2024 Cross-Continent Trip Summary
From April 11 through July 31, 2024 I was on an epic motorcycle ride. Over those 112 days, I explored much of the US and a little bit of Canada, too.
I think everyone who rides dreams of taking a cross-country trip. We dream of riding twisty mountain roads and mountain passes; visiting national parks; seeing wildlife; and eating at roadside BBQ shacks. It was certainly all of that. But, it was also riding in the rain, and hail, and heat for hundreds of miles. It was the challenge of figuring out where to go and stay the next few nights. It was balancing the feelings of not wanting to miss anything with wanting to get to the next thing. It was wondering if the mountain road would be too steep, or too high, or too “cliffy.” It was worrying about having a flat tire, or mechanical failure while in the middle of nowhere. And, it was fighting the occasional loneliness of doing it all on my own.
While the trip challenged me mentally, physically and emotionally, the feeling of accomplishment I have is hard to describe. I road the steep mountain roads, dealt with the weather, and saw so many of the things I wanted to see. It’s an experience I would recommend to everyone who has the chance.
Some stats:
112 Days on the road
18,225 Miles traveled
28 US States visited
29 US National Parks visited
3 Canadian provinces visited
3 Canadian National Parks visited
2 New sets of tires
1 New water pump
3 Oil changes
What I got Right
My most enjoyable days included about 6 hours of riding—3 in the morning, then lunch, then another 3 in the afternoon. That way, I’d get to my hotel around 4pm and have time to shower, and relax before dinner. When I was done riding for the day, I wanted to be done riding for the day, so I would almost always walk to dinner. On occasion, I’d get an Uber if there wasn’t anything near the hotel.
I took to heart the idea of “ride my ride.” I didn’t care if people were faster than me, or slower than me. Cars, trucks and bikes were welcome to pass, and I was happy to give them room to do so. Most people don’t ride motorcycles, and have no idea how stressful it can be in adverse weather conditions, on unfamiliar, super-narrow or super-twisty roads, or at highway speeds in rush-hour traffic on six-lane freeways (looking at you, Kansas City). I would go exactly as fast as I felt comfortable going, and there were only a few occasions where someone would impatiently tailgate. Similarly, the experience made me more patient of those in front of me—I’ll ride behind you until it’s safe to pass.
Taking the long way is always a good idea. Heed the advice in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, “if the line wiggles, that's good. That means hills. If it appears to be the main route from a town to a city, that's bad. The best ones always connect nowhere with nowhere and have an alternate that gets you there quicker. If you are going northeast from a large town you never go straight out of town for any long distance. You go out and then start jogging north, then east, then north again, and soon you are on a secondary route that only the local people use.” Even better is to ask the locals “what’s the prettiest drive you’ve been on around here?” I usually asked that at dinner, and it sparked many great conversations and many great rides.
You can go back and do it again. When I first went through Glacier National Park and rode the Going to the Sun Road, it was raining. The ride was still fun. I had a good time. It would still have been a memorable day on the journey. About a week later, I saw that the weather had cleared up, and I made the decision to go back and spend a few days there. I’m so glad I did, because now it’s not just a memorable part of the trip, it’s an absolute highlight. I got to ride it in both directions and overcame a huge fear of riding along the steep drop-off that makes the road so dramatic.
Taking breaks is important. Even though I was doing something I loved, I treasured breaks from the daily breakfast, load up, ride, lunch, ride, unload, shower, dinner, sleep demands of the journey. Every once in a while, spending two nights in the same hotel gave me a chance to explore the more of the town, the restaurants, do laundry, and catch up on my blogging.
Packing: I’ll probably do a full post or two on all the equipment I purchased and how I packed for the trip. Basically, I put things into three categories: safety, daily, and emergency. Safety included things like my armored, waterproof riding jacket and pants, hot and cold weather gloves, an airbag vest and things like that. Daily things were riding and casual clothes, sunscreen, hydration packets, toiletries, chargers/cables, and things to keep the bike (relatively) clean. Emergency included a redundant GPS with satellite SOS features, first aid, emergency tent, flashlights, and tools.
It took me a couple iterations to figure out how to fit everything into my two side bags and my top case. Big things, like my hiking/casual shoes, my computer, a warm puffer coat, took a little tweaking before I figured out the best way to pack. I was in a different hotel almost every night. So, what I brought in, what I left on the bike, and how I carried it all in and out turned out to be pretty important. And, I got really good at it.
What I got Wrong
Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. There are many national parks where you can pretty much stay on the park road and see all the things you want to see. But there are some where you have to get off the road and really into the park to experience it. I rode through Bryce and Zion. While they were stunning, I don’t think I experienced them they way I could have. An extra-day at each, and a plan to get off the bike and do some hiking would have been infinitely more meaningful. I could have walked among the hoodoos and waded through the narrows. I didn’t, and I wish I had.
It’s a cruel joke that Colorado and Utah are next to each other. I was in Colorado way too early in the season to take advantage of all the riding that I could have done there. Trail Ridge Road through the Rocky Mountain National Park wasn’t open yet. Neither were Independence and Monarch Passes. I couldn’t get to the top of Pike’s Peak. And the Million Dollar Highway was covered in snow the days that I planned to ride it. Yet crossing over into the Utah dessert, I think I arrived at the perfect time. Sure, it was hot waiting on line at Arches, but everywhere else in Utah was fantastic. If I had arrived in Colorado 30 days later, Utah, Nevada and Death Valley would have been brutally hot. My advice, if it’s springtime, do Utah first, then Colorado.
Clean and check the camera every time you stop. I had my action camera mounted on the front of my bike. The upside was that it had an unobstructed view. The downside was the number of bug carcasses that collected on the lens. On several occasions, great video footage was marred by a big, dark splotch in the middle of the frame. Also, the wind would tend to push the camera a little and tilt it up, giving me a great view of treetops and sky. I got in the habit of checking it often, but a little too late.
Editing video is hard work. I thought I’d be able to spend my day on the bike and crank out a video at the end of the day. How wrong I was. Condensing a full day of video into something that was watchable took far longer than I thought. It also took about an hour to offload the huge files each day onto an external drive. And, it took about 3 hours to upload a 15 minute video to YouTube at hotel upload speeds. That’s why most of my blogs are just stills captured from the daily video. If you’re curious, I ended up with about 15TB of video.
Bring Oil. I would check my oil pretty regularly, but I didn’t bring any with me until my issues in Yellowstone. For most of the trip, it was fine, because I was never more than a couple hours from a town, or a BMW dealership. But in placed like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota, dealerships are few and far between. I was lucky that I was able to find some at a snowmobile dealer in West Yellowstone. If I hadn’t, I would have been in some trouble.
Would I do it Again?
Yes! I thoroughly enjoyed my trip, and I think I’m a bit hooked on motorcycle touring. I’m thinking about going with a tour company for a week or two in Europe for my next trip.