This time I'll be riding another of my motorcycles (yes I know that sounds greedy but you can never have enough bikes in my opinion!) across America once more, but this time from East to West. From Knoxville Tennessee to Port Orford in Oregon, and then down to San Francisco. Not quite the 23,000 miles and 19 countries of my last "Trans-AM", but this one will take me through at least 10 States and over 5,000 miles. The bulk of which follows a route pioneered by an American chap called Sam Correro who spent years trying to find an alternative to crossing America by highway. Not content with just avoiding the Interstates, he went one further and defined a route that avoided tarmaced roads altogether. It spans roughly 4,500 miles and consists of "dirt roads, gravel roads, jeep roads, forest roads and farm roads". Which sounds a lot more interesting and challenging! Details of the route can be found on Sam's website at www.transamtrail.com
The trip was all Aaron's idea. He was one of the guys on the Trans-AM in 2009, who then went on to ride from London to Beijing with Globebusters in 2010 and obviously felt the need for something a little easier this year. For him at least. Naturally I jumped at the chance to join him, encouraged as always by Tracy.
My first challenge was working out how to get my bike over the pond and to the start. I struck lucky with this when I found a guy who organises trips from the UK to ride part of the TAT and who had a trip heading out around the time we wanted to go. With the help of Chris from Unchained Tours I hatched a cunning plan. I would ship my bike in the container he was sending out for his next tour, and then find a way to get it back from San Francisco using one of his many contacts. And so it was that a few weeks ago I rode my BMW F800GS down to Worcester and loaded it into a container with a motley selection of serious-looking off-road bikes (mostly bright orange KTMs).
Now those of you who followed my last adventure may be wondering why I'm not riding "El Monstro", my faithful BMW R1150GS Adventure, especially after it had survived the trip and was now rebuilt and back on the road. Well, the reason is simple. I've broken the habit of a lifetime and finally listened to the advice of those who know better (namely Chris from Unchained Tours). He said I should take the 800GS because it's lighter and easier to handle. Only time will tell, as I much prefer riding the 1150, even off road...
But back to the story.
With the bikes loaded the container started its long journey on the back of a lorry to Southampton, from where it will be put on a ship across the Atlantic to the US-of-A, where it will be unloaded and once it has cleared customs be transported by road to Knoxville, hopefully arriving on 4th August.
With the bike gone there was some more preparation for me to do. The route is supplied by Sam Correro in the form of a number of marked maps with route instructions supplied on A4 sheets. Aaron bought the set and I volunteered to try and convert them to GPS routes to help us find our way. It was only when I got them did I realise the amount of work I'd let myself in for...
The first task was working out how to read the route instructions, which are supplied in 3 columns of hieroglyphs. These show the next junction and the direction we should take, together with the distance to the subsequent junction. Some even contain the GPS coordinates of the junctions, which enabled me to plot the route in Mapsource using a detailed electronic map of the US and then load the route into my Garmin sat-nav. We'll see how useful that is when we try and follow it...
These route notes are then cut into strips and sellotaped together to form a large roll (like a till roll), which is then inserted into a roll-chart holder attached to the handlebars of the bike. I bought a cheap roll-chart holder from Sweden, which I then had to modify as this roll-chart reads from bottom to top, not top-bottom as you might expect. You can see the holder in the picture of the bike in the container above, it's that ugly white box thing. The idea is that you read the instructions, check the distance against the bike's trip-meter, and then scroll the chart downwards to reveal the next set of instructions. All whilst trying to ride the bike across rugged terrain without falling off. We'll see how that goes when we start on the trail too...
So with all my preparations done, it's almost time for the trip to start. As usual things at home are chaotic, with Tracy just having come back out of hospital following an operation to insert a replacement disc in her neck (another legacy of the accident in 2007). Fortunately the operation has been a complete success and has not only reduced the pain she was experiencing but also increased the movement in her neck. Had the operation gone ahead when originally intended, her recuperation would have been completed too, but as it is she'll be relying on others for support as once again I'll be off enjoying myself and shirking my responsibilities. And before you ask, yes, I do feel guilty about doing so. Only every time I tried to convince her that I should perhaps cancel the trip I got a right b*ll*cking, so I'm going. And I'm under strict instructions to enjoy myself and come back in once piece, too...
Which as I return just 3 days before Laura's wedding, I think I'd better do so too!
My flight is at 10.40 in the morning. I'm getting rather excited... and who knows, with another trip underway, I may even start blogging again!