On Two Wheels in 2022 - Issue #25

Let’s talk about my travel plans for 2022 and rope in the trips I didn’t take in 2020 and 2021 to see if we can find some plan that’s reasonable to execute on over the next few years! I hope this post will help others plan their future rides on 2 or 4 wheels.

I wanted to start with a few easy bullet points of rides I’d like to do in North America. These are ‘anytime’ rides but I’ll end up doing one day and a few in bold will be rides I’m trying to do in 2022.

Trans-America Trail from NC to OR (maybe skipping Kansas)

Those following along @ home may ask me why at 35, my bucket list will be 50% complete in one year? I’m going to cheat a little bit and take 2 of these highlighted items off the list because I won’t be riding them.

Heather and I are planning a mid-Summer 5-6 day trip in the truck where we head north to Labrador City for a car-camping weekend with the dog. She’s not ready to do 500 miles of unpaved roads and heavy logging trucks so I told her we can go up for a long weekend, pack in some food and just enjoy the open-ness together and maybe see Northern Lights if we’re lucky. If you haven’t read my 2018 Ride Report of the Trans-Labrador, it was a fantastic trip.

The second one is Seattle to Fairbanks. I’m not doing it this year but in August, my friend Chris invited me to join him to Anchorage via Seattle to see to it his mother’s ashes make it to her final resting place as dictated by her will. He and I have done a few trips together but he doesn’t ride. It’ll be my first time in Alaska and I hear flying over the mountain ranges is still a sight to see. He’s never been to Seattle so we’ll do a couple of days there and then 5 in Alaska together. I’m almost certain that after I see how gorgeous Alaska is from the windshield of a car, I’ll short-list making the ride happen by shipping a bike over for a future ride.

I will be doing a late-July 4-day weekend to Caribou Maine this year. I want to do a solo trip off the bike and stealth camp then get a BnB in Caribou and explore some of the historical sites up there. Caribou has a rich aviation and defense history so it’d be cool to explore even though I recognize the town is concealed by hundreds of miles of private owned forests with little else to do or see.

The BMW MOA National Rally East takes place in Springfield MO this year so Heather and I are trailering the K75 and F750GS down and we’ll ride the Ozarks for a few days in between my duties as a board officer. By the way, tickets are on sale now and the price will continue to go up. Maybe I’ll see you there?

Heather and I have to be at a wedding the 3rd week of April and flights from Boston to Jacksonville would cost us about $1,000 round trip so we are considering driving. The drive North is perfect timing. My Interns leave me the 22nd of April and I’ll have a 4 week break before my next group starts. This gives me time to unload the Husqvarna 701 LR in North Carolina and start heading West. I’d like to make it to Tulsa or Boise City in this first leg and leave the bike there at a KTM dealer for service, inspection and cleaning. This would be my TAT East ride and I would only be doing this leg of the TAT in 2022. Basically half now and half later. It’s going to be a hard time to do the TAT so early in the season but this is the only time before Summer I have free. So I’m leaving my 701 in Oklahoma for 1.5 years?

The day I get back from Alaska, I’ll throw my luggage into the pickup truck and put a KTM 690 Enduro in the back and head due east to wherever my 701 is located. This will be the 1st week of September. I won’t be going alone. Harry will be my passenger. We’ll pickup my bike from wherever it is and keep going to Albuquerque or further south in NM. We’ll park the truck at an Airport parking lot, hop on our bikes and head North for a 2-week ride on the Continental Divide. We might skip parts of Colorado we’ve already ridden to save time and we will try to hop off the trail and do parts of the Idaho BDR if we can get that much extra time off work.

While we’re heading North, Heather will have flown into NM and picked up my truck along with her best friend and they’ll be doing a 10 day drive north to Montana hitting various national parks and monuments and seeing Colorado and Utah for the first time. They’ll wrap up their trip in Helena MT most likely, park the truck at the airport and fly back home. A few days later, Harry and I will roll in with our 690/701 bikes and load up and drive home (after a shower of course).

As we get into Fall, Heather and I will do a couple more camping trips and local rides. I’ll have gotten enough riding for 2-3 years by then. I’ve timed it so I’ll have maxed out my paid time off by April’s trip and then, I’ll have maxed out my paid time off again by September for Alaska and the Continental Divide. This will be another 15K mile year for the truck but this time, about 12K miles on the bikes which will be fantastic compared to this year.

There are some caveats. If work re-assigns me to a new directive that requires a lot of travel to Europe or extended trips elsewhere, that’s going to impact me a lot. I also could have my shoulder not heal in which case I’ll at least be cancelling the TAT ride in April. The other activities to Alaska, Labrador City, Caribou, Ozarks and more are going to happen and the schedules and ways I get to them are pretty flexible. Heck, Caribou can be a drive in the car instead of a ride as painful as that would be.

As for the rest of the rides, I want to do them before I’m 40. I can still do them after 40 but I want to make doing those a priority so I can start branching out to other countries later such as South America and European rides which require more money than I currently have. USA and Canada are vast with a lot to see and explore. I’m okay with spending my miles @ home for the next few years.