exactly what paper work I need to carry but nothing seems too difficult on this front.

Then to routing and I have been reading various motorcycle routes and best roads type internet sites and slowly putting pins on a google map. Motorcyclerides.us and Motorcycleroads.com have been two of a number of sites I have found very helpful but have been reading many in the last 6 months. I have had no luck in plotting my route in Google maps as it stopped saving my data which seems a known and unfixed bug for some users. My old mapping site Motowhere.com also crashed a few times as it has a problem with elevation data so I am now using RidewithGPS.com and you can view my draft outbound route by clicking here but be warned – it is a huge route and takes a minute to be calculated by the program so you may get a time out message on your browser. Just ignore this, I use Chrome and after 30 seconds it will ask if you want to keep waiting, click yes and soon after the route will display and you can zoom in.

Sorry file is not available at the moment only the map picture above.

This is only a draft however it is a good indication of my intended routing for the first half with the destination of Sydney, Nova Scotia on the other side of the world being definite. Most sections of road have been chosen from riding/driving sites for either being twisty, sweeping bends or scenic and the major highways that show on this map will be further routed away from where practical as I dislike riding both those and in large cities. Some sections are firm, there are many famous scenic road sections that I have locked in but I would have liked to visited more places around the Great Lakes and this section is really the part most possible to change.

My return route will sweep down the East and beyond to the Smokey mountains and across Arkansas before arching north to dip into Colorado before returning to the West coast and back north to Oregon.

Your comments and suggestions much appreciated as always.