I spend an enormous amount of time on airplanes traveling around the world doing my 1-man international consulting business. In fact right now I am in Africa posting this trip report. Why not try something different this trip instead of flying?
For the trip to San Antonio I decided to ride my motorcycle. I figured I could ride to San Antonio on a leisurely Sunday and do the seminar Mon-Tue. Since I had the rest of the week free, I could to do some riding in the Texas Hill Country after the seminar and then perhaps ride on to Mexico.
So the trip starts on Sunday morning Feb 15, 2009. The first leg of this ride would be from Houston to San Antonio. It was raining that morning, but had stopped just before my departure time. Rain would not have been a deterrent to my start time unless it was a torrential downpour.
In the picture below I have the bike kitted up with my standard load. I have my rain covers on my saddle bags and on my roll bag just in case the rain comes back. The small orange device seen on the very top of the tail rack is a personal satellite tracker. The device is known as 'SPOT' and it pings a satellite and reports my position to a website that I can make public or private. In this regard, friends and family can track me on my ride. The device is used by a variety of adventure travelers for rescue, body recovery, etc. I use it for peace of mind for family. The device is not a GPS navigation device. For navigation I use the more traditional maps and tracing paper.
Motorcyclists typically name their motorcycles. My motorcycle is named
Lady in Red. For short I refer to her as
Lady. She is a 250cc Honda Nighthawk. This is an old technology bike in that it has tube tires, a carburetor, a cable choke, is air-cooled, and has drum brakes. I can repair just about everything on this bike for the most common of road repairs. However, a good preventive maintenance program generally keeps me from breaking down. Some of my friends are stunned at the long distances I can put on this bike with the belief that one must have a large displacement engine bike in order to do any long distance riding.
More to follow, but please be patient as the broadband here in Africa is limited and slow.