Trip Planning -- It's Not About The Destination

It is the most common of sayings for motorcycle riders: "It's not about the destination, it's about the ride!" Seems like this would be a good mantra for life itself! It is especially true of this trip -- as the only "destination" is the goal of riding as many great "motorcycle" roads as we can ride in the time available. What constitutes a "great motorcycle road." Well, Vince and I share the view that for OUR type of motorcycle riding (more on motorcycling types in another posting), the great roads are ones that offer (1) all paved roads, (2) inspiring scenic vistas, and (3) the maximum numbers of curves per mile. We avoid freeways at all costs -- in fact a sub-goal of this trip would be to complete the entire route of around 3000 miles without having to ride on a freeway.

The time available is about two weeks -- and from prior experiences we know that we want to try to limit our daily riding to about 300 miles or less. Some days the distance will be much less because as the daily average speed/distance goes up, the "great motorcycle road" quality goes down.

Both Vince and I read motorcycle publications that regularly review various motorcycling routes -- and there are a few good web sites that provide rider's route reviews -- but I tend to first look at two sources to begin my search for good routes: (1) Reader's Digest 120 Most Scenic Drives in America, and (2) National Geographic's Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways (third edition covering 275 "best drives in the US.)" In addition, an excellent online source is America's Byways and USDA Forest Service Byways -- both located at http://bywaysonline.org/ .

So, I started building a proposed route for this trip by first highlighting the identified scenic roads within a 1500 mile radius of our homes (covering the northwestern states of WA, OR, ID, WY, MT and CO). You'll see these routes highlighted in yellow and green on the following map. Then we proceeded to plot a route that maximized these routes -- and where necessary added in routing from other sources. The blue route in the following map became our beginning plan.


Of course this is all subject to change -- even on a daily basis -- because another of our tenets for a "great motorcycle road" is one that is dry -- so we'll be watching the weather closely and altering our routing when we can to avoid riding in the rain.