One Solution To What To Take and How To Take It When You're Motorcycling Around The World or Around The Country
By Phil Philcox and Beverly Boe
When we left on our first European trip many years ago - five weeks of exploring the entire continent - we figured you take the same stuff on an overseas tour as you would on a U.S. tour with some clothing variations based on any weather variations and definitely no plaid golfer pants with Hawaiian shirt, thongs and white socks for hoofing it down the streets of Rome, Paris, London, and Barcelona. The highest point in Europe isn't as high as the highest point here in the U.S. (20,000 vs 15,000) but i can get pretty nippy on those mountain roads, so be prepared. On the other hand, if you're touring Hawaii, you won't need some of the stuff we suggest like insulated suits made by __________(check their web page at ___________).
Since that first expedition, we've made six tours of Europe and we've got this what-to-take and how-to-take it science down to an art. This is what we recommended in our two European motorcycle tour books - How To Tour Europe By Motorcycle (Motorbooks International) and Europe...The Two-Wheeled Adventure (Chateau Publishing).
The general rule on any tour is take what you need to be
comfortable and take as little as possible. There are those
who can tour around the world with one change of socks
and a backup pair of underwear strapped to the handlebars
but there's no need to go to that extreme. While on the road,
the daily downloading and uploading of stuff for use and
protection from theft can get real annoying, so work out
a system that eliminates packing and unpacking every
night and morning unnecessarily. The advice we're giving
is for hotel stayers like ourselves. If you're a camper, add
your favorite camping equipment and can of bug spray.
Here's what we do.
The Basic Carry-Over Package: We use his and her knapsacks. With all of our clothing and equipment divided into two knapsacks: his (the guy's) weighs about 45-pounds, her's (the girl's) weighs about 30-pounds. You can buy knapsacks or backpacks anywhere but we found a great solution for the serious motorcycle tourer. There's a guy named Greg Dischler who owns a small company called BagTec in California (http://www.bagtec.com - 661-587-1036) who's designed some really-neat knapsack-like motorcycle luggage that slips over the backrest of the bike. If you don't use a backrest, you can bungee cord then in place. They're big enough for this trip and have wheels and a handle to roll them along, so have the her part of the two-some have that one. Some models have a couple of outside pockets which come in handy. They're made of weatherproof Cordura and have a padded lining. For the second piece of main luggage, Greg recommends you get one those T-Bags from (I'LL FILL THIS IN IN THE FINAL VERSION) with zip-off back as the soft part of your main luggage combination. You're going to carry stuff over in both bags, then download the soft bag and fold it up inside the BagTec until you're ready to return.
We brought a set of saddlebags and tank bag from EDITOR: I'LL FILL THIS IN IN THE FINAL VERSION). These bags ride over the seat ala Pony Express and come in different sizes and can carry a lot of stuff. On the trip over, they were folded in the knapsacks until we needed them upon arrival. On the first trip we attached a small U.S. flag decal on the side of our helmets. On the second trip, things around the world were getting a little touchy, so we left them off. Not everybody loves Americans like we do.
For communication (a must to share the experiences), we used one of the helmet-mounted intercoms that link passenger and rider. We like the those made by (I'LL FILL THIS IN IN THE FINAL EDITION
When we arrived in Munich (our standard starting point), we checked into a hotel, had dinner that night with a friend, slept, woke up the next morning, grabbed a cab, picked up the motorcycle, and headed back to the hotel. After breakfast, we spread everything out on the bed and divided the stuff into three piles: Pile One was things we would need daily and nightly. Pile Two was things we would need to replace the things we needed daily and nightly a few days ahead. Pile Three was things we would need somewhere down the road, many days later.
We put a large trashbag in the BagTec and folded up the T-Bag soft knapsack and stuck it on the bottom of the BagTec. Everything from Pile Three went on the bottom, on top of the folded bag. The stuff from Pile Two went on the top of that stuff. Pile One was our must-haves and were packed in the saddlebags and top of the BagTec.
Our camera, eyeglasses, menu translators, maps, soap, toothbrush, etc. went into the tank bag. We bought two leather shoulder wallet that measured 5X6-inches and have a Velcro flap and a zippered enclosure ($14.95 from The Belt (http://www.beltoutlet.com). They fit like a gun shoulder holster under our shirts or jackets and protected our cash, passports and traveler's checks from sticky fingers. One person carried half the checks and the receipts for half of the other checks and the other person did the same. If we lost anything, the other one had proof. We traded in our old 35mm camera an all that film for one of those digital cameras (the Sony PowerShot S100) which is about the size of a credit card and even has a zoom lens. Amazing! You can shoot, check your photos on the spot and delete those you don't like. A couple of extra cards give you an almost unlimited number of photos. We bought ours from http://www.digitalcameracompany.com ( 877-678-4453).
With the knapsack on the back of the bike, the stuff bag draped over seat and the tank bag in place, we rolled off the start line. Whenever we stopped during the day, the tank bag went with us (it had a shoulder strap) and we'd park so we could keep an eye on the bike. When we checked into a hotel, everything went inside with us. It was a quick trip: the BagTek rolling in wit the stuff bags balanced on top, the tank bag over the shoulder. When the bike was parked and chained for the night, there was nothing on it to entice thieves. Of course, the bike itself was enticing but the chain took care of that...luckily.
In the room, the knapsack was tossed in a corner and basically forgotten, the stuff bags tossed on the bed. Everything we needed to make it thru the night was in the stuff bags and the tank bag. Every couple of days, we'd empty the knapsack on the bed, rearrange stuff (dirty clothes in the bottom of the knapsack, clean clothes in the stuff bag, etc.) Once a week or so, we'd stop in some town and use the Laundromat which eliminated the need to bring 43 changes of underwear and 23 pairs of socks (among other unnecessary things). Occasionally, we'd rinse out some stuff in the hotel, string a bungee cord across the room and hang everything up to dry. On several occasions, things didn't get dry in time, so we dangled them off the knapsack and let the wind do it.
With the understanding different people need different things, here's our
basic take-with-you list for each person. You can add or delete based on
your particular needs and the time of the year you plan on traveling. We
usually tour around September (best prices, minimum tourists) and occasionally run into some chilly weather:
Two long-sleeved shirts (roll up the sleeves and they're short-sleeved
shirts.
Two pair of long pants
Two pair of short pants
One pair of riding boots
One pair of sneakers
Two-Three pairs of socks
Two sets of thermal underwear (long johns) Even if you're traveling in the
summer, take at least one pair
Two sets of regular underwear
One wool cap
One rain suit with booties
Two pairs of riding gloves (one heavy, one light)
One two-piece riding suit, insulated
One medium-weight jacket
Helmet (of course) and intercoms
One bathing suit
Throw in your other must-haves like toothbrush, soap, camera/film, road maps,
glasses/sunglasses, towels, tools, etc. and whatever you need to camp if that's your plan. Some large plastic trash bags come in handy during a downpour. You can slip them over the knapsack and stuff bags and yourself when you're walking around to get some protection from the rain.
The two-piece suit allowed us to use just the jacket when the weather was nice but brisk. When it got cold, we had the long johns and the whole suit and gloves. We splurged the first year ago on ________insulated suits (http://www.___________ - telephone number here ).
Lugging all the right equipment around and on and off the bike around the various corners of the world is a challenge, but the more you travel, the more experience you'll have and who knows...someday you might decide you can tour anywhere with just an extra pair of socks and some backup underwear like those legendary tourers of yore. .
