1 - Prologue

The start of it all! 

 

This journey began way before the actual trip did, the vision started about 2 1/2 years prior, sometime in 2014! I had been looking for a new motorcycling challenge and had been considering returning to racing. I had already done many forms of that when I was much younger so wasn't real excited about going down that road again. Rachel had discovered an online article about two guys that were riding their motorcycles from Utah, north through Idaho, to Canada. But, not on the highway, it was mostly off-road! I read about the different rides they had done and was excited about all the possibilities. http://www.bigdogadventures.com/ 
This is what introduced me to the concept of "Adventure Riding" on dual sport motorcycles! I thought "What a cool adventure, I should do something like this!". It would not be a speed challenge but would certainly be an endurance challenge not to mention the logistics and navigation that have to be worked into such a long distance ride. I'd never really done any long distance, off-road motorcycling so I started researching to find out how people plan such a thing. During my research, I came across the Trans America Trail which was created by a guy named Sam Correro. http://www.transamtrail.com 
The Trail starts in Southwestern North Carolina, and ends at the Pacific Ocean in southwestern Oregon – nearly 5,000 miles of mostly off-pavement riding. He sells GPS tracks, Paper Maps, and navigational "Roll Charts" for the trail. This obviously makes route planning and navigation much easier than trying to plan and execute something from scratch.  

All along, I had been telling my best friend Chris what I was researching and what I found as a possible adventure, he said "Count me in!". It was decided we would do the Western 2800 mile portion of the TAT as a celebration of my turning 50 in the summer of 2017! The next couple of years were spent buying a dual sport motorcycle, modifying and equipping it for the adventure, getting the GPS tracks, maps, and gathering appropriate riding and camping gear. We both selected Suzuki DR650's for their simplicity, reliability, and relatively low cost. Now, they are not the most "svelte" motorcycle around, plus we are going to be carrying 100lbs of gear on them, so we each aptly named our bikes. Chris named his "Moby Dick" and I named mine "Big Bertha". Appropriate decals were applied... 
We chose the same bike to simplify tools and spares that we would need to carry on the trip.

More posts to follow!

 ***NOTE; Clicking on the pictures will open them up in a larger, gallery view.***

Here's "Big Bertha" loaded up and ready to go!!