The Truth About Riding The BDR: What You Need To Know!

It's a chilly start to the morning for sure. Just packed up the two-day camping trip out in the Georgia mountains. It is about 48, 49 degrees right now, a little cold, but it's gonna warm up to 80. I should definitely be good. Just gonna freeze for a little bit first. I'm riding to breakfast, wherever that might be, chat a little bit about my first BDR ride. Kind of what did I learn? What would I do different? Because I'm going to schedule my second BDR pretty soon once the logistics works out. Go out and do the Northeast BDR. That should be a ton of fun. But the MA BDR, Mid-Atlantic BDR was the first ride you did. I'll pop the video at the end card and down below here. The first thing I take away from it, the longer day. I mean, leaving South Carolina just to get to the start of it. And then of course you ride the BDR and I had to go from New York back down to South Carolina. So a total of 11 days, but eight days on the route. Probably just, you know, make sure you have a couple campsites in mind. Step one was kind of just logistics and planning. I am so used to, with backpacking or just the two or three day trips on Draven here, just kind of winging it, hopping out there, sleep whenever I find something, which has been great. I mean, it works perfectly fine for those type of adventures, and backpacking, that's really what it is. You just sleep where you want. But on the longer cycle ride, the MABDR, I kind of went in, I was with my adventure buddy Barry in the video. Just winged it. Figured we would, excuse me, find the right place to camp at the right time when we're tired and everything like that. But we really should have just had like a campsite picked out for each day. Hey puppy, you all right? Hope he's okay. Campsite picked out for each day, whether we would have stayed there or not. So whether we would have stayed there or not, just have a kind of a space. So take a little stress off a longer trip and have some logistics planned ahead of time, which you might think is pretty simple. But learn from my mistake there. Pack light. Trip number, tip number two there, man. You don't need to pack your fears. Pack light, don't bring a lot. Only what you need. I mean, what you can go one night camping in, for the minimums, what can get you through one night of camping is, you know, other than food, is gonna get you through every night of camping. So pack light, don't overpack, don't pack your fears. Have the bike perform the way it's supposed to instead of being weighted down with everything. I bring my camp table everywhere, so that's kind of my luxury item, but don't overpack. Don't overthink it. It's, you know, Safety first. Make sure you're going to stay warm enough at night. Make sure you have a Garmin or some type of communication tool, especially if you're riding alone. But don't overpack. That's the biggest thing I saw there was just heavy, heavy bikes. So, So tip number two, relax. Don't overpack. Number three really is this is the type of thing where you camp to ride because the ride is everything instead of riding to camp. Like this particular spot is a little bit more riding to camp. Got out here, played around with some dirt, but had a stationary camp for a couple days. Look at this stuff, man. This is gorgeous. Damn. So. You know, while you're in town, especially on these routes, part of the BDR experience is the small towns going through the small mountain towns and giving kind of back to them on the route. So it was nice to eat at little mom and pop restaurants and those type of things. Everybody's going to be different and everybody's got some dietary, you know, things going on there as well. But pack what you need for snacks, maybe breakfasts and coffees. But part of that step two is pack light. Is don't overpack food. There's going to be restaurants the entire way kind of adds to the experience and meet the locals Which I always love doing number four and very very important It's very important. This aspect comes from long-distance backpacking as well as don't get bogged down in logistics as I mentioned in step one Have some ideas of where you're gonna stay Maybe reach out to them and make sure it's gonna function But don't plan the entire trip because it's just gonna go wrong You're gonna add Quite a bit of possible nerves trying to get somewhere or even if you're riding all day and you feel good then you have to stop because you have something there. Don't program the whole trip, just get some high points. You might want to stop here for a view, might want to stop here and don't worry about if the trip goes differently. It's just you're out there for an adventure, relax, you're going to have some ups and downs. I mean on the MBDR if you haven't watched the video yet. My Himalayan broke down. We had to tow it with another motorcycle, get it in a U-Haul, get to a repair shop. Craziness. I'll put that video right up here if I can. That took us for pretty much an entire day off the route. But just roll with the punches. Have some fun. If you're Go in with a strong schedule and think you know everything that's going to happen. You're just going to probably get a little frustrated or feel like you have to speed through things, not take your time to enjoy everything, which an adventure like that is a big part of it. See something you like, give yourself time to stop. Firewood for sale. The fifth and final point, drum roll. Ba dum bum bum bum. So each of these I would say important, but figure out kind of your navigation, what works for you, have a backup. Make sure you have the GPS file downloaded to your phone, not only like if you're using Gaia or Reverb or something like that, you can put it in those systems, but have it local on your phone. They're so small. If anything goes crazy, you can open it in Google Maps. You always have that GPS file. When I was riding a little bit different route, I had made that mistake and I had it in a couple apps and even though it was downloaded, it just got crazy, but I didn't have it on my phone to reproduce it if needed. So for mapping on this guy here, my Carpe Ride, I like to have an app and map. Let me try that again. Easier for me to say. Say ba ba da ba. One more coffee, John. I'm going to have an app running here and then on my phone a separate app. Personally, it's all about personal preference, but I love the view of REVER riding. So I watch REVER, how it changes, describes the turn, works absolutely amazing. And then I run a different app on here, which right now I can't think the name of. I'll pop it up. I really do need additional coffee. But a really good just outdoor app there. And that particular app, it has more waypoints, a little bit more easy to interact with. Like it's your own map. Like you're all under control. You can tap in. I want to stop here. Might want to stop here. Here's a good camp. You can add waypoints and everything. So just have your navigation figured out. And if something goes wrong, have a way to get your navigation back. Keep your file on your phone in a raw form, not inside of an app. And it takes a little bit of work, but not much, especially Google Maps. So if you just line that corridor, you can go into Google Maps and download the actual map for the corridor of the MA BDR. It will take you, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes to do it, to get all of them downloaded, probably about seven or eight maps. But then you can navigate offline in Google Maps to gas, to restaurants, if anything got crazy. You have full control, everything downloaded offline for Google Maps. So there's the big thing. Navigation cannot be a last minute thing. I'll just pop in here, use this app. Give your app a try that you're going to use. Make sure you're safe. And go out and have fun. But the big thing, just don't overthink it. The first BDR is going to be my longest trip. The next BDR will probably match that. It'll be okay. If you've gone camping, if you can camp one night, you can camp every night. So all you need to difference is food. Don't overthink it. Put a little energy in the beginning for some possible waypoints. Make sure you've got your navigation down. It's going to fall apart if you don't. But those are my five points, my five thoughts off my first BDR. And, uh, I'm eyeing two more to get done, uh, in the not-so-distant future. I'm trying to do BDRX, which is in this area, and then the NABDRs. So, that's what I'm looking at, guys. Don't forget to, uh, hit the little like button down here. You see it? It's right there. You can take care of it. I appreciate it. Helps those crazy YouTube algorithms. Helps the channel. Just takes you a second to show a little love to your favorite creators. I'm gonna see if I can get me breakfast. And a coffee. They have more tips and trips for camping. Definitely check this video out right here. Highly recommend it. The camping site itself and what to look forward to. And we'll see you on the next episode, guys. Keep adventuring, have fun, and good night.