Cross country motorcycle riding is an incredibly exhilarating feeling. The pungent smell of pines tingle your nose as
highway glides past beneath your feet. Trees line either side of road flash by like a dark picket fence topped with green. Sunlight dances through treetops drenching gray-black highway in irregular shapes and patterns. The mountain air is fresh and clean as it pours into your lungs and tugs at your jacket and pants.Much of hypnotic engine roar trails behind you like a jet vapor trail. Few things can match joy of open road while riding a well-tuned bike. The afternoon is made even better with knowing that trip has only begun. Days and miles of highway lay yet ahead.
If you enjoy outdoors, motorcycle travel is a great way to see country. You can soak up fresh air and sunshine as you drive down highway. You have a much greater sense of being a part of your surroundings while riding a motorcycle. You feel you can almost reach out and touch beauty of roadside flowers, trees and wildlife.
There is also a special feeling of freedom and exhilaration that comes from racing down highway with power of engine roaring between your legs and wind in your face. That feeling cannot be matched with any other form of travel.
Motorcycle travel is more than just scenery and sense of freedom. It is also people you meet along way. Bike riders are part of a select community of people. They invariably wave to one another when they meet along highway. At rest stops and restaurants bikers go out of their way to meet and greet one another. As strangers they recognize they are members of this unique society. They exchange information about highway ahead, weather conditions, and motorcycle maintenance tips. If a rider breaks down or gets into some travel-related difficulty, another motorcycle rider is almost sure to come along and offer help.
There are certain precautions that should be taken when motorcycle touring, however.
• First, make sure bike is serviced and tuned up before departing on a long trip. Breaking down along highway is a lonely and sickening feeling. This includes checking your tires and making sure they are in good to excellent condition.
• Second, weather is always an issue when riding a motorcycle. Make sure you tuck a warm jacket and gloves in a saddle bag or in your trailer. Along with warm clothing you should also make sure you have rain gear. Rain somewhere along trip is almost guaranteed.
• Third, you will want to keep a plan of your route handy. An easy way to do this is to print a computer generated map of your trip and keep it in a plastic document protector or laminated in plastic. You can tape this to tank or keep in a saddle bag for easy reference during rest stops. Another excellent way to keep on route, especially if you are a gadget hound, is with a GPS.
