This year's trip involved a big, big change: I sold my beloved 1999 Yamaha Roadstar which I had spent 18 enjoyable years riding, and purchased a 2019 Indian Roadmaster.
The Yamaha was really starting to show its age, and didn't have some of the creature comforts my old body was desiring (mainly cruise control.) The bike was in need of some big ticket repair items, including tires, clutch, and rear shock replacement. Replacement parts were becoming scarce. After much anguish and soul searching, I made the difficult decision to let the Yamaha go. When I dropped the Road Star off at the consignment shop to have them sell it, I literally cried.
If you read the 2022 motorcycle trip article,, you know that I started the motorcycle replacement process prior to taking that adventure, and even did some motorcycle shopping while I was on the road. I wound up finally finding the new (to me) motorcycle about two weeks after I got back from that trip.
I wrote a whole article about my search for a replacement motorcycle so to spare you the redundancy I won't repeat the story here. At the start of this year's trip I had owned the Roadmaster for 11 months and had put about 1,000 miles of my own on the odometer. Long story short, this was going to be my first big trip on this new motorcycle.
While traveling with a new motorcycle was exciting in a lot of ways, it also brought about a great deal of uncertainty. I had made so many trips and put so many miles on my old motorcycle that I knew what to expect. The Yamaha was extremely reliable, and despite its dings, scuffs and rattles, I knew that I could climb on it and travel across the country without any fear of breakdown. The new motorcycle had not yet proven itself in that regard, and while I had no reason to believe it wouldn't be reliable, I also didn't have any established history to put my mind at ease.
With the new mode of transportation secured, the next step was to figure out a destination.
I had heard about a retro video game and pinball event called Zapcon, which is held in Mesa, AZ. I thought that attending this convention would be a fun ride, and in addition would feed my inner nerd. Due to the distance from home, plus accounting for a couple days for the event, going to Zapcon would be an eight day trip minimum. Also, in previous years Zapcon had been held in late April, which meant the unpredictable South Dakota spring weather would have to agree for a motorcycle trip. As it turned out, it became a moot point as the organizers announced there would be no Zapcon event for 2023.
I then mapped out an interesting route that would let me ride the entirety of the Natchez Trace Parkway. This route looked promising, but I ran into a few snags. First, a portion of the parkway was under construction and closed in 2023. Second, riding through the deep south in the summer can be unenjoyably hot. And third, this trip would be a minimum of six very long days. Seven or eight days would be more ideal.
I hadn't completely ruled out riding the Natchez Trace, but I continued to look around for other options as well. When looking at maps I was glancing at the Ohio River Scenic Byway that I had ridden the previous year through Illinois, when suddenly I realized the Ohio River Scenic Byway doesn't just run through Illinois: it also goes through Indiana and Ohio. Now given the name of the byway, one would think this is fairly obvious. For some unknown reason, during the entirety of the previous year's trip my brain had not considered the possibility of the road going through more than just Illinois.
I started mapping out a ride that would let me see the remainder of the byway that I had missed in 2022. This included a section in Illinois that I skipped when a giant storm caused me to unexpectedly reroute. Hopefully I wouldn't encounter any big storms this year (spoiler alert: I did.)
As I was creating the route, I found more and more things that I could do and see by making slight adjustments to the route. It quickly turned into a jam-packed trip of sights and experiences. Many of them, coincidentally, were movie filming locations. In fact, there were so many that I decided I couldn't actually spend time at all of them. Here's a list of some of the options, outside of the Ohio River Scenic Byway itself:
- My uncle and grandparent's graves.
- The farm where the Field Of Dreams movie was filmed.
- The home of Ulysses S Grant.
- Joliet State Prison, where the beginning of the Blues Brothers movie was filmed.
- Janus Motorcycles, which is a custom motorcycle builder I've become interested in.
- South Side Soda Shop, a diner in Goshen, Indiana featured in "Diner's, Drive-Ins and Dives."
- Mansfield State Penitentiary, where the Shawshank Redemption movie was filmed.
- The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
- The cemetery where the beginning of the original Night Of The Living Dead was filmed.
- The Bengal and Reds stadiums in Cincinnati.
- A town where scenes from the Deer Hunter movie were filmed.
- The St. Louis Arch.
- Stroud's restaurant, and a possible meal with my friend Brandon.
The more I studied this route and the more points of interest I discovered, the more excited I got. Clearly this was the best route I've designed in a long time, if not ever. I put the Natchez Trace Byway route on the shelf for another year.
One little snag with this route, however, was its length. Normally my motorcycle trips are 4-5 days in length. In 2016 I got away with a six day trip. This year's trip would be a minimum of six days, and would be even better if it was stretched into seven. A seven day trip would reduce the number of miles needed to be ridden each day, which becomes important as more and more consecutive riding days get strung together. I decided to plan a seven day trip and see if my wife balked at the idea. Surprisingly enough, she didn't. Maybe she's sick of me and needs a break?
About a month before I left for the trip I decided to upgrade my riding gear. I hadn't bought any new riding apparel in almost 20 years, so I justified spending a bit of money to go through and get new equipment.
For those who have read the previous year's ride report, you may remember that towards the end of my trip, my old boots reached their end of life. Well, technically just one boot did, but because you can't ride with just one boot I wound up throwing both of them in the trash can. I went out and splurged on a nice set of Red Wings with the BOA fastening system. I'll talk more about this system later on in the story, but I quickly grew to like it a lot. I didn't wear the boots for very long before I left on the trip, but I was amazed how comfortable they were right away.
I decided it was time to replace my helmet as well. My old helmet was a half-helmet design. This time around I decided to go with a full-faced helmet. It would be a lot warmer, but if my face hit the pavement I would be glad I had it on. I probably won't completely retire the half helmet. Adding the new helmet will give me options.
I also bought an armored mesh jacket and gloves. In prior years I had worn a leather vest, which gives decent protection to the torso area, but does nothing for the arms. I decided to upgrade to a jacket that had a level 2 armor system in the elbow, shoulders and back. Part of the decision to make a change was because I suspected that some of my shoulder pain was caused by the way my leather vest hung on my neck (spoiler alert: that wasn't the problem.)
I also bought a pair of kevlar jeans with level 2 armor in the knees and hips. Previously I would just wear regular jeans when I rode. Denim/cotton jeans give a false sense of security; if you crash you really might as well be wearing nothing. Common jean material rips and shreds with a surprising amount of ease once it hits pavement, leaving nothing but exposed bare skin.
About two weeks out from my departure date, a little snag happened. Without going into all the unimportant details leading up to the situation, the Tundra Boy's band (Minority Falls) found themselves without a bass player for a show they had booked in Ortonville, MN on June 30th. That show was scheduled to happen while I was going to be on my trip. They were in a pickle, as they had a signed contract to perform, but nobody to play bass guitar.
After giving it some thought, I realized that with three minor adjustments, I could arrange to meet the band in Ortonville and fill in that night on bass guitar. I proposed that idea to my son. While having your dad play in your rock band is probably less than ideal, it was a better option than canceling the gig and breaking their contract. The Tundra Boy reluctantly agreed.
I proceeded to try to learn and memorize the 49 songs on their four-hour set list in less than two weeks. That endeavor turned out to be challenging, to say the least.
To make myself available for the Ortonville show, the first minor adjustment I would need to make to my motorcycle trip would be to leave a day earlier than planned. I had originally intended to leave on the morning of Sunday, June 25th. To make the Ortonville gig feasible, I would have to instead depart the morning of Saturday, June 24th. Not a major change, but it did eliminate the day off of work I would have to prepare before I left. This meant everything I intended to do on this Saturday would have to be jammed into an already full work week.
The second adjustment would be to reverse my route. I had originally planned the route to ride a clockwise loop. If I were to keep the original route direction, this would have meant I would have needed to ride from Missouri to Ortonville, MN on the last day of the trip (roughly 600 miles), and arrive in time with enough energy to set up and play a four hour show. That would be a tall task.
Instead, riding the route in a counter-clockwise direction would have me traveling from central Iowa to Ortonville, MN, on the last day of the trip, which is closer to 350 miles. That made the ability to meet the band to set up at 5 PM much more feasible. It still would be a very long day, but do-able. Hopefully once the stage lights went on adrenaline would take over and carry me through the performance. (spoiler alert: it mostly did.)
The final adjustment would be to add an eighth day to the trip. The band was scheduled to play until 1 AM on the 30th. Once we packed and loaded out all the equipment it would be at least 3 AM. It would be unreasonable to plan on getting on the motorcycle and riding 2.5 hours home in the middle of the night. Spending the night with the band in the hotel to get some rest and then riding home the next day on July 1st was a safer option.
I had already made all the hotel reservations for my clockwise route. Luckily, I had the foresight to only book hotels that offered free cancellation. Three hotels I canceled completely and booked new locations due to changes in where I would be staying with the updated route. For two nights I just changed the date of my stay, but kept the original hotel. One of the hotels I didn't have to change at all, as I would be staying on the exact same night as I would have using my original clockwise route. I spent some time changing my hotels, and in less than an hour had it all straightened out with the new plans made.
I did have one big concern with meeting to play with the band: they were relying on me. A mechanical problem during my trip could throw a giant wrench into everything. I was reminded of the anguish that I went through during the 2016 trip to Colorado, where I had purchased concert tickets for the evening of my return, and while traveling I started to get consumed with worry that something would happen to delay my arrival home. After that experience I had sworn I would never again schedule anything important the evening of the last day of a motorcycle trip. I kinda-sorta broke that promise on the last day of 2022's trip, and here I was again breaking that promise in 2023. Hopefully this year the anxiety won't become too overwhelming and ruin the trip for me like it did in 2016 (spoiler alert: it did.)
The week leading up to the trip was jammed full of things to do: I changed the oil in the motorcycle. I packed my luggage. I bought a last-minute piece of luggage to mount on the rack and give me some extra space. I mowed the lawn. I gave myself a haircut. I practiced the songs for the concert every night, plus an entire evening was spent practicing with the band (this was probably more for their piece of mind than mine.) Plus countless other little things that needed to be taken care of.
Two days before I left I learned that the time for the Ortonville, MN show had been changed. Previously it was scheduled for 9 PM to 1 AM. Due to complaints from the neighboring business, it got bumped up an hour to 8 PM until midnight. That meant the band would be arriving in Ortonville between 3 and 4 PM. I was originally planning to meet them closer to 5 PM. Not knowing what kind of shape I will be in after seven days of riding, I told them I may be a little late and still not arrive until 5 PM. That should still give me three hours before the show begins, so other than not being around to lug the P.A. out of the trailer, I won't miss much.
As mentioned a few paragraphs earlier, I purchased a new piece of luggage for the trip. I was concerned that I didn't have enough space. The main driver of this concern was my desire to bring my old helmet along with me. Other than wearing it around the house for a few hours, and a couple of short rides, I hadn't worn the new helmet for very long. It hadn't broken in yet, and was very tight on my face. I was worried that during my trip it would become prohibitively uncomfortable (spoiler alert: it didn't) so I wanted my old helmet to be available.
The half-helmet wouldn't fit in the saddlebags. I didn't have any room left in the trunk for it. I thought about just strapping the helmet directly to the trunk rack, but didn't like how it would flop around and possibly mar the paint. I tried using a bungee net to secure the helmet to the trunk rack, but the net was too large. I decided that a trunk bag was my best option.
On Wednesday morning I ordered a Saddlemen TR2300 bag hoping it would arrive in time for the trip. I knew I would be cutting it close. Once again Dennis Kirk's customer service knocked it out of the park, as it showed up at my house about 24 hours after I ordered it, and this was with their standard "free shipping" option.
About 11 PM the night before I was going to leave, I realized that I needed to figure out how to attach the bag to the rack. I had assumed that the straps that came with the bag would work. Unfortunately, with the way the Indian rack was designed, I couldn't get the Saddlemen straps to hold the bag in place securely. I started to fume a little in frustration. After a few minutes of self-imposed "time out", I went back out to the garage and improvised a fastening system utilizing a couple of bungee cables. It was a bit of a hack, but it worked:
An eight day journey of nearly 3,000 miles, on a new (to me) motorcycle, capped off with playing a concert. It was a really, really ambitious plan.
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This page last updated on 08/28/2023