Pre-ride preparations

Before I get in to our preparations for this trip, I'd just like to mention that this whole blog idea was inspired by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, who are in the midst of their second amazing motorcycle trip called The Long Way Down. 15,000 miles across two continents. Actually, I guess you could count a weekend of watching their first adventure, The Long Way Round, on DVD in Steve's movie room as pre-ride prep work. It's a great thing to watch and I highly recommend it to all. Now on to our trip....

After Steve and I took our motorcycle trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway last year, I started complaining that I wanted some kind of helmet cam that would allow me to snap pictures without having to pull over, park and dig my camera out of my saddlebag. Life would be so grand if I could simply look at something and press a button on my helmet to capture the scene. So, when we started making plans for this year's trip we began researching our options.

There are actually many brands and types of helmet cams out there believe it or not, but they are all pretty expensive. As an alternative, Steve decided to try making a handlebar mount for his handheld camera, positioning it behind his windshield for protection. His first attempt was impressive and worked really well. I think he only made one adjustment for vibration purposes and then added a swivel mount and voila! He bought a 2gb memory stick for his camera and now he can take still pics and video of our travels! We plan on uploading some of this footage to the blog for your viewing pleasure.

Once Steve was able to shut me up about a helmet cam, he got to work on figuring out our route through the Rockies. He set out a nice pace of around 250 miles per day and the route is going to take us past some amazing scenery. After he determined our stopping points for each day, I kicked in to high gear and started researching places to stay. Because we're usually in the middle of nowhere on these rides, it's some times a challenge to hunt down and find out about all of the little mom & pop motels, etc. for our options. I research them, look for reviews, choose the best places and book all of our rooms in advance.

With the camera in place, the route set and the lodging booked, you would think we'd be all set. But Steve decided there was one more thing we needed so he went out and bought a GPS unit to mount on his handlebars. He can map out our whole route on this thing, complete with all of the gas stations along the way and more importantly, all of the Dairy Queens! Thanks Steve :)

Well, that's about all the pre-ride prep work we've done. We'll have to wing anything else that we've forgotten. As far as packing for the trip, everyone in my family takes care of that either the night before or the day of the trip. Speaking of which, I better go get packing myself since I fly out tomorrow.