TAT-2016 Post 22 – Saturday, 12 March 2016

We can no longer put it off. We are starting the first leg of TAT-2016 Monday evening.

I’ve stated before that we four all work for same company with multiple projects taking place so we have a narrow window to complete this first leg; Charleston, SC to Little Rock, AR. As will usually happen on adventure rides, Mother Nature could care less about our schedule so decided to drop a butt load of rain over a good portion of our route. We spent lots of time evaluating the pros/cons of starting this week or delaying until the next window in May. We all decided to go now and take it day to day as far as the riding conditions.

Primary concerns:

1               Road conditions and river crossings – We know the eastern section through the Smokey Mountains could be a problem if crossings have high water. Plus mud and slippery roads through the mountains could be dangerous. For now that section doesn’t appear to have been hit with the rain like the western section. That is also one of the more interesting sections to ride.

2               Western section through rural TN and especially MS – Both sections have been hit hard with rain. We expect roads to be crap.

Considerations:

1               Bikes are already in SC – We sent the bikes via Woodrow before this last mega rain front moved through. If we wait till May we have to store bikes for almost 2 months plus we have nothing to ride in the meantime.

2               Wx is always going to be a problem. One thing I learned on AK1 and AK2 is if you wait for clear Wx you will never go. I lost my fear of riding in the rain while riding in MT in a cold, blinding rainstorm. We all have rain gear so main concern is safety with a couple of relatively low time riders. We have discussed this and we will keep speed down and experienced riders in front and back to set the pace.

3               Road conditions – We all agree that this is a coast-to-coast dual-sport motorcycle ride using the TAT as our basic route. We always knew we may have to bypass some stretches if roads were extremely difficult or impassable. If this means missing miles of deep mud in MS by taking a secondary road, then we will make that decision when we get there. We all expect to stay on the TAT as long as we can and only divert when totally necessary.  My wife gave me some ribbing when she heard us discuss this by saying “So you guys are doing TAT-Lite?”. I guess she’s right so please don’t pile on. I promise we won’t divert unless there is a possibility of someone getting hurt or our tight schedule starts to be in jeopardy.

4               This first leg is to get everyone ready for the more difficult rides out west. Our schedule for Leg-2, AR to CO, around first week of Aug 2016, has a lot more flexibility. Most of our projects will be past the critical phase so if we need to adjust the start date or extend the trip a few days, it won’t be as difficult as leg-1.

Gear:

Everyone is scrambling to get the last items they need for the trip.

Since we are moteling and not camping, bike security at night is an issue. We will be in mostly small rural towns. Some basic approaches we are using is brake disk locks and bike covers; out of sight, out of mind. This keeps the curious from investigating the bikes plus is just another hurtle a potential thief has to deal with. We are also carrying a pretty robust cable lock that can be used to lock all 4 bikes together. Nothing is 100% but slowing down a thief so it isn’t worth their trouble is all we can do.

Camera – On AK1 and AK2 I used a Nikon Coolpix 20.1 MegaPixel camera; non-waterproof. This was an $87 camera and worked OK with great pictures, most of the time. I selected it primarily because it used AA batteries so charging wasn’t an issue. Where it failed was it was so darn slow and 1 out of 3 pictures were clear, the rest were out of focus. As a result, I always took multiple pics of the same thing hoping I would get one good one. Because my wife and I have done many white water kayaking and rafting trips, I owned a waterproof Pentax Optio that worked great for quick shots plus was immune to bad Wx conditions. Due to my carelessness I broke the Pentax a while back. As a result, I just purchased a Nikon Coolpix AW130 waterproof camera for this trip plus it replaces the Pentax for our river trips.

Pros – Waterproof so can be used in the rain. No mechanical zoom so when it is turned on it is ready to use. Has sport mode for quick shots.

Cons – More expensive than my previous AK1/AK2 Nikon. Only 16 MegaPixels.

I missed a number of great pictures on AK1/AK2 because the camera was so slow to turn on and set up focus. I’m hoping for better results with the new Nikon.

Schedule:

1               Monday evening we drive to Charleston, SC in rental SUV with arrival early morning Tuesday. We all plan on working at least part of the day Monday so will be picked up at home by Terry in the rental SUV around 6 pm.

2               Tuesday we ride bikes to Atlantic Ocean for pictures then return to garage to pack bikes and make final determination what to leave behind.

3               Go to UPS to ship home anything we won’t be taking. I know I have several items that I sent with Woodrow not sure if I would use them or not.

4               Relax and have dinner with Woodrow’s family then early to bed. Remember we drove through the night on Monday so some or all of us will have missed some sleep.

5               Wednesday morning start riding west.

Blog and SPOT Track

I plan on trying to make a post every evening with highlights of the day plus pictures from my new camera. I normally post a message on several Facebook pages when I update my Blog but may not be able to do that every evening due to time and wifi bandwidth. You will just have to go to the link below on your own if you want to get up to date status.

www.rvrrunner-019.blogspot.com

The link to my SPOT tracking map is below. It usually provides updates in 10-minute increments but I’ve seen it skip up to 30 minutes in poor reception areas.

https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=fed456d44d1f10fb9

My next post will be from Charleston the night before we start. I should have pics of our Atlantic dip and loaded bikes.

Here’s hoping for some dry roads and low water!