Tips On Planning A Great Big Trip

LEANINGS

Tips on Planning a Great Big Trip

Peter Egan

WELL, THE PLANNING HAS BEEN GOing on for months now. Three of us-my local riding buddy Lew Terpstra, Mike Mosiman from Colorado and I— are plotting a late-autumn bike trip.

From here in Wisconsin to the Smokies and then up along the Blue Ridge into Virginia, back along the Ohio River, home through Indiana and Illinois. Big trip. We’re giving ourselves nine days on the road.

Which means that every evening for these past few weeks, I’ve been sitting in my reading chair, looking at maps.

Not just looking but mesmerized. I confess to being a map addict and can sit perfectly still and stare at a road atlas for hours. It’s the kind of arrestedbreathing intensity you normally see in soldiers reading letters from girlfriends back home, looking for signs and meaning, trying to divine the future from a turn of phrase or the language used.

With maps, of course, it’s a language of curves and junctions along parallel mountain ridges, with lines of blue, red and gray. You look at them and try to imagine how the trip will go, whether you’ll somehow miss the best bike road in Tennessee and accidentally take a highway lined with shopping centers and stoplights. It takes some study to do it right.

And we are all studying. I talk to Lew and Mike often on the phone, and we’ve all been making suggestions over the past few months on how to make this A Really Good Trip. Some of our friends have also offered advice, and I thought it might be worth writing down a few of these tips.

So here goes: the accumulated travel wisdom of some of the century’s great minds-not to mention Lew’s, Mike’s and mine-and a virtual treasure trove of advice based on past blunders, tragic miscalculation and wistful regret.

1. Find a Date and Protect It-We picked our travel dates about a month ago, and since then we’ve each had approximately 900 offers to do something more responsible, socially correct or morally compelling on exactly those dates, but somehow we’ve all managed to just say no. Adopt this mantra and repeat it to yourself: “A year from now, you won’t remember why you stayed home, but you never forget a motorcycle trip.”

2. Skip All Yellow Zones-A Yellow Zone is any American city so large, sprawling and populated that it’s depicted on the map in a large yellow blot, usually found at the convergence of several Interstates, with a ring road around it. I also think of these as “Ruined Zones.” There is nothing there for you, so treat each one as a repellent magnetic pole. The only exception is New Orleans.

3. Choose the Smallest Possible Roads-It’s okay to use a road atlas or official state map to lay out your general direction of travel, but the best roads are often missing from these maps. Think of your own neighborhood and where you like to ride. Do you ever take that busy state highway full of truck traffic and motorhomes? No you don’t. So why get stuck on some equally crowded artery 600 miles from home in, say, West Virginia?

Get a supply of DeLorme Gazetteers and seek out the small stuff. Regional bicycle maps are even better. If bicyclists like the road, you probably will, too. Generally, all people on two wheels are looking for the same brand of deliverance.

4. Use the “Never a Dull Moment” Principle-If you must ride through, say, Illinois, try to follow a river or ride through small towns with neat old main streets. Upshift, downshift and amuse yourself with roadside scenery, however humble. Note the dead ’53 Chevy pickup on the front lawn and the Yamaha DT-1 for sale in the driveway; look at that weird old farmhouse... There’s nothing worse on a motorcycle trip than looking at your watch and saying, “Gee, if I can hold on to these handlebars for just three more hours I’ll be in Toledo.” A good trip is one where evening sneaks up on you and the passage of time seems downright lamentable.

5. Stop for the Night at Towns in Bold Type-My Road & Track colleague Bert Swift pointed out on a recent road trip that the best places to stop for the night (unless you know of a good campground or mountain lodge) are medium-sized towns depicted on the map in bold type. These usually have fuel, a couple of real restaurants, a small choice in motels and at least one bar featuring the local tap beer you so richly deserve.

If the typeface on the map is too small, you’ll be eating Cheetos for dinner and sleeping in a ditch. And if it’s too large, you’ll be dragging your saddlebags to the seventh floor of a hotel named Euro-Tel Pointe Executive Residence Suites, with your bike parked about a mile away.

6. Stay Flexible-Avoid a rigid schedule and ignore all these rules if something interesting and unexpected comes along. If someone says, “Hey, you boys oughtta stay here for our Annual Pig Roast and Miss Kentucky Bourbon Beauty Pageant,” don’t tell the guy you have hotel reservations in Cleveland. Go with the flow. Sure, you’ll end up sleeping on a pool table, but think of the stories...

7. Don’t Plan Too Large a Loop—If you do, you won’t be able to follow any of the guidelines above. I find 300 miles per day just about right, 400 slightly tedious and 500-plus fit for nothing but dull roads and bragging rights. And no one else really cares how far you can ride. Trust me.

8. Don’t Blow Off the Last DayEvery day on the road should be a good one. Don’t get homing instinct on the last day and do 600 miles of Interstate so you can check your e-mail messages. They’ll keep. Everything will. And when you’re dead, life will roll on exactly as it does now, like a tubeless tire with a self-sealing puncture. Your coworkers don’t even know you’re gone, and your family is ambivalent.

Relax and do what my friend Tom Daley does on that last day: Stop at a bar 20 miles from home, eat peanuts and SlimJims, talk over the trip and unwind for an hour or two.

If you haven’t punished yourself too badly, you might even talk over a future trip stop.