Gearing Up for a Motorcycle Camper Van Road Trip | Van Life

This week, we get the van and motorcycle ready for an adventure on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but Mother Nature has other plans. Thank you to Storyteller Overland for sponsoring this video. This adventure to the Blue Ridge Parkway is taking us to Mount Pisgah Campground. We're meeting a bunch of people there. A friend of ours on the Storyteller Overland group organized a get-together. We're all going to meet up, do some camping, and enjoy a long weekend together. Most of you know Nacho, our camper van. Nacho is what we took on the Blue Ridge Parkway last year, and we absolutely fell in love with the area, but the one thing I felt was missing was a motorcycle. This time when we go back, I plan to rectify that. I'm going to be riding my motorcycle out there while Kate takes the camper van, and what's fun is a few of the people we're going to be camping with are also bringing their motorcycles, and we're organizing a couple kind of group rides in that while we're at the campground. I don't have a name for my motorcycle yet, so if you want to leave some suggestions in the comments below, I'd really appreciate it. This is a Yamaha FJR 1300. I got the bike used. It's a 2014, and I've put a lot of work into it. I've gone through the whole bike, replaced all the fluids, greased the bearings, all those sorts of things, and she is ready to go on this. It's going to be about a six and a half, seven hour ride out to North Carolina from Indiana. The bike has a few upgrades to make long distance touring even more comfortable. First and foremost are the heli bars. So this brings my handlebars up and back a bit more, so I'm not as leaned over when I'm riding. I've also mounted a few ram mounts on the bike. This one in particular is for my cell phone, so I can use GPS, listen to music, and do things like that. It also has a 12-volt plug so I can plug the iPhone in, make sure it's charging while we're riding. I think one of the most important upgrades is the Russell day-long seat. This thing is great for riding all day, and this is going to be my longest ride on this bike, so I'm curious to see what it's like after three, four hours. This is the stock Yamaha seat. I'm going to bring it with us because while this seat is comfortable on long rides, it's not very good for being in the canyons and trying to slide off of your seat side to side, because it kind of cups your butt, and these seats work much better for that. Some of the other modifications is this little, I have a little windscreen here to keep the wind off of my helmet, and I know when I introduced this bike in our last video about Patoka Lake, a lot of you were actually saying that that piece was getting in the way of filming. Unfortunately, I've tried riding without it, and there's just too much turbulence on my helmet, so I'm going to have to put it back on for this ride, but maybe I'll take it off when we go into the canyons, so you get a better view of the Blue Ridge Parkway. And I have luggage on the back, put shoes, water bottles, different things we want for the ride when Kate and I are going together. Oh, I didn't mention that. So Kate is actually going to bring her gear, and she's going to go on some of the rides with us, so I'm really excited about that. I also have saddlebags that go on the bike. I'm not going to bring those because most of my stuff I'll be able to keep in the van with Kate, and we're just going to plan to link up a couple times along the road. I think we're planning to do a lunch meetup, and then a coffee meetup, and then we'll end up at our destination for the night before we get to the campground. A couple other features this bike comes standard with are heated grips, which I am definitely not going to need because it's supposed to be in the 90s and humid, so that'll be interesting. It has cruise control, which I never thought I needed on a motorcycle, but it's absolutely fantastic, and I use it all the time. And then the adjustable windscreen, so I can adjust this as I'm riding up and down to kind of vary the amount of wind that's hitting me, so it makes going down the road a lot more pleasant. Now another benefit to having a camper van in your driveway is you have built-in shade. This is actually one of the ways you can use a camper, even if you're not using your camper. We just did a video about that, which I will link to up above, but now I'm going to get the seats swapped out, put the little windscreen thingy on, and just make sure the bike is ready to go. Well, now that we've figured out the motorcycle piece of this trip, it's time to get the van packed. First, we need to remove our Truma fridge slash freezer. We will not be needing this on the Blue Ridge Parkway trip. I'm going to ask Joe to help me take this out, then we can load up all our motorcycle gear. Now that the fridge is out, we can use this handy box for all my motorcycle gear. Joe already has the seat he removed from the FJR, and there's plenty of room in here for my helmet and my jacket. I did order a pair of riding pants. I'm hoping they'll get here by the time we leave for this trip. Now that all the motorcycle gear has been packed, it's time to pack the rest of our gear. Since we no longer live on the road full-time, we have to pack for the trip that we're going on, and since we will not have electric hookup at the campground off the Blue Ridge Parkway, I am bringing our solar panels. I also packed our cell signal booster. I've heard that the cell service there is not that great. And while we don't have electrical hookup at the campground, we are going to bring our shore power cord and an extension cord, because you never know what might happen. And that kettlebell is not for working out. It's for keeping our outdoor mat down when we're at camp. I have tools. And of course, we are bringing the air compressor. You never know, motorcycle tires might be airing up or we could have a puncture, which is why we also have a tire puncture repair kit. And last but not least, we have to pack the camper fridge. So far, I've got mustard and Connecticut sausages. There's a few more things we're gonna have to put in here. And for this trip, I am doing some meal planning to make sure we don't overpack, which we've done a few times already this year, and have some simple and easy meals that we can just grab really quickly. Well, I guess Mother Nature has other plans for our trip to North Carolina. I'm gonna leave the motorcycle home, because we're supposed to have thunderstorms all the way from Indiana to North Carolina. And then the entire time we're in North Carolina, it's going to be thunderstorming. I think we better get back inside. But we'll have to unpack all the motorcycle gear and leave it at home. So that's it. Well, we got a little break in this storm. So now I have to unpack what we packed. Since we're not bringing the motorcycle stuff, I can put the air compressor and all my tools in here and keep them nice and secure. Oh, these are heavy. I may have overpacked. I just brought everything. The fridge is packed. Let me show you what we've got in here. I cooked up some rice. Leftover rice is great for fried rice, especially with smoked sausage. I also hard boiled some eggs that we bought from our neighbors. These are really good snacks. And I also made a three bean salad with parsley and red onion and a balsamic vinaigrette. As you can see, the fridge is not completely full. And there's a reason for that. One, I'm trying not to overpack. And two, on the off chance we come to a farmer's market or something, we have plenty of room to fill it up with local goodies. Well, we're ready to rock and roll. We'll see what the weather has in store for us tomorrow as we make our way down to the Blue Ridge Parkway. In terms of what we're doing once we get to camp, we're going to have to play it by ear since there is so much rain forecasted during the week that we'll be out there. But thank y'all so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. Don't forget to subscribe and like the video and visit our website weretherussos.com. See y'all next time. My second book, Tales from the Open Road, The Adventures and Misadventures of RV Living, is now available for sale on Amazon. Read all about the ups and downs of our first year and a half living on the road full-time.