How To Plan A Motorcycle Road Trip

Over 20,000 mile motorcycle road trip across America. In today's video I am going to talk to you about taking the epic road trip we all dream of and I'm going to use my latest trip the Great American Convoy as an example. This trip took me 20,000 plus miles across all 48 states raising money for the Wounded Warrior Project. Today we're going to cover the motorcycle and what things you need to consider depending on the bike you're riding, the landscapes and terrains, the culture, the experience and people, and then of course the purpose, the reason we're taking this trip. So let's get it started. First thing we're going to talk about is budgeting for a trip of this caliber and for this you're going to have to ask yourself some questions. Example, how long do you plan on being out? That's going to make a difference on what type of budget and then of course your living situation. Are you wanting to camp? Are you wanting to sleep alongside the road? Or are you wanting to hotel it? The time and the lodging are probably going to be your two biggest factors when figuring out a budget. If you're willing to camp you can do road trips on such a small budget and if you got the time to enjoy that, that's a wonderful thing. The problem with camping is you're tearing down and setting up every day that you're moving. Like I said if you got the time where you don't have to move every day, camping can be a really great option. You can set up a nice campsite, enjoy it for a few days, explore the area, pack it up and move. But when you're having to move every single day it becomes a completely different thing. Then the hotels, the showers, the ability just to load and unload your bike and not have to set up a camp become really relevant. For example, my latest trip was 84 days straight, moving every single day. So we chose to do hotels and we did Best Western for the most part. They were just really accommodating to the motorcycle community and they're a fairly inexpensive hotel. We also threw in some holiday inns and a few other random hotels. But for the most part, when traveling this many days, wanting to do hotels but still do it on a reasonable budget, Best Western was the choice for me. The next part when planning your trip is going to be purpose. And the purpose is important because if the purpose is just to see the country and explore and experience the cultures, if experiencing that culture and taking that all in is part of your purpose, then of course you're going to want to slow down and take some time in different areas to explore. And of course that trickles back up to the budget and the things we spoke about earlier. For me, my last trip, the purpose was to raise money for a charity. I chose the Wounded Warrior Project and raising money for them was my purpose. So what I did is I hit 120 different locations across all 48 states and made each of those locations a meet and greet and fundraiser. So people would come to these 120 different Harley-Davidson dealerships and we would raise money at each of them. Those efforts brought me a result of $600,000 which we donated to Wounded Warrior Project. And that was the real purpose of my last ride and dictated a lot of the decisions I made and things you're going to hear throughout this video. Once you've got your budget and your purpose, now you can look at your routings. Now if you're looking to make it to fundraisers and getting to that destination is your number one most important thing, you are going to route much different than if you are going sightseeing. If you're going sightseeing, you may want to get on more back roads. You may want to get to see some more of the beautiful country. If your purpose is driving like I was, then it's point A to point B which is often going to land you on the interstate. Many people find pride in not taking the interstate. I got to see some of the most amazing country in the world and we were on a very tight time schedule. One thing to definitely take into consideration when you're planning your route and your budget is the motorcycle you're on. Okay, you can do a cross-country trip on just about any motorcycle you want. But if it's an older motorcycle and one that may need more repairs and service and is going to be more prone to breaking down, you're going to want to make sure you have a lot of extra time for that because undoubtedly things are going to happen and you're going to have to wait for parts or you're going to have to wait for it to get into a service or you know, who knows, get your bike even to a service facility could take you an entire day. So, you want to allot for that time if you've got an older bike. In my personal situation, most recently I was riding a 2023 Road Glide Special and I had it modified with very good performance parts but just as important as being good performance part, reliable parts. The bike was built to where I could get on the interstate and get out around a semi if I had to. It had the horsepower and the torque for that but it wasn't built so crazy that it became unreliable. I spent about a week building this bike before leaving where we put on, you know, stuff for ergonomics which is very important. I use the Kraus risers and the Kraus handlebars and also when it comes to ergonomics, you need to think about your wind flow and your wind pocket. How are you going to be sitting inside that wind? I chose to go with the Clockworks windshield. I went with their Pro and it worked really well for me. It kept the buffeting off of my helmet, kept the wind up over my head for the most part and just kept a lot of fatigue off my neck and my back going into this trip. I used my signature Adam Sandoval Touring seat because I knew we were going to be doing a lot of miles day after day after day. I put on Legend suspension because having good suspension is every bit as important as having good power. You got to be able to keep that power to the ground if you're going cross-country on this caliber. Then to give me the power, I put in a high flow intake from Trask. I also did the Checkmate which is a good safety feature especially on these M8 engines. I paired that with a Thundermax tuner which I've used on many of my bikes and found to be a very effective tuner. It'll get you high horsepower, it'll get you high torque, it'll maximize your engine without putting you at the point of destruction and just making your bike unreliable. And then I finished it off with the pipe which is what most people think about first and for good reason. I choose the D&D exhaust. I've run on several of my bikes. One, I love the sound. Two, I love the performance. Three, it's a made in America pipe which is important to me. And then lastly, I tricked out my bike with a bunch of LED lighting from Zero 3D and this just made sure I was seen because I knew I'd be riding at night, rain, snow, low visibility situations and being seen can be even more important than having great performance, certainly when it comes to low visibility situations. Because my bike was built reliable with quality parts, I really didn't have to worry that much about breakdowns. In fact, I didn't have to worry at all because I didn't have a single failure running 84 days straight, 20,000 miles, not a single malfunction in my motorcycle equipment. I did have one thing break and that was my sissy bar and it was a cheap one I ordered off of Amazon. And that's a lesson I knew better. I was just pinned down for time. I had to leave in a hurry and so I got a cheap Amazon part and I paid for it on the road. Gear and terrain go hand in hand. For example, take a look at my last route. It brought me to every type of terrain and every type of weather. But once you figure out your type of terrain, then you can figure out what gear you need. If you're not doing any big mountain passes and you're in the middle of the summer, you don't need cold weather gear. You don't need the layers of socks and base layers. You definitely are going to need rain gear no matter what trip you're on. That's one thing I never leave without. But your terrain should then dictate your gear. For me in this trip, here's what I brought. I brought Zero 3D dry bag luggage. These are bags that are already waterproof so I don't have to worry about stopping, unstrapping everything, putting a rain flyover, restrapping everything and going down the road. When I hit rain, covering my luggage did not even need to be a concern of mine. I just had to worry about my body. This is what I love about dry storage luggage. I just think it's far superior to 90% of the luggage you find on the shelf. For cold weather gear, I brought my Harley Davidson heated gear. This gear that I'm running is a few years old and you can't buy anymore but there's all kinds of heated gear out there that you can buy. Mine, I can plug right into my bike so I never have to worry about charging batteries or any of those things at the end of the night. For my rain gear, I use Klim. Klim makes a wonderful rain gear. It's rather expensive. I really enjoy it. I use a lot of their stuff for my off-road riding so I just brought that with me over to the street and it worked really well. I have also used Harley gear and a few other rain gears that have worked just fine but my current trip, my go-to rain gear was Klim rain gear. When traveling across different climates, the best thing you can do is bring layers. You don't need that one big thick jacket. What you need is a base layer. You need a t-shirt over that. You need a flannel over that. Maybe a thin jacket or a hoodie over that and then you know you can have your final outer coating over that. Them layers are for sure the best way to do it because no matter what the temperature is, you can add or subtract layers from your options. I only bring one pair of boots and they are not waterproof so I did get the Harley Davidson boot covers. Those worked really well for me. If I was going through a light rain, I didn't worry about it but if I was going to be in a heavy rain all day and then I had to stop at these fundraisers after riding rain all day, I didn't want to be standing and soaking wet. I would 100% recommend them. So now we know our route. We know our gear. We know our budget. We know our purpose. What should we expect out there on the road? Maybe you've never taken a big road trip before. What should you expect in the people? And I am here to tell you that the people in the motorcycle community all across the country are friendly people and you've got more help on the road than you'll ever imagine before you leave. Should you find yourself in a bad situation on a motorcycle, there always seems to be somebody around who's eager to lend a helping hand. The motorcycle community is supportive. They are charitable. They are kind and they are everywhere. I don't care if I was in a tiny little town or a big city. There was always somebody around who understood this motorcycle lifestyle and was there to help with whatever challenges might be in front of me. The best advice I can give you is trust in the community. Trust in the culture. You have more support out there than what you even know. In the end, traveling on a motorcycle is one of the best ways to see the country, to experience new things. You get to feel the weather change on your skin. You get to smell the weather change. You have an unobstructed view of the world around you. It is an experience like no other experience when it comes to traveling. Are there dangers? The answer is yes. Motorcycles can be dangerous and you can get injured riding a motorcycle. I'm not saying you can't but I am here to tell you the couch takes more lives than any motorcycle ever will. How many people do you know that hit retirement, started sitting on the couch and a couple years later they were gone? The couch steals your pride. It steals your motivation. It steals your ambition. It takes the life that's left in you away. So my suggestion is get off the couch. Go ride a motorcycle. Take an epic adventure. Take that trip you've always thought of because there's a lot less to worry about out there than you think. Just use some of the proper planning. Some of the things we touched on here in this video and you my friend are probably going to have the experience of a lifetime. And if you're already a veteran road tripper and you just want to see what my experience was like on my last trip, leave some information down in the comments below for the new road trippers. Give them some of your tips and pointers that I may have left out. And if you're looking for the next place to take your road trip, go to my newest website. I partnered with several other YouTubers to create an epic list of places you should visit on your motorcycle. We've got a list there we're ever building and if you know some destinations that should be on that list, feel free to put them in the website because this is a community-based resource for places we should ride our motorcycles. I hope you guys learned something in today's and I hope you shared some of your information and knowledge with everybody else down in the comments below and get out there and ride. Enjoy the open road. I know I am thankful every time I do it and hopefully you can experience this feeling that I have right now, reminiscing about an epic road trip. Hopefully that's a feeling that you'll get to feel sometime in the near future.