For our vacation this year, Mr. sky_blue and I are doing a one week motorcycle trip to the Black Hills. He wanted to go to the Caribbean and lay in a hammock on the beach sipping Mai Thais...still not sure how I talked him out of it.
We are going the week after next. The plan is to camp 3 nights and hotel it 2.
The longest ride I've been on is about 800 miles round trip into Wyoming, and I spent the night in a hotel. This trip we decided we will try camping. Camping is fun. We like camping. Moto-camping however, presents some new challenges for the sky_blues. We are gear whores. Well, I know I am. I work outside a bunch, and get thrown into every landscape you can imagine. I've learned to go out well equipped. REI loves me.
So we have a wide range of gear. The challenge is that I didn't really want to buy any new gear for moto-camping, as I just dropped cash on a dirt bike, and, despite my seemingly frivilous spending habits, I do know where the disposable income runs out.
So to decide on gear for our trip into South Dakota, we picked out what we thought we wanted, and did an overnight camp up near Cameron Pass. We left on Friday after work, came home Saturday morning. Really, all Saturdays should start with waking up in a tent and then riding down Poudre Canyon.
I'm on a 2007 Honda CBR 600RR, with a double-bubble windscreen, pazzo levers and frame sliders. He's on a 2008 Kawasaki 650R with a touring windscreen, and frame sliders.
This is what we took, and this is how it turned out:
Saddlebags:
They make beautiful hard bags for the 650R. They are quite pricey. They were in the $1000 range last time I looked. We instead opted for textile bags, and I brought a fabulous Cortech set used (thanks CurtisRR!), with external zippers and large capacity. For my Honda CBR600RR, I went on newenough.com and ordered the cheapest set, some Nelson Rigg Sport Saddlebags. Both sets fit pretty darn good as is. My bike's tail is narrow so there is a little folding over and duct-taping of some of the velcro, but nothing major. The undertail exhaust presented no problems. The Cortech bags are waterproof, which I like better than the rain-cover nonsense you have to mess with with the Nelson Riggs, but for the price, I don't really care.
We both packed our saddlebags with basically one side for clothes, and one side for gear/cooking stuff.
Tent:
I have an old REI 2-man, 4-season tent (the Convert Mountain 2 if anyone cares). It's been around, including significant time above 8,000 feet in Yosemite, a handfull of weekends at sea level in Death Valley, and more weeks than I'd care to count in the Mojave Desert. Time to try it out in the Rockies. It's got a good rainfly, and a vestibule that worked out well for stashing bags and boots. Technically it's a 2-man tent, but in the past this has always meant "Jen and her gear". We fit, but there is a need to keep things organized to facilitate that.
For the tent "footprint" we went ghetto style and just cut some visqueen plastic. Hard to believe that REI tent footprints are $50.
Sleeping Bags:
Mine is an ancient North Face Cat's Meow (15 degree) and Jim just picked up a Mountain Hardware bag (to replace his old Coleman one) at the REI sale. Both stuff down pretty small, and Jim found us dry bags to pack them in as well.
Sleeping Pads:
We used my two old thermarests. Oh man. We are too old for this. Both our backs were killing us this morning. Definitely going to have to look into thicker/better sleeping pads.
Shade:
We took out REI shade shelter thingie (REI "Alcove"). It's nice, but the fact that it is NOT waterproof (just like E-Z-Up's aren't) makes it not a necessity item in my book. We probably won't take it with us to the Black Hills. REI makes an ultralight packable waterproof tarp that can be used to fashion a lean-to--but it's $50. Would be nice to have a waterproof shelter other than the tent, but the jury is still out on this one.
Food:
We have a tiny stove left over from Jim's Boy Scout days that works fine. We have a pot to boil water in, that also holds 2 plastic bowls inside, that you can use for storage of junk like condiments and coffee. We tried some of that dehydrated backpacker food--you just add hot water to the bag and eat. It was not terrible. If I had remembered to bring some Tabasco, it could have been better than not terrible. Although, I will say that my "Eggs with Red and Green Peppers and Ham" for breakfast looked much more like a bag full of puke than I was comfortable with. Tasted good though.
On our longer trip the plan is to ear breakfast out (it's cheap), stop for sandwiches at lunch, and eat dinner at camp, supplementing backpacker food with whatever we may find at a local grocery.
That brown stuff is my instant coffee. Yum.
Things we wish we had: Something to put under the kickstand instead of a rock when parking bikes at the campground. Marshmallows. Tabasco. Small sponge. Measuring cup (or marked up water bottle). Collapsible water carrier. Hot chocolate. A million dollars.
The remaining conundrum: Bike to Bike communications. We've fiddled about with walkie-talkies, but either the ear thingie isn't right, or the microphone sucks, or something isn't right. Want PTT not VOX, so Jim doesn't have to listen to me sing in my helmet. Oh yeah, I still want my iPod also. Can't bring myself to spend $100 or more per bike on a comm system. Hmm.
Jezza gets tired of carrying all that shit--decides to take nap.
gravel pull-out + front brake = horizontal CBR
Scratched the frame slider. 1st drop in >10,000 miles, that's fine by me.
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Originally Posted by salsashark
