cheap GPS trip logger.

Many times on a trip you want to share with others your travels or even simply remember where you have been for your own use. You can use a GPS, some of the better units allow trip logging, but most dont that are best for road trips with all the maps. Enter the GPS logger. Specifically the AGL3080 GPS logger. This little guy is cheap at under $70.00 on amazon.com and it allows you to press a button to record a location or continuously log your travel every second to the end of the day when you can easily save it to your netbook laptop you packed. (more on communication on the road for a later article...)

It's not gonna save your bacon when you get lost, but it will tell you what wrong turn you took 4 hours ago when you are in your hotel room miles from the campsite late at night. It's not useful for a trip, it's useful for after the trip.

Spring is Here!

Readying the bike for the season, cleaning things up, dont rush getting the bike on the road though. Right now is the time to look over the bike completely. Air up the tires to full air pressure and check them the next day, look for cracks. If you see ANY get the bike to the shop for new tires. nothing will ruin your day or life than a front tire blowout at highway speeds. Check your fluid levels, when was the last time you changed your fork oil? is everything tight? does the bike start easily after it has sat overnight without the battery tender on it? Water level in the battery? check it over carefully. Every minute you spend now is less that will cause you problems later in the year and miles from home. While you are readying your bike, check over your camping gear. make sure mice did not make your new compact sleeping bags their new home. get a can of tent water-proofer and on a good day set up the tent and check it out, at least re-treat the seams. I respray the whole tent with "camp-dry" silicone water-proofer every 3 years. finding problems now means you dont have to scramble later. One thing I added to my kit is the Scala Rider Q2 helmet bluetooth headsets. I can answer the phone on the road and talk to my wife as well as listen to my ipod and GPS. (I plug the gps audio out into a ipod fm transmitter and use the FM radio on the headset to listen, works great) This allows greater freedom and it stops the ripping out of the headset cords the old bike intercom had. Plus these devices are cheaper than replacement stock Yamaha headsets.

Several advancements have came about in camping gear. Some easier to use like a Cot-tent, but they are impossible to carry on a bike. some newer summer tents pack very small and there are new smaller cooking stoves available. One thing that works great is getting a soft fold-able cooler. you can easily stash it when riding, but use it to go get food for cooking after you set up camp if you want to cook over the campfire. I will cover some of the new smaller camping gear soon.

Almost time for riding season again....

Is your bike ready for the spring riding season? You know that most of the maintenance items you have your dealer perform in the spring you can easily do at home and with the toolkit your bike came with....

Sparkplugs : if you have a carburetor bike these need to be checked and cleaned. carefully remove each one and inspect them, if BLACK then your bike is running rich and needs the carbs adjusted or even the air filter cleaned or replaced. you want them to be slightly rust colored with clean spots probably the electrode will be clean. some light soot is OK.

Gas : you did put in a fuel stabilizer or "seafoam" before you stored the bike last fall right? also how old is your bike, have you checked the fuel filter? it should be replaced every 2-3 years.

Tires : inspect for cracks, make sure they are aired up properly. move the bike to keep from getting flat spots.. I park on carpets to help eliminate the flat spot problem.

Battery: you put a good quality battery tender on it right? if not get one now and get it on the battery, you might be able to save it if it's not went completely dead.

I would NOT start the bike until spring unless you crank it a bit with the gas off to build oil pressure first. you dont want to start a dry engine. If you do start it, then you need to run it for 20 minutes or more until it's up to full temperature, you dont need to fill your mufflers with water from the exhaust and a cold muffler... that makes for rust. If you start it, then let it idle until the engine is hot and at normal running temps, keep going until you no longer see moisture out of the mufflers...

End of summer update.,...

Well Camping season is almost over. The economy ruined it to the point that we were only able to camp twice this year. I'll be posting a write up of one of our trips and some more tips on supplies we found that are great for Motorcycle camping.

One of them is this years new Bug and suntan packaging in pen size. These pack anywhere and I now keep both on the bike at all times.

Sleeping.....

One thing that will be more important than gasoline and good tires in motorcycle camping is getting a good nights sleep. I have been through almost ALL of the sleeping pads out there and I'll tell you this point blank. Most of them are garbage. Air mattresses fold up thin, but are not durable or comfortable and they make lots of noise all night. The foam pads that fold up or are corrugated foam feel warm, but after 30 minutes you feel the stones, sticks and things you missed under your tent because they are thin. I'm not one of those people that can sleep anywhere, I need comfort, so I turned to the self-inflating foam pads.

I started with the high priced ones, if you weight more than 90 pounds you will bottom them out and end up uncomfortable at night. The ones I ddid find that were comfy were the ones that had regular sealing points throughout the pad. rings or dots in the middle allow you to fill up the pad with more air to make it firmer and not turn into a balloon that rolls you off. Also make sure it has 1/5" or more of foam inside. the 1" thick pads are pretty much worthless.

Basically you need to try a lot of different ones to find what you like the best. If it's not very comfortable on your living room floor, it will be miserable in the tent. I settled on the Coleman self-inflating mat with pillow. This cheap sleeping mat was far more comfortable to me than even the $250.00 high end outfitters mats. It does not roll up really tiny, but it's a size that is manageable.

The season is getting closer....

The bike is almost completely ready for the season. I replaced front wheel bearings, repainted it, re-assembled it. I went through the toolkit and replaced all the stamped steel junk tools with nice ratcheting box end wrenches, If you wont love using them in your garage, you will hate the tools when sitting in the gravel on the side of the road. My trailer hitch is finished and out for powder-coat and chrome. I also discovered a wonderful cheap cargo camper for Motorcycles. Harbor Freight now has a tiny motorcycle trailer available that is under $500.00US a better price than the overpriced $3500-$6500 trailers that are available. I will not be using it this year for camping. All camping will be 2 up bike only. If I cant carry it on the bike, it does not come camping! That will be the entire premise of the book, what you need and what you can do camping on just your bike.

I am getting the itch to ride. I have been on some shorter around town runs. Weather here has been rain or heavy winds, so not much in riding yet. I at least went through a tank of gas, 35mpg... I need to tune up the bike, sync the carbs, and clean them out. Getting maintenance done now will mean your summer riding is far more trouble free. Take the time and waste some of the spring riding weather. If you need tires, get them on, get that bike running so you feel confident to ride 400-500 miles and back.

Motorcycle Luggage: a primer.

yes it's available for every bike. Panniers; from the hard fiberglass and metal ones from the manufacturer that is specially designed for your bike, to soft sided stuff that will fit on anything from a cruiser to the smallest sportbike. There is luggage for your bike that will do what you want and carry what you need.

One of the most useful bags for your bike is the ever popular tank bag. Tank Bags come in a ton of different sizes, from thin little things designed to hold your sunglasses and a granola bar to giant 2 tier ones that almost block the road ahead and can carry enough for 1 person to stay overnight someplace. All along with everything for the day long ride stuffed in there as well, these bags are incredibly useful on your trip. Most tank bags mount with strong magnets to your tank, some of the better ones will also have straps to further secure them. They come in leather, cordoua, cloth, etc... and can make a very long ride more comfortable, although they can be a bother when they sit over your fuel cap, then you have to remove it to fuel up. This minor inconvenience is worth it. A tank bag is the first piece of luggage you should buy it will make even day rides fare more comfortable by keeping smaller items or even a bottle of water handy.

The bigger stuff like sissy-bar bags and tail-bags simply give you more room. Many sissy-bar bags do require a sissy-bar on your bike or a raised backrest. But they typically have enough straps to happily sit strapped down in the passenger spot. These are like very large backpacks, you certainly can live a weekend out of one of these at a friends house or hotel room if this is the only bag you brought along. Tail-bags are smaller. They are designed to strap onto the tail of your bike, mostly sport-bikes but other can have them as well. They range in size from tiny tank-bag size to enough room for 2 helmets. Keep in mind how your bike will allow such a bag to be mounted, you will have a weight limit that your bike's tailpiece can withstand. A bike outfitted with a large sissy-bar bag on his passenger seat and a nice big tank bag can take a week long trip on the open road from motel to motel easily. A lot of guys do this with only those two bags. If your bike can handle it, you can probably ride 2 up with all that gear and still get a week-long trip out of it.

Panniers are another animal. These are either hard panniers like I have on my Venture or soft panniers like you see mounted to many a Soft tail harleys out there on the road. These bags offer even more luggage room to the sides of the bike. 2 typical panniers can hold about what 1 large sissy-bar bag can hold. Some are smaller, the ones that I have seen for the small sportbikes cant hold much, but some of the monsters out there can hold incredible amounts of items in them. hard panniers typically require modifying your bike with mounts. Some bikes come with them or are available for that bike specifically. Those are your best bet to get. They mount perfectly because they were designed for your bike and stay off your pipes. The soft bags can shift or hang too low and melt or get burnt on your pipes. Be sure to test any soft panniers on your bike before any trips to make sure you dont have any issues.

Finally, when you load up your bike, you change how it rides. More weight up top in sissy-bar bags will make the bike more top heavy. More weight makes it slide farther in stopping. Load up your bike and take a test ride. adding another 200 pounds to it can make it handle like a untamed beast with some bikes. Be Aware how your bike rides loaded up.