Ridin'Ard

Our next adventure is upon us!

Well, almost. Haha. Got a LOT to do before we can leave. We’ve both been REALLY busy at work and have done very little planning or preparation for this trip. We do have all of the stuff figured out from last year and have ordered a couple of replacement items. Feeling a little stressed out…about the vacation that we’re taking…to escape the stress of work…which is stressful.

So. Since Julie got to keep her leg, our next adventure is to go to VT for the Dirt Daze Adventure Rally and then up to Maine and cross the US/Canadian border at Calais, ME, make our way through New Brunswick to Nova Scotia, check out Prince Edward Island, and then go down to Halifax to take the ferry to Portland, ME and head home from there. We are off for 3 weeks and will go back to work after Labor Day. The Dirt Daze rally is the only arrangement we have made for this trip. I’m really glad I took care of that and the hotel in June, because it’s been sold out for over a month now.


We are hoping that it’s a lot less hot and not on fire as compared to our Four Corners trip last year…to the desert…in the summer. We’re also looking forward to a Dark Sky park and more camping because it will not be as hot. And did I mention that the weather will be better for this trip this summer? Yeah. Looking forward to that!

We are taking the ADV bikes for this trip, our Triumph Tigers. The Beemers are verra verra nice, but we’ve learned to take the rough-and-tumble bikes on trips so that we’re not limited by road quality.

Jaron performed his own 12k mile service a few weeks ago. We don’t have a good Triumph shop nearby…kind of a long story…and the one that’s not nearby hasn’t really felt like accommodating us after sales were made. They weren’t accommodating for our break-in services either. We got a lot of work done by Triumph Albuquerque before and after our trip last summer. Anyway, apparently at 12k mi it’s a 9-hr service and they required a 2-day dropoff, which was unacceptable being 2 hours away. The cost was also atrocious. So! Jaron figured out how to do all of it and even removed the tank in order to access the valves, change the spark plugs, and change the air filter. (That’s a terrible place for an air filter btw, Triumph!)

Julie is only at 8k miles on this bike. We haven’t really bonded…and we might go our separate ways this winter (perhaps just in time for a 12k mile service). It’s just too big and heavy for me. Idk. I guess we’ll see how this trip goes. After the ADV training weekend, I test rode a BMW F700GS w/ low suspension and it felt great. It’s a smaller and lighter bike. But, it was a 2013 and they wanted way too much for it, and it didn’t have an offroad riding mode so I’ve been looking around. Found a brand new one in Dallas but for some weird reason having to do with the warranty my dealership was unable to transfer it.

The only things we needed to add to for our bikes were two-stage rear brake risers that a new friend recommended. Normally the rear brake pedal is angled slightly downward which is comfortable when sitting down and prevents you from dragging the brake, but the angle makes it hard to reach while standing up. And Julie got Doubletake mirrors, which we spoke about on the post about ADV training weekend six weeks ago. (I’m still very excited about those.) Other than that, we figured (and paid for) out all of the hard lessons last year.

Preparations Friday night included sitting on hold with Spot for over an hour to upgrade our GPS beacon. (The previous one was from 2009 and worked pretty inadequately last summer.) The long wait was not terribly confidence-inspiring considering that it’s my rescue service? Plus another hour screwing around with GEOS ensuring that everything is correct and that we are both covered. Apparently we were not last year! Oops.

Saturday we started packing. Not gonna lie…the camping gear was all still in bins in the living room where it’s been since we got back last summer. We don’t need as much water capacity as when we went to the desert. The campgrounds all have water and we will not be in as remote of an area, so Jaron does not need his water and gas tanks and Julie can use the 8 L of space where the extra dromedary bladders went for other stuff.

I also sat on the phone with Progressive for possibly two hours on Saturday. We each had our own motorcycle insurance policy because we exceeded the policy limit of 4 a couple of years ago. They’ve since changed that to 12 and consolidating back to one policy saved a nontrivial amount of money. While our insurance covers us while we are in Canada, apparently you need an insurance card in a certain format printed on a certain kind of paper while you’re there. So, that’s being mailed to the hotel we’ll be at later this week. The gentleman insisted that he couldn’t email a copy but could fax it so I finally signed up for an online fax service. <eyeroll> The UPS store was not answering the phone and closed soon, and otherwise Jaron was going to need to go in to work just to receive a stupid fax. Stupid faxes. It’s all electronic and email is no less secure. Sigh.

Sunday we loaded bikes up and made about 500 trips in and out of the garage and up and down the stairs. Julie has to bring special shampoo & conditioner for dyed hair this time. I also rearranged everything so that all clothes & toiletries are in the right pannier so that when stopping at a hotel for the night, I can just take it off and bring it in instead of pulling things out in to a bag. Last year I had toiletries in the top case for weight distribution. I guess I should the check weight distribution…but I’ll figure it out tomorrow. When I used to travel on the Green Machine I would actually load the right side down with more weight so that it was easier for me to stand the bike up.

Feeling good about rolling out Monday midmorning after a couple of errands that need to be done during the business week. We’ll head up to Harrisburg, PA and take a detour for a scenic route through Big Spring State Park and then continue north towards the Catskills. I asked a lady motorcycle friend who lives there if she’d like to meet up on Tuesday. She can’t but recommended a route through the Catskills. Then Wednesday we’ll continue up to Woodstock, VT for the Dirt Daze rally thru Sunday. After that we’re thinking of camping near Mount Washington, NH. And then continue thru Maine to Canada.

This trip is actually not much shorter than the one last year in NM/AZ/CO when you consider that we spent 4 days flying and picking up/dropping off bikes and re-packing from and for air travel. We’re planning for 20 nights this time. Last year I believe we planned for 24 nights but we ended up coming back a couple of days early.

I’ve been needing to sit down w/ the maps of our route and look thru my tent camping books to find the kinds of campgrounds we like. I just haven’t had time to read thru my tent camping and scenic driving books before this trip, which is something I really enjoy doing in the run-up before traveling. I finally found a couple of suitable campgrounds for where we’re looking to go this week and then discovered that the books were also available on kindle. I prefer reading them on paper where I can highlight and tactilely connect with paper, but 4 books take up quite a bit of space. I already have like 5 maps and an atlas.

Here is our Spot GPS beacon map. If you haven’t heard from us and are wondering where we are, it will show our messages there as well as show tracking every 30 min for 24 hours when we activate it.