Well the final few days after the trip has been a great time to just remember how fantastic and lucky I've felt for the last month and half. I left Boston October, 1, 2011 and made it all the wall across the US and back, taking the long way around so to say for most of the trip and piling up 10, 201 miles. To travel that many miles I spent $843.39 on 218.69 gallons of gasoline. My cheapest fill up was $3.11 for a gallon of premium and my most expensive gallon of gas was $4.29. I stopped 38 times for gas and was on the road for 46 days. Not all the days I was traveling as I did spent a week in CA in the same spot and a few days in GA in the same spot. My longest mileage in one day was on my last day. I drove 896 miles from Cumming, Georgia all through the Smokey Mountains in TN then up through 81 North to PA.
I figured it would be a good learning experience to review all my gear and what I liked and didn't like. That way if there is a next time I'll know what to bring and what to leave at home.
To cook meals I carried with me an MSR Superfly back packing stove. I brought two fuel bottles of the 8oz. variety (they also sell smaller ones) and only used one of them to near completion. I was really surprised how much use I was able to get out of the fuel canister. I did cook my breakfast and dinner, which mostly consisted of boiling water to make oatmeal, mac n cheese (the store bought kind), backpacking meals and to make tea or coffee. I carried most of my cooking water in a 4 litre Camel back bladder. Overall the stove worked great except for when it was windy. The superfly stove doesn't have a lot of wind protection so it just took an extra minute or two to boil water. Otherwise it all worked great. The cooking pan set is a basic REI stainless set. I never used the frying pans or the coffee maker actually. The little green thing is the coffee maker. Just fill it with grinds and plunge into hot water. It works very much like a teabag.
I did bring tools with me figuring I'll never really know what I need until I look for it and I don't have it so I definitely packed more tools than I thought i would need. I used the tool kit three times on my trip. Once in Utah after I crashed to fix a turn signal that had popped out and zip tie a fog light back into place, to change the front tire, and to do an oil change at Hansen's Motorcycles in Medford, OR.
To carry my gear in addition to my panniers I had a North Face Base camp duffle bag which was 90L and three Sea to Summit dry sacs. One 15L for my netbook, one 3 liter that housed my electronics in my tank bag, and one 35L bag that all my clothes went into. The dry sacs never leaked and while I knew the duffle wasn't waterproof (the seems leak) it did actually keep most of my stuff fairly dry when it did rain. I only actually rode in two days of rain on the entire trip which I think is pretty amazing.
The back tire on my bike was brand new when I left. It's a Michelin Anakee 2 and after 10k miles it still has .3 tread depth (as measured by my local inspection station) and will still pass inspection in PA. Though it has definitely been squared off a bit from all the highway miles on the return leg.
Here you can see the square profile.
The front tire is also a Michelin Anakee 2 tire and it had to be repalced when I arrived CA. The tire was wearing very uneven and even formed funny pimples on each one of the raised tread patterns after 4,300 miles out to CA.
So far this is wearing better but I'm already starting to see the same thing happen again. The tire is balanced and inflated to 38 psi. Speaking of psi I also ran 41 psi out back.
This was perfectly polished before I left. You can now see the "jet wash" pretty good!
I used Fieldsheer jacket and pants which also doubled as my rain gear. On the days it did rain I didn't not get wet at all except for my feet and hands. I have a pair of Alpinestars gloves that are suppose to be waterproof but they got pretty wet after a few hours in the rain. I picked up the Gerbing electric jacket in Oregon with a thermostat and it worked great on the remainder of the trip. The coldest temps I hit were in Flagstaff, AZ were it was 22F degrees and the hottest was the Mojave dessert at 99F degrees. I have an Arai XD3 helmet that I wore on the whole trip and other than the visor vibrating (its a very soft plastic and it buzzes when its really windy) I have no complaints about the helmet at all.
I have a pair of AXO Lancer sport bike boots. I rode with street boots because they offer a much better feel of the pegs and controls than big thick motocross boots. They did however start to fall apart.
Here all the stitching on the left and right boot was falling out.
The left boot zipper broke.
Otherwise they held up alright and were pretty comfy for most of the trip. I did put a pair of gel insoles in to help with the vibrations and overall fit.
I used a North Face Elkhorn 0F synthetic sleeping bag. The bag was always warm, which it should have been considering the coldest night I experienced was only around 41F degrees. I was not a fan of the zipper which always seemed to get caught and its pack size is really quite big at 9.5 by 18 inches and it weighs 4lbs 12 oz. I'm not sure how much smaller it would get with a compression sack but at around $100 dollars I was more than happy to deal with the bulk as long as I was warm. I have an older 3 season Big Agnes tent I used and it worked fine. In fact its from 2005 and still going strong!
I'm not really sure if this should be the last post or not as I've felt over the last couple of days that I'm finally coming to grips with what I did and all my experiences. I will say though that I've never felt more at peace with myself or the world around me.
