phughes

I have been touring on motorcycles for 30 years. My wife and I just got back from a trip two days ago. We rode form Branson, Missouri to South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore and other sites in the area. We did over 2200 miles in a quickie vacation. We were gone five days. I'm happy my wife enjoys it as much as I do. On the way home, out last day was 756 miles. I often do 800+ mile days on my own, but that was the longest my wife had done and she loved it.

manapua_man

One of these days I want to do a 'Dumb and Dumber' trip with a moped...or an 84' Sheepdog.

enigmaT120

I've done a few multi-day tours on my bikes, a '70 Bonneville and (more often) a BMW R65 with Windjammer and and cases. I don't like to go over about 4-500 miles in a day though. It starts feeling like work. Not physically, but mentally.

Robbykills

I've been thinking about doing this with a Honda Ruckus for a minute. I wanna come up with a luggage rack system that I can use my Ortliebs on. I like the idea of a moped tour because I think I would stick to smaller more scenic roads and I do not like the idea of riding motorcycles on interstates. The convenience of motorcycle touring with the relaxed pace of bike touring.

fietsbob

maybe, this being a Bicycle Touring forum, folks should take this to Foo

cb400bill

You rang?

I've done some motorcycle touring over the years but now much prefer to ride my bicycle.

Trevtassie

I've thought about doing an extended tour in Japan on a Monkey bike (Honda Z50), but reckon better to stick with a bicycle. You can do so much more with a bicycle. Stop where you want, ride back up the foot path. Cross foot bridges. Ride through tourist sites. Park next to the ticket office.
The Monkey bike would be slow enough though. I thought about adapting my Ortliebs and racks to it. The Japanese technique is to strap a huge plastic box to the back rack.

That being said I wouldn't tour Northern Australia on a bicycle. Too long in between places, a motorcycle would be better for that.

manapua_man

I plan on using nothing but the finest in ketchup packets.

thumpism 

Interestingly, I wound up bicycle touring because of a planned motorcycle tour. I was planning several months in Europe by motorcycle and decided, based on the funds I had, I could stay longer by riding a bike instead of a motorcycle. Spent my six months on the bike and came home, then wound up in the bicycle business for about 20 years during which time I also did a little motorcycle touring. Now I'm retired and can do both.

Ovityons

I like to ride both my motorcycle and Bicycle so I built a bike rack on my V-star 950 Tourer to carry my 1983 Trek 720 Touring Bike. It is a great way to get the Bikes to the rail trails.

Kevin

DropBarFan

Creative setup--might be a good idea for Paris-Roubaix-type races where road is too narrow for team cars to quickly reach riders with mechanical problems.

djb

Now that's an idea ain't it, surprised it hasn't been used. I suspect a team only can use one vehicle or something and that's why they haven't used your idea, which is a great idea. That French rider got caught out in the tdf this year with a mechanical on the pave and lost a bunch of time, he was pissed off too!

BigAura

Personally I understand that the Blue Ridge Parkway is primarily intended as a motorway. It's a wonderful way for two & four wheeled vehicles to appreciate the beautiful area at a slower and more leisurely pace (45mph), versus the 70mph interstates. That said, I do have a problem with NOISY Harleys blaring though the wilderness when there are clearly other quieter two-wheeled-motor-vehicles (eg. Honda, BMW). I agree that most the riders I've met are polite and enjoying themselves, but are also oblivious to fact that they are selfishly infringing on others via unnecessary NOISE pollution. </2cents>

max5480

the boring parts can sometimes be the most magical

DropBarFan

IIRC the Harleys I saw there were mostly touring-type w/quieter exhaust pipes. I agree, some Harleys are obnoxiously loud but those seem to be more for guys that cruise around beaches & stuff.

jon c. 

Spent some time riding a motorcycle around the country in the late 70s, but I never thought of it as touring. It was a lot easier/more acceptable to just sleep under the stars wherever you wanted to stop.

Shimagnolo

When I first starting riding (motor)bikes again two years ago, I started noticing that *half* of them were HD's!
Then I started realizing that a large portion of those were really Japanese v-twins that just looked liked HD's.
I finally figured out how to tell them apart:
- If it is quiet, it is probably a Japanese v-twin.
- If it is loud as hell, it is definitely an HD.

Only HD riders feel the need to replace a perfectly good exhaust system with obnoxiously-loud aftermarket junk.

djb

I dunno, seems to me that even 30 years ago plenty of folks on sports bikes have enjoyed putting on raunchy aftermarket pipes onto all kinds of different engines.

Tundra_Man 

I've done a motorcycle tour every year for the last decade. I photo-journal all of them on my website, both for people who are interested and for others who have insomnia.

Motorcycles - The Tundra Man Workshop

Just got back from my 2015 trip at the end of July. I have the write-up about three-fourths done. Hopefully I have it posted in the next week or two.

I'm primarily a bicycle commuter. I've yet to do a bicycle tour, but I'd like to try some day. My biggest issue is the time away from work and family. I can get some meaningful miles covered on a motorcycle in 4-5 days, but I wouldn't get too far in that same amount of time on my bicycle. Plus I love motorcycle touring so much that I'm not going to give it up, which means a bicycle tour would have to happen in addition to my motorcycle trip, and that might be a hard sell to the wife.

Two wheels good, for wheels bad!

vik 

I've done a bunch of moto touring and ride my moto several times a week.

I prefer to tour by bicycle and tend to spend my holidays doing that instead of touring with the moto. If I had more time off I'd tour with the moto more. I enjoy both, but bicycle touring is more satisfying for me partially because I'm powering the tour and partially because I can go more remote places that motos are either illegal or impractical.

thumpism 

Lots of good ideas for bike mounts on motorcycles to be found here:

Bicycles mounted on motorcycle picture thread | Adventure Rider

tbginger

I've done a bunch of touring by motorcycle, mostly on my Kawasaki KLR650.



Been across to Ontario, up to Inuvik, NWT on the Dempster, a ton of gravel touring in BC, and the big one was across to Newfoundland and back, taking a little detour to Guatemala on the way there.

I've kinda cooled down from the whole motorcycle thing, although I still use one for my main mode of transportation if I need to head somewhere further than a bicycle can go in a reasonable time. Thumpism posted a good place to get info on mounting bicycles, and it's been in the back of my mind to do something similar on my Vstrom so I could take my XC bike to trails that are a little further away.

What got me hooked on riding was the full sensory experience of being on the road, being able to feel and smell the areas you pass through along with seeing them. From a little tour I did by bicycle last year, I get the same feeling, but with the reward of powering my butt the entire way there, along with the slower pace that you can see detail at a whole new level. I do think bicycle touring and motorbike touring have a lot of similarities. Bicycle touring, I reckon, is just at a much higher resolution.

no motor?

Like this? Iron Butt Rally - 1995 IBR - Ed Otto's Helix Ride I was a biker for long time and did some multi day trips on my boxers and thought I'd try bicycle touring when I resumed bicycling but really lost that urge to wander. I like being home every night, and my motorcycle camping gear was made for comfort, not bicycle touring.

manapua_man

Pretty much. I've been meaning to make an attempt to take my Supercub around Honshu one of these days too.

Sharpshin

For 12 years and 250,000 miles of my life whatever motorcycle I owned was my only transportation. I took several long road trips, mostly back East from Texas to visit relatives, but also made it out to Idaho.

Last one I did was five years ago on my old '92 KLR, as can be seen I wasn't hi-tech, but I DID put in 700-1,000 mile days on that rig....





It is completely awesome to cross the continent on a motorcycle but as folks have pointed out, its not even in the same genre as bicycle touring. For one thing it is much, much easier.



As best I can put it; I have future bicycle tours planned, don't have any planned on a motorcycle.
If I ever found myself single, I would buy a motorcycle to meet and entertain women, same reason I rode 'em the first time around (I met and courted my wife on that KLR 650, back when it was new.

Mike