Ride planning (test post)

Trying a video upload…

 Spending a lot of stressful days planning for a 60+ day ride…beginning next week!

Ugh…

Tampa S.M.A.R.T Motorcycle Course: June 2022

I just finished a two day motorcycle course hosted by the Tampa Police Department Motor Unit.  The S.M.A.R.T. (Safe Motorcycle And Rider Techniques) class is taught by instructors from TPD’s motor division and encompasses many important skills.  

The Tampa SMART course is divided into 5 areas: (1) Basic Riding Techniques, (2) Slow Maneuver Techniques, (3) Crash Avoidance Techniques, (4) Street Survival Skills and (5) Practical Applications. 

There’s a bit of classroom instruction but mostly you’re outside on your bike.  On the second day, you put all of the skills you’ve learned into practice on an 82-mile group ride.  

I can’t say enough good about the officers who taught the course.  They were extremely knowledgeable and patient.  

From the SMART site:

The Tampa Police Department, the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) and Motorcycle Safety Coalition - Ride SMART Florida recognizes the need for continued training and safety awareness for the motorcycling community. The goal is to do our part in mitigating the number of injuries and fatalities associated with motorcycling.

The intent of this course is to introduce the civilian motorcycling public to riding techniques that would enhance their safety and riding abilities. These riding techniques are in use by the Tampa Police Department Motor Unit and help in keeping their motor officers safe during their tours of duty. The premise behind the Tampa SMART course is if riding skills and knowledge utilized by the motor officer help keep them safe, then hopefully passing those skills and knowledge on to the public could also help lower motorcycle crashes and save lives.

The course is conducted on select weekends with 10 hours on Saturday and 5 hours on Sunday.  

The SMART motorcycle courses are hosted by police departments all over the US.  If this interests you, see if there’s one near you.  I highly recommend it!

Here are a couple links about the course:

https://www.tampa.gov/tpd-tampa-smart

https://ridesmartflorida.com/motorcycles/

Riding Marco Island and the San Cap Islands with my buddy Julio

My good friend Julio asked me a few years back if he should buy a motorcycle. And since he had two young daughters still in the house, I said it would not be a good idea and I recommended against it. 

Well, fast forward to 2021: He ended up getting not only his motorcycle endorsement but he bought two motorcycles in rapid succession. 

I should mention that he’s currently working and living in New Delhi, India, and he rides a Royal Enfield Meteor. 

I’m amazed that in the short time he’s been riding, he’s done some truly incredible rides all over that part of India, to include some serious mountains.  

He sometimes rides with a large group of coworkers and sometimes just by himself. I gotta say, I’m extremely impressed at how he’s taken to the Motorcycle Lifestyle. 

Anyhow, he called me a couple of weeks ago and said he’d be in Florida for a cruise and suggested meeting up for a ride.  I readily agreed so he rented a Harley Ultra Classic in Miami and we planned to meet somewhere in the middle.  

I rode down from Tampa and met him near Everglades City this morning.  When I rolled up, the smile on his face told me he’d already had an enjoyable ride on old Highway 41 (TaMiami Trail) and was ready to ride some more.  

We continued west on the 41 toward Marco Island.  It started out being a pretty nice day, actually— not too hot at all—but it was soon to hit 90° plus.  

Sadly, just a few miles up the road we came upon a motorcyclist we’d earlier seen gassing up at the station where we met, a female who had dumped her bike and had been taken to the hospital.  Her mangled Sportster was on its side and nearby were her helmet and the clothes they had cut off of her.  Very sad to see that but a sobering reminder of what can happen.  

We stopped at a small bar and grill—a dive bar, really (The Sand Bar), on Marco Island and had an early lunch. We laughed a lot as we caught up on work and old friends and other things…but mainly talked about motorcycling.  What a great time.  

I had roughly planned out a ride for us along the coast but I hadn’t done a very good job of it and it turned out that the island I wanted to ride over to was not 20 miles away like I had thought —it was more like 75 miles away.   Julio said he had the entire day so we took the 41 part way up and and then I-75 north the rest the way up to Sanibel and Captiva (San Cap) Islands.  It wasn’t too busy so we rode all the way through Sanibel and over to the tip of Captiva where we stopped at another bar and grill near the water.  

It was a pretty day but a hot day.  We ordered cool drinks and enjoyed the air conditioning while we talked about the day’s ride.  I told him I was amazed at how good of a rider he was since he was such a new rider.  He explained that riding a motorcycle in India is like a baptism in fire: If you can rider there, you can ride anywhere! I suppose that must be true because he really is a competent rider.  

I had 125 miles to ride to get home and Julio had almost 175 to get back to Miami.  We gassed up near Ft. Myers and said our goodbyes.  It was a full day of riding and I sure didn’t want it to end. As I was leaving, he reminded me of his invitation to visit he and his wife in New Delhi.  World class riding, indeed and it’s definitely on my bucket list.  

Ride safe, amigo.  

You call this a Ride Report? (Canada/Alaska 2022 pre-ride planning)

I met Steve in late 1988 when we were both working down on the border in South Texas.  I had been in Laredo about a year when he arrived and we became fast friends and we’ve been close ever since; we’ve both moved all over the country— and actually lived in the same city in North Carolina for about a year way back when.  

We’ve done some rides together, most recently a nice Baja adventure a couple years ago.  So, he and I had planned to travel to South America on our KLR 650s when I retired in 2018 but I broke my leg on a Baja ride just a couple months before we were supposed to leave and that kind of scuttled that plan.  Then, after I recovered, COVID shut the borders and made most of our trip impossible.  Then, I once again became gainfully employed and had to take a two-year break.  

So here we are in early 2022… We’re both free and available now and the urge to ride down to Ushuaia— although still on our minds— is not as pressing as it once was.  however we still wanna do a long-term ride.   

He recently asked me about Saskatchewan or Newfoundland or somewhere else in Canada and I mentioned the ride I did to Alaska in 2014 and that it might be something I’d want to do again.  He readily agreed so the planning commenced.

The last time I rode up there was for 30 days in July and August 2014 and the weather and traffic were fine so we are planning for those months.  Looks like 45 to 60 days riding through Canada and Alaska…and this time it’s personal! 😬 Though we are not shooting for Inuvik or Deadhorse this time, we do want to see a lot of what Canada and Alaska have to offer.  

He’ll be on his 2020 Honda Africa Twin CRF1100L and I’ll be on my 2018 BMW R1200GS Adventure.  We have unlimited time and fairly unlimited budgets.  We plan to camp as much as possible.  We are flexible as to the route and mileage though we don’t plan on really long days of riding; I’m an Iron Butt guy and he isn’t.  

My main concerns right now are the routing and whether to use hard or soft panniers.  I took soft side bags and a hard top case on my KTM 990 Adventure last time and that worked well.  But these big aluminum side panniers sure are convenient.  I’d travel a lot lighter with soft bags.  His main concern is….absolutely nothing: He just wants to ride.  

So, we have over 3 months to plan, and I want to make this ride as enjoyable for my buddy as possible.  With that in mind, I endeavored to seek out the coolest places to see and spend the least amount of time on roads that weren’t that fun…hence, nixing the Dempster and Haul Road.  I reminded Steve we’ll still ride plenty of dirt, gravel, bad pavement and muddy roads—due to construction or just cool places (McCarthy, Skagway, Valdez, etc.).

Yes, we’re actively planning this ride…but we’re also taking a “whatever happens, happens” approach and play it somewhat by ear.  We’ll see how that goes.  

Some of the places we plan to see:

Banff 

Jasper 

Dawson Creek

AlCan Highway

Fort Nelson

Muncho Lake

Liard Hot Springs

Watson Lake/Signpost Forest

Campbell Highway

Carmacks

Dawson City

Eagle

Top of the World/Taylor Highway

Chicken

Tok, AK (Thomason’s Eagle Claw campground)

Richardson Highway (The Old Rich, between Valdez and Fairbanks)

McCarthy (60-mile dirt road, one way in/out)

Valdez

Edgerton Highway (between the Old Rich Junction to Chitina)

Wrangle—St. Elias Nat’l Park

Fairbanks

Coldfoot (?)

Parks Highway

Denali

Anchorage

Kenai Peninsula

Seward

Homer, AK (The Spit)

Palmer Highway

Denali Highway (Hwy 8), 140-mile dirt road

Tok (again)

Destruction Bay

Haines Junction

Whitehorse

Hyder

Cassiar Highway

Smithers

Irkusk

Dease Lake (take the road out to Telegraph Creek)

100 Mile House

Prince George

Pemberton

Cache Creek 

Lillooet 

Duffy Lake

Whistler

Kamloops

Highway 16

Highway 97/Alaska Highway 

(Just south of Clinton take a right at 99 to Lilooet, the Duffy Lake road to Pemberton, Whistler and down to Vancouver. A must see.)

Fraser River gorge/Hells Gate area

Sumas (exit Canada?)

St. Patty’s/Sarasota Humane Society Poker Run

It doesn’t get much better than getting out on a Sunday and riding with your friends on a perfect day… but it sure didn’t start out like that!

It’s was 37° when I woke up this morning and it was only supposed to warm up a little bit. But I had committed to riding this poker run with my friends and doggonnit I was going to do it.  So I put on my warmest clothes and I rode down the I-75 south to Sarasota to meet up with everyone. 

There were about a dozen of us and we were all bundled up like Floridians who don’t know how to dress warm.  

We headed to the first stop, and the real reason today’s ride: The Humane Society of Sarasota. In addition to news crews and many other riders, we were treated to coffee and donuts.  

I bought 3 poker hands and drew my cards.  Then my friends and I took a look at the stops along today’s route…a bagel shop and three Irish pubs!  Erin go bragh, indeed.  

The sun was out and it had warmed up to the low 50’s by 10:30…just perfect riding weather.  

The ride leader knew his way around Sarasota and we rode along the beach and through the tourist areas.  The brisk weather wasn’t keeping anyone home on such a beautiful day.  

After reaching our final destination and drawing our final poker hands, we submitted our sheets and hoped for the best.  Not sure a pair of 10s would win me anything, I held out for low hand! 😆

As we all said our goodbyes and headed home, the temperature had crept into the 70’s... typical Florida!

A good time was had by all and it benefitted a worthwhile cause.  Even filling up with $5+ a gallon gas couldn’t dampen todays mood.  🤭