Sometimes you see people doing things that seem properly adventurous. With all the things going on these days just leaving your home can sometimes feel like you are taking your life into your own hands. From peaceful protests, to full blown riots to covid it is a properly unsettled time we are in. So when I saw a friend posting photos of their trip halfway across the country I was genuinely curious as to the what and why behind their trip. I reached out to them and asked about maybe snapping a couple of photos and document a few details on the who - what - where - why. So we met up the day after they got back into town, I snapped a couple of shots, and sent them an email with a few questions. Below are the result of the correspondence along with some accompaning photos.
DGP - To start off, just to set the scene, how long have you been riding for prior to this trip?
MS- I bought my first/current bike a year ago august 7th, and I took this trip partly because I wanted to get 20,000 miles on it in the first year (I came back with nearly 25000 but I did successfully put 20,000 miles on a bike in my first year of riding)
DGP - Was there any kind of inspiration or purpose for your trip?
MS- My grandparents had their 50th wedding anniversary this year so the rest of my family flew home to Seattle to see them and it was a good excuse for an adventure.
DGP - How did you prepare for the journey. Physically / mentally / practically / ect?
MS- My father was honestly more worried than I was, he made me download Life360 and kept trying to get me to take pepper spray (which I conveniently forgot) I've been camping my whole life so the only new part was the bike and traveling so far solo.
DGP - What are the details of you bike / and equipment you took along with you? Did you have a full camping set up, or just the bare essentials? Can you detail what you brought along?
MS- My bike is a nearly stock 2019 triumph street scrambler, the only 'mods' I've done to it that helped on this trip is the rear rack instead of a pillion seat and I had a 50cal ammo can that I had turned into a side pannier (best decision ever)
I'm actually very happy with the things I packed, I never felt like I was missing something and all my gear fit perfectly on the bike.
I had a youth tent which was juuuust big enough for me to lie down lengthwise so I slept on one side and put my gear on the other side.
My tent was bungee strapped down between my ammo can and a backpack that was on the rear rack.
The backpack held my clothes: 2 pairs of pants, a T-shirt, a medium weight flannel, 3 pairs of socks, and 7 underwear (trust me on this one, I did not want to be doing laundry every other day). It also held a good mummy style sleeping bag, a squeezable water filter for backwoods thirst, ziplocs to pack out trash, wet wipes, a leatherman, a power bank for my phone, and a metal fork-spoon-knife combo. ALSO the single best used (and most missed when I nearly ran out) were a shit ton of HotHands handwarmers. That's how I rode and slept in summer gear (even woke up to a layer of ice on my bike in Montana after a good nights sleep in a tent) and they prevented me having to carry bulkier clothes. In the 105° heat of Yakima and Wyoming, I'd strip down to T-shirt and opened my Olympia x moto 2 touring jacket's vent panels, in the 31° evenings in Montana and northern Washington I'd just put on everything I had and stick a few handwarmers in my gloves and one in every pocket.
Half of the ammo can was taken up by a 2 gallon gas can (no I won't take constructive criticism on this, you try running out of gas in buttfuck Wyoming and see how far that 12oz container gets you). The rest of the space went to a first aid kit, an inflatable sleeping pad, a tool kit, my Blip Roasters water bottle, my Sena charger, chain wax, a towel (thanks Douglas Adams), and sometimes my flannel when it got warm. Thus concludes my worldly belongings.
DGP - It looks like you had limited storage, how did you decide what to bring, and what to leave behind?
MS- I had to fend off my 'pack the kitchen sink just in case you have to wash dishes' father with a stick. If I was in doubt of something that didn't have two or more uses, I didn't take it. You'll see that a camp stove and even a knife is missing from my list; I decided to rely on supermarkets for dinner and gas stations for other meals. This saved on space and let me eat a vegetable or two that would've spoiled in transport.
DGP - Any mechanical or other issues that caused you issues along the way?
MS- Oh god, yes. When I was already in Washington (luckily) the downshift mechanism snapped clean off my shifter and left me stuck in 5th gear on i5 (the worst place to be stuck in any capacity) luckily Latus Harley in Portland had a triumph mechanic, and they warrantied it (they also found the valve shim that had been floating around for almost a month!).
my chain had also been on the edge of my mind since Montana, when I noticed a link or two starting to kink as I was lubing it at a gas station. When I got to my grandparents place, my father helped me make a janky ass rear stand involving a car jack, two stands, a piece of plywood and 3 years off my life in 'if you drop my bike I'm gonna lose my shit (I still had the valve shim floating around in the engine so dropping it was a real concern). Cleaning and adjusting it let me see that it was worse than I thought but my stubborn ass thought I could make it back. Halfway through Montana going the other way it started skipping links so I limped it to the Bike Shed just expecting to have them tighten it, where they told me it wouldn'tve made it a hundred more miles (the chain looked like a slinky when it was off because the links could stretch so much and you could pretty much just take the whole thing right off the sprocket it was so loose) so I set off with a new chain on old sprockets and now I'm gonna have to spend a day at Hickory Union Moto fitting a new set up.
DGP - How did you plan the route?
MS- Don't laugh but I literally spent about a week looking at Google maps and just connecting all the roads that looked the twistiest (I quickly learned to use street view to check if they were gravel) I plugged in gas stops every 150-200 miles and ended each day in a national forest (free dispearsed camping).
DGP - Did you take mostly interstate or did you take any state / back roads?
MS- On the way there I took the interstate only the first night (kc to the black hills) because I refuse to even look at the great plains if I can at all avoid it. Otherwise it was all scenic byways and other small roads. After my chain issue I ran home ASAP on the interstates because a snapped chain on a tiny remote highway sounds like too much adventure for me.
DGP - Any issues with fueling / food / lodging?
MS- I ran out of gas a few times on very rural roads but my gas can served its purpose well.
Once I had planned to camp in Olympic nat'l park but there was a mix up with my campsite, so I tried bunk a biker for the first time and relied on the hospitality of a very kind soul in Paulsbo for a campsite.
When I was coming back, my scheduling had been thrown off my the time it took to get a new chain put on so I only made it to Rapid City at around midnight. I spent about five minutes trying to find a campsite in the pitch black night of the national forest before realizing I was too young to get axe murdered by some Blair Witch shit so I found a classy overpass at around one am and slept like a baby until sunrise.
DGP - On average, give or take, how many miles did you travel a day?
MS- A lot of variance! For example the road through Colville nat'l forest was entirely gravel logging roads up and down the mountain so I only made about 200 miles that day. The last day I made about 750 getting home but I think the average was 300-500 miles a day of 2 lane mountain roads.
DGP - How often did you stop for sites / fuel / food?
MS- My bike has a 3 gallon tank so I had to stop for gas at least every 2 hours, and I usually ate there when I remembered to. I basically took the drive by version of every scenic place, stopping on the side of the road for pictures (don't do this in Olympic nat'l park, all you'll see is trees). I also stopped to find stickers for my ammo can (which took me almost 2 hours in Astoria), but otherwise it was all riding.
DGP - Did you make any detours from your planned route for any road side attractions?
MS- If you've ever been in south Dakota you've seen the billboards for a place called Wall Drug (I googled it and there are 333 billboards for it in the state). I caved and stopped there, where I bought the most expensive sticker of my career so far, 6.99 for not even a palm sized sticker. It was a very obviously conservative place (as you'd expect though) so I didn't linger long.
YDGP - ou traveled alone, correct? Was there any concern or special preparations you took with traveling solo in mind?
MS- I was supposed to take a .22 but genuinely forgot, and I didn't miss it. Growing up outdoors I'm not scared of animals because I know better than to keep any food with me and I put all my scented stuff in my ammo can which slept outside my tent. The point of dispersed camping is being hidden so honestly pretty much the only people I saw on my trip were at gas stations. I downloaded life360 for my fathers peace of mind, but I'm usually a very independent person so the only thing I missed being alone was having someone to cuddle for warmth with in the cold ass nights.
DGP - How long did you stay on the road / miles / days traveled. Where and how did you sleep?
MS- 8 days the way there, 6 the way back. I tried to dispersed tent camp in national forests and when I couldn't I learned to appreciate overpasses. I slept like a log, after 8+ hours of riding each day, insomnia was not a problem, trust me.
DGP - What notable locations did you travel to / through.
MS- It was my first time in the Black Hills, I adore them, it's so beautiful. My hometown of Seattle and Portland were fantastic, I actually took part in a BLM protest ride at See See moto coffee in Portland. I love the PNW in general so seeing it again is always fun. Hwy101 up the Oregon coast is an amazing road as well.
DGP - What provisions did you take along / did you have an emergency kit?
MS- I just had a first aid kit and a basic tool kit–And my gas can if that counts as emergency kit.
DGP - What notable sites / events did you encounter / see?
MS- My favorite was the BLM protest ride in Portland, it was so much fun. I missed Sturgis on purpose, I didn't want to be any more of a plague rat than necessary. I did make a point to walk around the remains of CHAZ, its sad what the battles with the cops have done to it, but there's some amazing street art.
DGP - Any crazy stories you want to share from the journey?
MS- So in Glacier nat'l park there are these ground squirrels all over the place that had absolutely no fear of humans and the rangers had their work cut out trying to get tourists to not poke them. I sent a photo to my group chat, and friend of mine was desperately trying to convince me to punt one off the side of the mountain in revenge for his squirrel troubles here in KC (you were close buddy, I was considering it) so that was hysterical.
Also! I got the absolute piss scared out of me by a cow in collville nat'l forest because I forgot that it was open range and I thought I was gonna get nerfed by a moose in the trees before it moo-ed at me.
When I was with my relatives, I went to silver falls in Oregon and there was a gas station/supermarket in the middle of nowhere and there was a animal pen/little fence thing behind the counter and I thought ??Dog? Then I was stopped in my tracks as a mini pig pokes its face out!!! There were 3 tiny oinkers and I got to pet one. Small towns man. Quiktrip could never.
DGP - Based on your experience would you recommend a similar trip to others? If yes, what would you recommend to them as advice before they set out?
MS- Oh absolutely, it was a hell of an adventure!
As for advice, there's so much that that I've learned during this trip that I'm planning on editing my FB posts to put lessons of the day, but the main ones are:
•If your clothes get damp, fix it ASAP, crotch rot is real and it'll fuck you up
•get some handwarmers, Walmart has HotHands in the camping section and those'll save your ass in the cold parts
•do maintenance and watch your bike carefully!! That thing is your feet, you're not getting far without it so make sure its in good shape
•you can survive without a throttle lock but if you don't like carpal tunnel maybe consider it, even though I won't but I'm young and stubborn
•talk to gas station attendants especially in remote places, they know the cool parts of town and you might even get to pet a dog named 'Baxter the bastard' (yes that's his full name)
DGP - Given the ability to take the trip again, what would you change / do differently?
MS- I'd like to erase the great plains from my mind entirely and I'd stop going 20 over the sleep limit because now I owe like 3 states my hard earned cash
DGP - This all reminds me of a quote from Hunter S Thompson:
““Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
