Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Packing and unpacking...
Now we have Wed evening. I have been at work until afternoon and after that I finally concentrated on the packing. I always have a bad habit of leaving my packing to the very last minute. This works OK on my regular business trips when I know exactly what I need along. This time it is different. I have been reading posts on LT-forum about packing and what to take along etc. I followed one advise and made myself a list - or actually 5 lists. One for toiletry -related things, one for miscellaneous stuff, one for clothing, one for bike related stuff and one for tools. I already skipped the tools list and decided to pack the regular set that I usually need when I dismantle the bike in my garage. I even have a 12 V soldering iron plus all kinds of stuff to (try to) fix electrical problems.
My packing is in pretty good shape considering that I still have Thursday and half Friday at my disposal. The trunk liner is almost full. The right saddlebag liner (the smaller one as I used to have the CD-changer) is packed.
At this stage few words about my riding gear:
All the locals warned us that it will be HOT in the Southern US in August. As Jouko and myself are the full-gear-all-the-time-guys, we purchased the BMW Venting Machine riding outfits. We have had exceptionally hot and dry summer in Finland as well so I have had very good possibility to test the suit. It is cool I have to admit. It is black in color, so it absorbs heat when standing in the traffic but as soon as you get to a speed of 20 -30 km/h the cooling effect starts.
But...it will not be 30 - 40 deg C ALL the time... I have tested the suit in 15 C weather and I noticed that the best thing to wear under it is Gerbing heated liner, at least on upper body. Long Johns are still OK for the pants at that temperature but if the weather gets any colder then I will wear the heated pants as well. So, I have Gerbing heated jacket and pants packed on the bottom of my right saddlebag. They now occupy about the same thickness of space as the CD-changer did.
I also found very nice and comfortable hot weather gloves called Sweep Fly. They are made by company Sweep Racing, but I could not find their website...
My helmet is Caberg Justissimo flip-up and it is OK. Some people claim it is noisy, maybe so. However, I always wear custom molded earplug speakers, so I don't know about it. What is nice about the helmet is that I can convert it to a 3/4 helmet in five minutes if the heat gets unbearable.
And finally the boots: I ordered myself BMW Air Flow 2 boots and WOW, those are really cool. When I rode yesterday morning at 16 C weather I had wear thick snowboarding socks in them! Otherwise my feet would have gotten really cold. So I trust that with these shoes I will not get tempted to ride with sandals even in the hottest temperature. OK, let's see then...
Oh well, getting late. Still have to go to work for tomorrow morning at least and get things sorted out there as I will be gone for a full month.
My packing is in pretty good shape considering that I still have Thursday and half Friday at my disposal. The trunk liner is almost full. The right saddlebag liner (the smaller one as I used to have the CD-changer) is packed.
At this stage few words about my riding gear:
All the locals warned us that it will be HOT in the Southern US in August. As Jouko and myself are the full-gear-all-the-time-guys, we purchased the BMW Venting Machine riding outfits. We have had exceptionally hot and dry summer in Finland as well so I have had very good possibility to test the suit. It is cool I have to admit. It is black in color, so it absorbs heat when standing in the traffic but as soon as you get to a speed of 20 -30 km/h the cooling effect starts.
But...it will not be 30 - 40 deg C ALL the time... I have tested the suit in 15 C weather and I noticed that the best thing to wear under it is Gerbing heated liner, at least on upper body. Long Johns are still OK for the pants at that temperature but if the weather gets any colder then I will wear the heated pants as well. So, I have Gerbing heated jacket and pants packed on the bottom of my right saddlebag. They now occupy about the same thickness of space as the CD-changer did.
I also found very nice and comfortable hot weather gloves called Sweep Fly. They are made by company Sweep Racing, but I could not find their website...
My helmet is Caberg Justissimo flip-up and it is OK. Some people claim it is noisy, maybe so. However, I always wear custom molded earplug speakers, so I don't know about it. What is nice about the helmet is that I can convert it to a 3/4 helmet in five minutes if the heat gets unbearable.
And finally the boots: I ordered myself BMW Air Flow 2 boots and WOW, those are really cool. When I rode yesterday morning at 16 C weather I had wear thick snowboarding socks in them! Otherwise my feet would have gotten really cold. So I trust that with these shoes I will not get tempted to ride with sandals even in the hottest temperature. OK, let's see then...
Oh well, getting late. Still have to go to work for tomorrow morning at least and get things sorted out there as I will be gone for a full month.
Getting ready...
Today we have Wed Aug 9th. Two days for our departure for the Big Trip.
Perhaps it is a good idea to give some background on this trip:
Everything started last fall when ay good friend of mine Tom Russell from Germany started talking about a possibility to ship the bike by plane overseas. He was collecting a group of riders who could possibly attend and we could get some group purchase discount from the shipper.
I called my long time business associate Jouko Saarinen and asked him how he felt about a bike trip across the US. Right away he replied that "good idea, I have never been there". I offered to act as his interpreter as Jouko does not speak English and I have visited the US about 8 times and even lived in Ohio for a year as an exchange student back in 73-74.
another target of the trip was to attend the BMW K 1200 LT riders annual Curve Cowboy Reunion. I have been a member of the famous BMWLT.com forum for 2,5 years and seems that I have gotten a large amount of friends who I would like to meet also in person.
So, at first we were planning to land somewhere on the West Coast. San Francisco was on the top of the list and I was already planning routes from SF to Atlanta. After some time it turned out that the shipping company http://www.motorcycleservices.com/ no longer ships bikes to the US. As a result of the Anti-Terrorist laws the border formalities have become so troublesome that it makes no sense trying to get the bike shipped directly to US territory. However, it still works to Canada relatively easy. And riding across the US border should not be a big deal. (Let's see in a week...)
We picked Calgary as our landing point and Toronto as our departure port. We have a route planned with the the help of the LT-Forum members and others. I have read through various travel stories etc.
And BTW, how big group decided to go after all? Well, it boiled down to 4 bikers, two from Finland and two from Germany. Tom Russell and his friend Hartmut Bleeker who also will be in North America first time. They will be traveling two days before us and they will have their separate route. We decided not to travel in a larger (OK, 4 four is not LARGE) group as it sometimes might create problems starting from finding accommodation and ending where to go next and what to see.
We plan not to camp en route. Neither of us is too eager in sleeping in a tent so we trust in finding a motel or similar for each night. Ad we have also received a bunch of invitations from my LT-Forum friends. Starting from the first two nights in Calgary when we are waiting for our bikes to arrive. Roy Jorawsky right away offered accommodation for us when he heard that two Finns were looking for advise on what to do bikeless in Calgary for to days. Looking forward to meeting him!
Another reason for not camping is the limitations in our packing space. The flight transportation makes things slightly more complicated. During the transportation only the factory cases can be packed. Nothing tied on the bike. So we plan to pack our riding gear in the bike cases and take all the rest with us on our personal flight.
Now, somebody must be wondering how much does it cost to send a bike by plane overseas. It is not that terribly expensive - compared to what a regular person ticket costs. Round trip for the bike Frankfurt -Calgary and Toronto-Frankfurt was about 2600 $ in April 2006. (Now with today's fuel prices, the price might be different...) On top of that we had to buy personal tickets which were 1100 À on the e-bookers. We also needed insurance as our European traffic insurance is worth nothing in the US. The cost of insurance was 500 $.
So, I hope this is a proper start for this story. I just recently found this website and I am new to these blogs but let's hope I can keep all you interested on how our journey proceeds.
Perhaps it is a good idea to give some background on this trip:
Everything started last fall when ay good friend of mine Tom Russell from Germany started talking about a possibility to ship the bike by plane overseas. He was collecting a group of riders who could possibly attend and we could get some group purchase discount from the shipper.
I called my long time business associate Jouko Saarinen and asked him how he felt about a bike trip across the US. Right away he replied that "good idea, I have never been there". I offered to act as his interpreter as Jouko does not speak English and I have visited the US about 8 times and even lived in Ohio for a year as an exchange student back in 73-74.
another target of the trip was to attend the BMW K 1200 LT riders annual Curve Cowboy Reunion. I have been a member of the famous BMWLT.com forum for 2,5 years and seems that I have gotten a large amount of friends who I would like to meet also in person.
So, at first we were planning to land somewhere on the West Coast. San Francisco was on the top of the list and I was already planning routes from SF to Atlanta. After some time it turned out that the shipping company http://www.motorcycleservices.com/ no longer ships bikes to the US. As a result of the Anti-Terrorist laws the border formalities have become so troublesome that it makes no sense trying to get the bike shipped directly to US territory. However, it still works to Canada relatively easy. And riding across the US border should not be a big deal. (Let's see in a week...)
We picked Calgary as our landing point and Toronto as our departure port. We have a route planned with the the help of the LT-Forum members and others. I have read through various travel stories etc.
And BTW, how big group decided to go after all? Well, it boiled down to 4 bikers, two from Finland and two from Germany. Tom Russell and his friend Hartmut Bleeker who also will be in North America first time. They will be traveling two days before us and they will have their separate route. We decided not to travel in a larger (OK, 4 four is not LARGE) group as it sometimes might create problems starting from finding accommodation and ending where to go next and what to see.
We plan not to camp en route. Neither of us is too eager in sleeping in a tent so we trust in finding a motel or similar for each night. Ad we have also received a bunch of invitations from my LT-Forum friends. Starting from the first two nights in Calgary when we are waiting for our bikes to arrive. Roy Jorawsky right away offered accommodation for us when he heard that two Finns were looking for advise on what to do bikeless in Calgary for to days. Looking forward to meeting him!
Another reason for not camping is the limitations in our packing space. The flight transportation makes things slightly more complicated. During the transportation only the factory cases can be packed. Nothing tied on the bike. So we plan to pack our riding gear in the bike cases and take all the rest with us on our personal flight.
Now, somebody must be wondering how much does it cost to send a bike by plane overseas. It is not that terribly expensive - compared to what a regular person ticket costs. Round trip for the bike Frankfurt -Calgary and Toronto-Frankfurt was about 2600 $ in April 2006. (Now with today's fuel prices, the price might be different...) On top of that we had to buy personal tickets which were 1100 À on the e-bookers. We also needed insurance as our European traffic insurance is worth nothing in the US. The cost of insurance was 500 $.
So, I hope this is a proper start for this story. I just recently found this website and I am new to these blogs but let's hope I can keep all you interested on how our journey proceeds.
