Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Bucket List of Motorcycle Touring Rides

I'm thinkin' I might could have shoulda started clickin' off the Longer Rides of the Bucket list... a lil' bit BEFORE my odometer clicked over 60 summers! ;)

Aw hell, I guess it'll keep me young trying to get 'em all accomplished on a pikers wallet huh?

The top three of my Motorcycle Touring Rides bucket list are... OK... cuz I can't say any one of 'em is lesser than the other... my top four would be;

1. The Pacific Coast. Finding every road to stay as close to the shore as possible... from The Mexican Border to Canada... starting from where ever I'm at.

2. The Four Corners. Finding the closest spots you can get on a motorcycle to the four extreme corners of the Lower 48 in Maine, California, Washington and Florida. Either Riding the perimeter roads of the country to get there or Criss Crossing the interior in a giant Figure Eight. A good special part of the ride could be... taking the footpath to actually take my bony butt to the exact farthest spot on the map.

3. A Return to Alaska Ride... or three! One; Ride my Raider one way and load up the other direction to coast along on the Marine Highway, the Alaskan Ferry System. Another one both ways on the road again. This time some little while longer and taking in the Cassiar Hwy and a few of the other alternative parallel routes to staying on the a traditional Alaskan Highway through British Columbia and the Yukon...

Give me a bit and I'll think up a good variation for a wished for fourth scooter ride to the land of the midnight sun.

Hell, that was easy! The Just Because Alaska by Motorcycle Ride! ;)

4. Bag every Mountain pass west of the Mississippi that rises higher than 7,000 feet in a few endless weeks of curly cues, twisting roads and crossed trails, trying to gather them all in.

Then... there's a nearly unlimited number of other ideas that fill my head if I let 'em... let's see...

1. The Great Perimeter ride... following every road I can find to keep me as near to the land perimeter of the lower 48 that I can find. Especially if the Four Corners was ridden in the figure 8 version! ;)
2. State Capital buildings... Every state in the west?
3. National monuments of the West?
4. All the National Parks in a big wide circle.
5. Hwy 287 from end to end.
6. Hwy 89 from end to end.
7. Motorcycle Touring Route 66 from start to finish... or ... finish to start!
8. The Motorcycle Camp in every National Forest in the west Ride! ;)

... and maybe the sweetest of them all, and juuuuust might could be it shoulda been named #1... Two wheels in the Wind May through October.

Start each day where I ended the last. Free on the road and knees in the wind.  Just following that ribbon of asphalt... as long as I feel like twisting the throttle.

No maps. No time tables... No schedules or goals... just fill the tank each morning, pick a direction and ride... where ever my nose and my scooter takes me. Turn when the road does and see where it leads. Aw it's a joyous and sweet dream.

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian


3 comments:

Erik R said...

I did a ride 2 years back that took me out to CA and OR. I rode some of hwy 101. Beautiful, I want to go back and ride more of it.

Every pass over 7,000',west of the Mississippi might be a big under taking. How about every mountain pass in say, Colorado over 10,000'?

Brian said...

Erik; yeah, I spent a few hours with some maps trying to find every 7,000 plus pass... I think I came close. I'd guess it'd take probably close to 10,000 miles of ziggin' and zaggin' to catch 'em all.

The Trouble with every pass in Colorado over 10,000 feet is... I purt near already done that! ;)

Gonna be a horse race 'tween me, the bank and the grim reaper to see how many of 'em get rode! Ha ha!

Trobairitz said...

So many great ideas for rides. Any you can accomplish will be awesome.

My moto-bucket list continues to get bigger. I'm going to start calling it a Keg List.

Highway 101 on the Pacific Coast is very nice - best when travelled from North to South so that you are on the Oceanside of the road.