I'm leaving for Colorado next Thursday, and something's been bothering me... Namely I haven't had a chance to test out the bike with everything packed! I tried to keep everything to the minimum needed as to me traveling light and simple is more comfortable than bringing your house with you. I've got some tweaking to do, to the point I think I can go smaller on the side bags if I get some more compact gear.


Tent and bag are in the left side bag, clothes and rain gear right bag, food, stove, pot, first aid kit, spares and tools in the top bag, big ass camp pad I'm too cheap to replace since its comfy and relatively light, a 1gal water tank and a 2gal gas tank. Why so much for an overnight trip? I'm taking off most of August for my first big-ish moto trip. The basic plan is to ride Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway to North Carolina, then cut west to ride through Deal's Gap. From the Gap, I'll head north to Jellico, TN and follow the TransAmerica Trail west to Salida, CO. I'll hang out in Salida for a day or three, taking time to go over a few passes and to rest a day before turning for home via US 50. Should be just about 2300 miles on dirt, 2800 paved, total about 5100 miles. I'm planning to camp most of if not all of the way out and back, and this is a solo trip.

I left late on Friday night and headed west towards Catoctin Mountain National Park/Cunningham Falls State Park and hoped the forecasted rain would both miss me and cause people to stay home. It mostly worked, no room at Cunningham (though Maryland's DNR was nice enough to have the gate staffed all night to turn me away) but I found a site at Owen Creek Campsite in Catoctin. Oddly enough, I had stayed at the same exact site Memorial Day in 2008... The ride up was nice, though a little drizzly I made up without much fuss. Which is good, because I had never ridden the mostly dirt roads I had plotted into my Garmin before, and it was dark. And raining. :laugh1: So much for common sense. It took a little time to get used to the bike loaded up. It rides a helluva lot better now, but the handling slowed down, but still smooth just not as twitchy or reactive as it is normally. It also falls into a turn a lot harder now lol.

Dawn came early, camp sweet camp around 7:30am:


Everything fit into the tent (Sierra Designs Light Year) along with me, except my boots slept in the vestibule.


Out on the road earlyish, around 9:30:





Lots of fun riding roads out this way, most of the day was miles and miles of stuff like this, lots of great fun little twisty winding roads.

Then I decided to take a detour up a little side trail that looked interesting. This is where I stopped to turn around as it was getting rockier and steeper.

Where I came from...


Of course, it had to happen at least once



Fortunately, the tanks were empty but it still wasn't too hard to pick up. Nothing broken, the folding zeta levers saved me a broken clutch I think though.




Rest of the ride was more central Maryland scenery, like CORN!


Hills!

Roads!



I had come to this the night before and had to go back in the daylight to ride it again. Easy little creek crossing, and I had the time so I got a little stupid with it and crossed it like 10 times.







Unfortunately, my time was up and had to turn for home. On US15 leaving Thurmont:





Liberty Road going home :cry:



On the road again... soon I hope!

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2008 Yamaha WR250R

So how long do you expect it to take to get to Colorado? Looks like you have it all set up well, have a great time!

I'm conservatively planning on 200 miles a day on average, less in the mountains on the trail, more in the flat lands and pavement. With that, I'm guestimating two weeks to get out (mostly dirt and twisties) and a week to get back (mostly secondary roads). I know I can and probably will do more each day, but I wanted to account for mishaps, incidents, and plain old taking my time to stop and soak up the scenery.

The joy is the journey after all, not the destination.

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2008 Yamaha WR250R

That is one fugly tent - is the photo distorted in some way?

Interested to know how you prepared your WR, especially did you have to brace the back end. I presume that you have put the frame brace rails back on as a minimum.

I have only ever trail ridden and raced mine and the seat is not comfy, have you done anything other than the sheepskin?

cheers

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