Hey nice trip you took, i'm leaving on one soon from Toronto to the southern west coast, how was your gas millage? I have the same set up as you ,tank bag ,saddle..ect .on your next trip would you change anything, any tips
you can give? I know about the wind & rain, wind gust can almost knock you off the bike.Did you use a gps, ipod,?

Bikes are addicting........ so are road trips. It's what's it's all about. Last summer I rode out East to Cape Breton to do the Cabot Trail, and this summer I'm heading West....... not sure where I'll end up. Getting lost is half the fun.

Honestly, I never really checked my fuel mileage. I would guess it was around 40MPG if I had to estimate. Made it a couple legs of 140-160 miles without ever hitting the reserve. So probably 40MPG or higher? I have carpal tunnel in both wrists, so I stopped often to let my hands rest and usually fueled up at the same time.

As for suggestions... I'm not a small guy, 6'1" and over 250 lbs, I have knee and wrist problems, and I found the bike more than comfortable enough. I would probably complain a bit if I was going more than 200 miles in one sitting, but I like to stop and see things, so I never had comfort issues. I will say that between me, and all the crap I was carrying, I probably had the bike close to max allowable weight and it handled fine except for the wind issues.

As for tunes and gps, I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 I attached to the tank bag with velcro and used it for music and gps. I downloaded and "offline" gps program so I wouldn't need the phones data connection to use the maps, and it worked flawlessly in all of the deserted places I went through. I just used the normal Samsung headset with it which worked great.

I'm not the most experienced rider, but my main suggestions would be to stop often and drink water and eat a granola bar or energy bar whenever you stop even if you're not hungry or thirsty. I drank half a bottle of water and ate a granola bar at each stop and found myself surprisingly content, even after 12 hours on the bike my first day. I would have thought it would have taken a larger toll on my body, honestly. I could have rode another couple hours, but it was getting dark and I was meeting someone where we had already made room reservations, so I stopped for the night. Also, I used plenty of extra bungies and a cargo net to strap everything down. Two reasons for this... 1) Nothing ever shifted on the bike, even on some fast sweeping corners I took on Highway 20 in Northern California. 2) When my riding buddy had gear issues, I had extra bungies available for him to use and still have all my crap strapped down.

After more than 2,000 miles there are only a handful of things I'm changing. I'm going to invest in some cold weather riding gear. The stuff I have was not sufficient enough for a couple of the mountain passes I traveled over and I found myself having to stop a couple times to get the feeling back in my hands (even though I was wearing insulated gloves), I'm going to get a larger tank bag (I barely had enough room for everything and my saddle bags and duffel were stuffed too full as it was), I'm going to invest in one of those helmets that the entire front flips up on. Having to remove my helmet is a pain since I wear glasses and had a headset in as well. When I would stop quickly, for a snack and fuel, having to remove most of my gear was frustrating. If I had one of those other helmets (modular?), I could have kept everything on and just flipped the face up completely out of the way and been fine.

Although motorcycling is freeing, and many people just ride in a direction, I'm a planner by nature. I had two or three different plans, so I wasn't simply stuck to one route, but I always knew where I wanted to stop and how long it should take me to get there. This was helpful on long boring stretches of road because I knew I could divert to something more interesting, or I knew it would only be XX more minutes until I was done with this and on to something more interesting. It also helped me because I could let my wife know when I would be somewhere, generally speaking, and she wouldn't worry as much as long as I remembered to call her.

Also, I will most likely invest in a gps and mount soon. Although the phone work flawlessly, it did occur to me that if my bike and I had an unfortunate parting of ways at some point, it would be a long crawl back to the bike to retrieve my phone if I was injured. So I will keep my phone in the inside pocket of my jacket and get a dedicated gps most likely. I'm also considering one of those SPOT GPS trackers for longer trips, just don't know if I want the expense or not.

Mainly have fun, ride safely, and stay hydrated and fed as it will help you remain alert. I had a great deal of fun and wished I had more time out on the road. I will likely be riding to Wallowa Lake in Oregon and back to Montana in July for a family camping trip which should give me a chance to test some of my other thoughts and equipment purchases.

Safe travels...

You know, I'm pretty extroverted, but I really didn't expect how much I was going to enjoy the alone time... I found the "quiet" time to be wonderful. Out there on the road, enjoying the views, alone with my thoughts was probably one of the things I enjoyed the most...

Congrat's for the trip this should be an amazing experience
thanks to share

Thanks for all the insight, and riding tips, I use the Samsung note and I never thought to download a gps that I don't get dinged for data!!! I love this forum for all the great idea's that you read here. Glad you had a great trip and your right about the alone time riding, sometimes its good to
be out there just you,& your thoughts and an open road!

Sygic GPS NAvigation is the name of the app I believe... Also, I used an app called Bubbler GPS which runs in the background and reports your gps location. I linked that with a site called spotwalla.com and it would plot your gps every 10 minutes. Great for keeping track of your tracks, and you can share the map to anyone you link via weblink so they can follow along.