Tom and Todd, hosts of 'Best Motorcycle Roads', bring over 30 years of biking experience to share essential tips for motorcycle trips. This episode, titled 'Packing for a Motorcycle Trip', dives into effective planning, packing, and technology use for enhancing road adventures. The hosts discuss the importance of rain gear, highlighting differences in quality and size. They emphasize packing compact, waterproof gear and suggest specific brands like Frogg Toggs, Tour Master, and Harley-Davidson. The episode also covers the benefits of additional lighting and windshield treatment in rain.

Safety tips include carrying multiple gloves, especially waterproof ones, and using surgical gloves as a waterproof hack. They stress the importance of checking hotel availability beforehand, as demonstrated by their experience in Duluth during a Taylor Swift concert. The segment 'Mile Marker' recounts this trip, illustrating the need for flexibility and planning. The hosts also suggest packing tips like using packing cubes and dry bags for efficient and odor-free packing.

Finally, they emphasize essential items like rain suits, waterproof gloves, and headlight bulbs, and remind listeners to pack light. The episode concludes with an invitation to subscribe and a teaser for the next episode on pre-trip motorcycle maintenance.

Episode 002 - Packing for a Motorcycle Trip

Transcript:

(00:45) Unforgettable routes we've got you covered before we Kickstart today's Journey we ask you to sign up for BMR Rider alerts it's our way of keeping you in the loop with the latest rides tips and stories we promise no spam only the essentials to enhance your motorcycling Adventure join the BMR road crew today we'll put you we'll put a link in the show notes the toolkit is our next segment about motorcycle gear reviews and tips and that's why we call it the toolkit let's talk rain gear today Todd

(01:47) you can find ways to pack it down um but I guess the better rain gear definitely packs much smaller um and I think it does probably a I feel like it does a better job of the rain production um when you think about buying some of the nicer rain gear use that waterproofing once a year on it as well I think you want to hit the seams you want to hit the zippers I think that's one of the things that um a lot of people talk about um especially multiple days in the rain I think that saturation of those areas is what probably causes the to

(02:54) a previous um rain suit but uh what I really like about it's very lightweight and it really packs down well and uh the jacket wraps wraps up into its own pouch that's on the inside of the jacket so uh you know it makes a pretty small storage bag when you're done uh that jacket is 100% waterproof uh it's got a nice thin hoodie in the in the neck roll so that when it does start to rain um you can pull that hoodie up over your head put your helmet on and that way you don't get the water dripping down your back

(03:55) one as well I like it and we've talked about buying stuff you know most of the stuff is available on Amazon um but you know like a RevZilla it's a great site um they do a lot of work on that site and they're for motorcyclist buy motorcyclist so I mean that's just another one of those things I think really um if we can support those you know go buy it at your local place if you want to Nelson rigs.

(04:44) wind off and that will help in a in a pinch as well so yeah for sure anything to block that wind from coming through is Big Plus on the website we also have there's some um more expensive premium premium like rain gear um I know uh climb mix some really nice gear um if you want to go really nuts Aros Stitch is probably the topnotch writing coat pants they also have writing one piece suit the professionals the really serious guys get Arrow Stitch it's custom made for you you know everything's built in and it's pretty

(05:55) works with you know with fingers in gloves but um I would bring multiple pairs of gloves because at night if you if you had gotten wet during the day it's nice to you know kind of let those dry overnight and put on a dry pair in the morning uh the other uh thing I'd like to suggest is and you can buy these by the you know the dozens or by aund pack is those uh it's like a latex or a rubber glove that's made for medical or food certain food you know those thin those are waterproof and if you have

(06:52) wet gloves well except wet boots wet boots um and you I was going to ask you about that earlier but the booty talk about the booties cuz what are what what are those for yeah well the booties are just to shed the water you know when you're riding in the rain to keep the water from you know going on the laces or going up your legs um you know they generally strap underneath your boot they cover the tip of your toe and then they'll go you know like a cruck you know up your legs so uh yeah if you can get some booties too to keep your feet

(07:53) a little bit in the rain yeah give yourself some extra extra distance for sure um you know having those communicators on is so helpful uh hitting a puddle at 50 m hour you know can cause you to to hydr plane so you know the person who's leading the group needs to let everyone know hey watch there's a big puddle on the right side of the road um and you know sometimes in the rain you don't want to stop because the more you stop sometimes you just get more wet so uh but you know just be really careful um keep Communications

(09:00) to see motorcycles in the daytime in the regular everything's normal when it's raining it's worse people can't see as well and everything else and having a nice set of Lights to me is another uh really nice thing extra lighting when it's raining um something that you don't want to forget about and what do you think about um treating your windshields yeah prior to your trip A lot of people do that um you know we don't have windshield wipers I actually I've seen one in cold wing with it but

(09:58) that we had a good plan we we had good roads we may have forgotten one bit of due diligence yeah well luckily we didn't um but Tom in general you take charge of planning the route and all that kind of I think maybe Brad yeah I didn't do anything this one but you know he planned a Great Loop route for us all the way uh up through Northern Minnesota um did we go into where else did we go was it just just Minnesota Minnesota okay I was thinking we hit Wisconsin as well but um so had this route planned and just a couple of days before we left

(11:01) we weren't winging it it's a good thing we didn't just go ahead and ride and try and get there because I couldn't find a place to stay within an hour of duth so uh what we decided to do was just take the loop we had and just run it in the reverse Direction yeah and so we wouldn't get to duth until our fourth night and uh sties were gone the swifties were gone and there was plenty of room so uh that's part of being flexible and you know planning ahead sometimes you can't just flip the coin

(11:56) down your back I know yeah you know we had some great stops there too but I think one of my favorite was the Viking statue is that in Alexandria Minnesota yeah that's cool yeah you know the other thing to I I learned my lesson for the second time I don't know why I didn't learn it after the first time but um you know aside to having my GPS on the motorcycle which is rain proof and you know everything proof you know I could touch it with my gloves on I always have my phone there as well and I don't know

(12:51) sitting out in the rain I've burned up two phones now on motorcycle trips because I was trying to use Ziploc baggies to protect my phone it just doesn't work because as soon as you P pull the the plug out you got to it's wet and you know Wind Blows the rain up in there so um keep the phone in your pocket because i' I've ruined two phones doing this yeah I mean it's so handy to have that phone there changing music doing this doing that but man uh when it rains yeah yeah well and now you've

(13:54) that we take on our long trips on the bike all the time and so I think uh we we've started to build out some checklists we've got these on best motorcycl roads.com again we'll we'll put a note in the show notes but not only is it just uh you know the Gear helmets jackets gloves tools um appropriate clothing for the weather and then don't forget at night you know you got to bring those clothes because you don't probably want to wear the same clothes you're wearing all day all night

(14:52) learned is uh headlights will go out um at at you know non opportune times you know and and without a headlight if you only have one headlight on your motor it's like you're in big trouble but um I have two so luckily you know I had one on but um carry an extra light bulb with you you know headlight bulb you know they're they're cheap they're small they're light um because if you're you know getting into dusk in in nighttime and you lose a headlight um it it can be pretty serious so for sure yeah carry

(15:49) that bike down so um I think that's always a good one um you've used packing cubes I think before haven't you yeah I still do and the other thing with packing cub cubes is I I'll put the packing cubes inside a kind of a duffel bag that's shaped for my my motorcycle bags so when I get to the hotel I can open up my my side luggage and my trunk and just grab two handles and pull those bags out and you know strap my U which one died oh that was the uh yeah that was damn it just the GoPro okay GoPro died um um I can pull those

(16:55) that is it doesn't transfer that musty smell over from the from from uh close to close yeah um so yeah so I think again as we've talked about less is more when you're packing um so you know it's just being careful and and then don't forget you got to pack all the Chargers for your phones and I think we got cpaps maybe a bunch of cpaps that come in so there's a lot of extra stuff that you might not necessarily be bringing always so yeah yeah yeah we're always packing laptops and tablets and cameras and

(18:02) start yeah so number one rain suits are essential uh on multi-a trips if you're taking a one day trip and you're right you know it's not going to rain fine but U rain suits essential gloves uh something waterproof uh on your gloves keep your boots dry or bring a boot dryer um pack your heavy stuff low like you said and keep that rain suit really up at the top of your luggage make it easily accessible because when it starts to rain you just got to pull off quick make that change and uh get back on the

(19:01) day yeah you know um you know you can dry off you can rinse a shirt a shirt at a hotel and we almost a lot of the hotels we go to have laundry too so you know you can find laundry um almost every time so yeah the next episode we'll have is called pre-trip Motorcycle Maintenance 101 um if this episode revved up your day don't just keep it to yourself like subscribe and share it with your crew we're all about the th the ride and the bond it creates keep the spirit of Adventure alive and remember bikes