Pack Your Motorcycle Properly!

Regardless of how much time you’ve spent practicing your balance, a poorly loaded motorcycle can seriously throw things off.

When setting out for a ride, be conscious of ensuring an equal weight distribution, especially if you have side-hanging panniers such as the Touratech Zega Pro series.

Having more weight loaded to one side will cause the motorcycle to easily tip over should your balance be upset from an obstacle, pulling the motorcycle down by the side that’s loaded heaviest.

Likewise, refrain from packing too far on top of your bike, which will raise the motorcycle’s center of gravity and hindering it’s handling in slow-speed tech sections of trail.

Assume Proper Footing Position

The first step to mastering your balance on any motorcycle begins with body position, plain and simple.

Start by placing your feet on the foot pegs in an athletic position, using the balls of your feet. This will give you an advantage as you’ll be able to manipulate your body’s weight distribution very quickly and precisely by putting pressure through your feet to the foot pegs.

This position—rather than standing on your arches or heels—positions you to ride with the forward momentum of the motorcycle, anticipating the trail and required body position changes.

Now that your feet are positioned correctly, lock your knees into the fuel tank for added balance and leverage when manipulating the motorcycle’s balance underneath you.

Anticipate the Trail Ahead

Imagine for a moment that you’re approaching a nasty section of trail, but you don’t adjust your balance and body position for it until you’re in the thick of it. Chances are, your motorcycle is going to get all sorts of wild.

Instead, keep your eyes up and be constantly adjusting your balance for the obstacles are coming. A steep downhill is approaching? Shift your weight to the rear of the motorcycle in order to improve its balance, taking as much weight off the front tiresas possible.

This will reduce the risk of locking up the front tire or cartwheeling over the front end if you apply too much throttle. A similar plan can be used for up hills (but with the body shifting slightly forward) and off camber sections.

Use At-Home Drills to Practice

Riding doesn’t always have to be done on the trails! Using simple, at-home practice drills can do wonders to improve the balance needed to tackle difficult obstacles and tight sections of trail.

Grab a two hazard cones and lay them out about 20 feet apart. Now, start with practicing basic figure eight exercises at slow speed. Conquer them at 20 feet? Begin to move the cones closer and closer together until you’re comfortable maneuvering through them at very slow speeds. Simple exercises like this will hone in on the imperfections in your balance, and quickly improving them.

 Another drill to practice is a straight-line slalom with cones. Be sure you’re standing, and use only input from your feet to weave your bike through the line of cones. Push into the right foot peg to go right and vice versa.

For the best results practice the above on both street and dirt, and watch your balance improve drastically for any riding situation.

Touratech-USA

See Central America how it should be seen – on an adventure motorcycle! This Touratech supported, 5-part series called Collected Threads explores the beauty, culture, and adventure along the 10,000 miles of winding road from Panama to California. One man, one machine, the Pan-American highway and a lot of helpful people along the way. In Part 2, we explore the Adventure of the trip – from volcano boarding in Nicaragua to snorkeling in Belize. Stay tuned for parts 3-5 coming every Wednesday.

Touratech USA

Come join Touratech Supported rider, Jesse T. Szynal on the journey of a lifetime: Collected Threads.

This 5-part series explores the beauty, culture, and adventure along the 10,000 miles of winding road from Panama to California. One man, one machine, the Pan-American highway and a lot of helpful people along the way.

A new episode will be posted each Wednesday, starting September 19 for five concurrent weeks!

Touratech-USA

Following your dreams is not always easy, but it’s really worth it! Ukrainian Anna Grechishkina is a living proof of that. She’s been on the road for almost five years (four years, nine months and 18 days), exploring the world on her motorcycle! And how happy we were to see that she is in Dubrovnik, and even more happier when she shared her experience with The Dubrovnik Times. You can follow her journey at her website. But first – meet her!

When and why did you decide to travel around the world on your motorcycle?

I started to ride motorcycles in general in 2005 and the best part about it was that it gave me the possibility to travel. Almost immediately after I learned to ride I noticed the passion for traveling inside of me. I liked to travel even before but motorcycle opened the new freedom in front of me. At first I was riding in the neighboring countries like Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey, then a bit further – Middle East countries, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, etc. One day when I was thinking where to go next, this crazy idea about traveling around the world came into my mind. The first time I started to think about it was in 2012 and in 2013, July 27, I started my trip which I called – I Have A Dream.

Is it hard to solo travel, especially on the motorcycle? What are the challenges?

I have to admit that it is not easy. While it has its advantages there are certain challenges as well. When you are alone, you cannot delegate some responsibilities to another person. You are just on your own and you have to take care of everything – planning, searching for accommodation, financial difficulties, etc. Another very important aspect is emotional. Sometimes you are tired to be strong and independent, you want to lean on somebody’s shoulder, sometimes to cry or to laugh together. And though I meet many people on my way, it is not the same as I always have to say good-bye to them and I never know if I will ever see them again.

Do you meet a lot of people on your journey? How do they react?

Yes, of course. Even though I travel alone but I meet many people and actually very often I stay in local people’s houses. That’s how I make connections, make many friends and just good acquaintances. Traveling on a motorcycle is a great ice-breaker and door-opener. People get very curious when they see me and especially when I take off my helmet and they realize that I am a woman traveling alone on this big motorcycle. They approach and ask questions, tell me their stories, ask to take photos. I enjoy these moments, sometimes they lead to further friendship. This is my goal – to motivate people to follow their own dreams.

What is the most beautiful part of your travels?

I would say that the most beautiful part of my life so far is this trip. Even though sometimes it is very challenging and I don’t know what to do next, but I would never change this trip for anything. And I would say that the most beautiful part in this trip is meeting different people and understanding them. I learned many lessons on the road and one of the most important ones is that most people on earth are nice and helpful. I am confident that I am still on the road after five years thanks to support of people I was meeting on the way. They helped me in any possible way, I learned a lot from them and I try to give back whatever I can.

How many countries have you visited so far?

So far it is 51 countries.

You recently came to Dubrovnik, how was your experience?

It was really wonderful. My only regret is that I could not stay longer and I had only one full day for exploring the city. I really enjoyed the weather, wonderful views of the city, people from all parts of the world walking around, very peaceful and joyful atmosphere. I heard a lot about Dubrovnik before from my friends and followers and my expectations were fully justified and even exceeded.

What was your favorite part of the city?

Of course, Old Town. Actually this is the part I concentrated on as I didn’t have much time. It felt very cosy to be inside of massive city walls and to enjoy the sea surrounding the city. Also I really enjoyed walking through narrow streets, there was more privacy there and I felt the whisper of history.

Would you like to come back?

Oh definitely! I put in on my list of places where I want to come back. But I think that next time I will come not alone but with friends or dear person. I think Dubrovnik is one of those places and experiences which you want to share with somebody else.

What do you think about Croatia in general?

I think it is a piece of paradise on earth. I knew that it is a beautiful country but I could not even expect to what extent. I love its lakes and waterfalls, mountains, coast, history, people. I love the fact that Croatia is so friendly to motorcyclists, and every time I smile when I see signs on restaurants and hotels that bikers are welcome and they will have some discount. I did not have much time to visit all the important places in Croatia but I promise to come back again.

You’ve been on the road for almost 5 years, are you planning to stop any time soon? Is it even possible to have a static life after this experience?

I am not sure that I will stop soon. I still have some plans to visit more places in Europe and outside of it. But because of the challenges I mentioned above, it is difficult to say for sure how much longer I will be in the road. I mean in this continuous trip. As to my life after this trip, I think that I will never heal from this traveling bug, actually the more I travel and see places the more hungry I get and want to see and experience even more. Already now I’m thinking about my next possible projects and travels, not necessarily on the motorcycle. As long as you move and explore, it does not matter how and on what vehicle. I am sure that all my life will be somehow connected with traveling.

Can you tell me some anecdotes from your journey? Something funny, touching, that you will remember forever?

One of the recent stories, which now I can consider as funny but at that moment it was actually quite scary, happened to me in Croatia when I was riding from Zadar to Plitvice Lakes on the highway. After around 50 km suddenly very strong wind started to blow, very unexpectedly. I actually didn’t know that there can be strong winds in Croatia, it was a big surprise for me. That day several times I was nearly pushed from the road by wind and I could hardly keep the bike on the road. I realized that I had to stop, otherwise it was getting dangerous, especially with all the traffic. I saw a parking lot in front of me with a restaurant and hotel and I told to myself that if the situation didn’t improve I might stay overnight in that hotel. When I got there it turned out that the restaurant and the hotel were closed. In the meantime the wind got even stronger and I could not even think to continue my ride. I decided to wait a little bit, according to my previous experience in other windy places like Patagonia, wind might subside in the evening. But it did not.. I ended up staying overnight at that parking lot and sleeping on the bench. During the night wind turned into something similar to storm, it even flipped my bike from the side stand. Next morning the wind was almost the same like yesterday but I could not stay here any longer without food and water so I decided to move on. The good thing was that at least there was not much traffic in the morning. After just several kilometers the wind was much less but I stopped at the nearest hostel and slept all day. Only later I was told that winds can be really strong in this part of the country and one motorcyclist even dropped his bike a few times because of the wind. So I was actually lucky and I thanked God that I listened to my inner voice telling me to stop my ride that day.

What are your future plans? Where are you going next?

My nearest plans till the end of this year are exploring Europe as much as possible, and then… I will see. The world is still so big and so interesting!

But there is more weight to this exchange than my joking response lets you expect. The fear of the unknown occupies even the experienced traveller’s mind at times. So far, I am looking back on a total of 10 years “on the road” and I’m happy to admit that it took at least one, maybe even two years until something significantly changed – as far as my perception of fear was concerned. The more one travels the more one’s fear is replaced by concern, respect and adaption. And that’s a good thing.

Josephine and I were travelling through El Salvador in 2015. It is a small country but it suffers an enormous amount of gun violence. Especially in the capital San Salvador, gangs fight for dominance in drug trafficking and kill competitors mercilessly. This puts a lot of fear in the rest of the population as well as us travellers. Fortunately we were contacted by a young motorcycle-travel aficionado before we even entered the country. He offered to show us around his country. We welcomed the opportunity of being led through a dangerous and unknown territory by a local. The fact that his surname was Escobar, like the famous drug lord, did not raise any red flags on our side. It’s a very common name in latin America

You can call it naivety or fearlessness, but through our new friend’s insight we found a way to gauge the risk and get a feel for the place. We ended up travelling much longer and farther through El Salvador than we initially planned – a pattern that runs through most of our stories and films. Daniel and Josephine // www.open-explorers.com

The photos were taken over the course of six years and on six different continents. The amount of photos and the divers circumstances under which each one was taken are a representation of how multi-faceted motorcycling can be. It would have to be a hell of a photo to convey at least some of the possible emotions a rider can experience on the open road.

However, there were a few places that I recalled made my heart beat considerably faster. I scrolled through a bunch of folders like “Australia”, “Northern India”, “Alaska”, “Rockies”, “Colombia”… It was a blast re-visiting all these memories. Finally, I found myself infatuated with the “Carretera Austral” section.

It’s a magical corner of the world, especially for motorcyclists. This road in southern Chile leads you through mind-bogglingly beautiful mountains with great vistas and along intricate layouts of rivers, lakes, and fjords. Unless you check your map, you can never tell which kind of body of water you’re driving along. The landscape constantly invites you to stop and take photos, but the road regularly reminds you to pay attention to the riding. The route is partly gravel and quite windy.

Even though I would never pick one favourite road in the world, I can say that the Carretera Austral is right up there with the rest of my most favourite ones. I would go back there in a heart beat.

In Gabon, Africa for example we could choose between three different routes to Cameroon. Though all of them were dirt roads through the jungle. We opted for the least bad one of course. But it wasn’t easy to ride on the red, slippery mud and come out the other end in one piece. The many truck wrecks on the side of the road gave us the chills. Every time a trucker struggled going up a hill we watched him from a distance. We wouldn’t want him slide backwards into our direction.

During those kind of adventures you come to feel the weight of your bike and luggage. Sometimes it determines whether you make it or wether you have to turn around. Less* is more. (*luggage)

When it comes to carrying tools and spare parts for the bike, I have come up with the following rule for myself; I’m only carrying what I need to get back to civilisation in case I break down. Here are a couple of examples:

I have travelled 200,000 km on my bike and 99 countries so far. It feels only fair to me to share some of my experiences. At the end of the day I want as many people as possible to get out there and explore, because I have been having the time of my life!

More stories coming soon from Daniel Rintz (1200GS) & Josephine Flohr (R80GS)

– 2008 Europe, North Africa
– 2009 Middle East, Asia
– 2010 South East Asia, Oceania
– 2014 North America
– 2015 Central America
– 2016 South America
– 2017 Africa

DAY 4 – Cabin to Benson Creek – 154 miles

Chloe: Woke up to bright sunshine and blue skies. And NO DUST!

Tom: We jumped on the bikes and rode over the hill to Ardenvoir on the Roaring ridge road (also called Dinkelman Canyon) with views of the valley from high above the Entiat river. It’s always a treat to descend this twisty and steep road into the valley. We stopped at Coopers store for gas and a few essentials.

Chloe: After getting off the pavement we ran into some difficult riding. My Dad stopped to warn me about the ruts and how to avoid them but I was feeling pretty confident about my riding skills by then. I didn’t have to listen to my Dad. What did he know?

Tom: This is where Chloe learned how to choose which ruts to pay attention to, which ones you can drop into and perhaps not be able to get out of.

Chloe: I had gotten through this whole trip without crashing and intended to keep it that way……Until I got a little too cocky… I had just turned a corner when a rut popped out of nowhere and soon enough I was on the ground. My overconfident mindset was quickly diminished and my first thought was that is was the end of the world.

Tom: She crashed and broke the clutch lever

Chloe: I wasn’t skilled enough to ride without a clutch! The trip was over! All possible scenarios went through my head. We would probably have to ditch my bike. I would have to ride with my Dad, but where would we put my stuff? I was so worried about what would happen, that I wasn’t addressing the problem at hand.

I needed to get a hold of my Dad because I sure as hell wasn’t going to get left out here alone. He probably hadn’t noticed I was gone, …typical, which meant I had to find some cell service and call him. I started waking around holding my phone up like a crazy person and eventually got a couple bars and was able to call. Sure enough, after what seemed like forever, I heard the distant low rumble of the Africa Twin coming back to save me.

Tom: Luckily she wasn’t hurt, and we were able to wire it back together. While we were stopped we set last night’s burritos on the motors, and lashed them down with sticks and some rusty wire we found along the way.

Chloe: We eventually got everything in order and set off on our way again, but not before my Dad made a video documenting my crash and posted it to Facebook.

Tom: Arriving in the town of Chelan, we stopped at Safeway to get food for dinner. Which was somewhat distressing because I had told the guy at the Ardenvoir store (Coopers) that we didn’t shop at the big supermarkets, we bought our supplies at the little stores. Then here I am, shopping at Safeway, SIMPLY because I did not know if the Carlton store would be open.

Chloe: Once we arrived in at the Carlton store, a couple hours later, the storeowner was delighted to have us. He knew all about the WABDR and talked with my Dad for a long time.

Tom: We stopped, of course, at the Carlton store, which was fully stocked, and very enthusiastic about BDR riders. They even had BDR maps for sale and non-ethanol gas. I felt guilty.

Chloe: The day was coming to a close and after finally asking the best places to camp in the area, we got back on the road. It was late when we found a campsite along Benson Creek and after a dinner of chili and cornbread, I was ready to go to sleep.

DAY 5 – Benson Creek to Canada

Tom: The day started with blueberry pancakes. It was a GREAT woods breakfast.   We mixed the batter in a ziploc bag (careful NOT to over-mix!) and cut one corner off to squirt onto the griddle. Tossed berries on and flip!

Chloe: Of course, knowing my Dad, we basically had to have a photo shoot of the whole process. I didn’t get to eat until he had documented it all to Facebook!

Tom: Back on the bikes we rode the narrow pavement past Thrapp Mtn. We came across some locals cutting firewood with the road completely blocked. One of them hefted a huge chainsaw and cut a round off the end, giving us space to pass. Now that’s local hospitality. The route passes thru mossy forests (and some new clearcuts) to cross Hwy 20. We turned north on Loup Loup canyon road. We rode past the burned out USFS cabin at Rock Creek campground.

Chloe: when my Dad tried to take his phone out to take a picture, he couldn’t find it! After a couple minutes of panic and back tracking he found it in his coat pocket. (And I thought I was the irresponsible one).

Tom: Just past the “snow-crushed Aluminum Quonset hut far out in the woods”, we turned off a little road to look at the “China Wall”, a stone foundation built in 1889 for a Silver concentrating mill. The mill was never built.

Chloe: We rode down the Ruby grade, a challenging steep rocky decent into the old town of Ruby that actually isn’t a town anymore, just a historical sign with some pictures.

Tom: From Ruby we continued to the resort town of Conconully. Conconully is another one-store town where you can buy gas and supplies.

Chloe: After riding through Lone Frank Pass we stopped for a snack. A few miles down the road we ran into some logging trucks that stirred up more dust than you can imagine. I couldn’t see a thing and some patches on the ground were like riding in deep sand.

Tom: We had to stop for a few minutes to let a log truck’s plume die down. Luckily the road was washed out ahead and the log trucks had to go a different route. Now we were in heaven, because the road was closed and there would be on other traffic on the road, except BDR riders. We rode past the washout down the Toats Coulee drainage to FR 39.

Tom: Then it was up nine mile creek and around Quartz mountain to Chopaka lake. The trip was almost done, and by the next campsite, the trip would be over. It was exciting and disappointing at the same time as at this point I felt like we could ride forever.

Chloe: The ride was beautiful and it seemed to me that we were riding slower that usual, as if to savor the last moments of our trip. I kept imagining Canada to pop out unexpectedly around the next bend and once we finally got to Nighthawk border crossing, I was feeling a mixture of great sadness and accomplishment.

Tom: At Nighthawk the crossing guard asked us all the border type questions in monotone. Where do you live, where are you going, how many days will you be in Canada? And in the end said, in same monotone. “So you and your daughter rode from Oregon to Canada on gravel roads? That’s pretty cool”.

Chloe: We rode into Canada and had dinner in the town of Osoyoos. We spent a few hours in Canada and then had to cross back into the U.S. by then I was so tired and we camped at a little lake near Tonasket.

Day 6 – Home

Tom: We woke up and rode from Tonasket to Leavenworth, where we took showers, naps, and walked around a little. Then got out some foam mattresses and drove to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain to sleep out under the stars and watch the Perseid meteor shower. But it clouded over at 11PM so we just went to sleep.

Chloe: This trip was a true eye opener for me. It was tiring, my dad was annoying, my butt always hurt… I could go on. But I think the most important things such as getting to spend time with my dad and exploring Washington outshine the bad parts by far. I know will use the skills that I learned from riding the WABDR for the rest of my life. Not only has it made me more confident in my riding, but is has also opened up my eyes to the possibilities of traveling on a motorcycle. I feel like I could go anywhere. IDBDR here we come!

Tom: We put the XL200 in the barn and rode double on the Africa Twin to Cle Elum where Chloe met up with soccer mates for a game in Yakima and back to that non-motorcycle part of her life that’s in the way almost every weekend. And her dad rode off towards Seattle wondering if the next opportunity for six glorious days alone with his daughter will have to wait until after college.