Snowbird - ride or haul it?

 

My winter destination is Phoenix, Az; 1655 miles (2758 km) from here
(Vancouver, BC) and I want a bike to ride when I'm there. I'm not sure
how I'm traveling, or when. Maybe mid-November or just after Christmas.
However the idea of riding a motorcycle a thousand or so miles through
late fall or winter weather with the risk of snow doesn't make much
sense.

A friend suggested I take the Dnepr with sidecar, which wouldn't fall
down in snow. During the Great Patriotic War I'm sure there was more
than one Hero of the Soviet Union who rode long distances on a rig like
mine in all kinds of weather, winter included. 1650 miles is about
the distance to Berlin from Rostov-na-Don (which took the Red Army
2 years to fight their way over). However its cruising speed is 50 mph,
adequate for war-torn terrain on the Eastern Front but not modern
American highways.

So I've been thinking about camper vans and motor homes, hauling
the bike inside or on a rack. I'm not sure how to estimate fuel cost,
does 30 cents per mile sound realistic? That would be about $500
one-way.

SQ

 

Try to rent something when you get there.

A quick Google search shows several places to rent everything from Harleys
to sport bikes.

You might want to call first.  You will probably face drama without an AZ
drivers license, but folks there seem to respond well to courtesy and
respect...unlike CA, unfortunately.  You'll probably need to plunk down a
large deposit.  They'll put a hold for X amount on your credit card.

Renting a motorhome is going to cost a fortune, especially in fuel.  In
fact, I suspect it'll cost as much as a cheap bike, if not more.

You might want to consider renting a trailer.  It'll be a hell of a lot
cheaper, even if you have to have a hitch installed on your car.  The only
drama with that is parking at hotels or motels, and trying to sleep between
running to the window to check on your bike every time you hear a thump
outside.

Be sure to visit Tombstone for the awesome western thing and Bisbee for,
well, it's just a cool place to go.

CS

 



I stayed at Motel 6 several times while trying to tour by motorcycle,
and being paranoid about motorcycle security was one of the things
that soured me on motorcycle touring.

There were people driving through the Motel 6 parking lot *all night
long*, and some Motel 6's had dangerous-looked people who seemed to be
living there and they would be standing around on the sidewalks
drinking beer and saying "Wassup, dude?" to passersby.

I learned to disconnect the telephone before going to bed, because I
would be awakened by men asking for some woman who'd worked out of
that room the previous night.

The other thing that got really old on motorcycle tours was having to
take off my gloves, helmet, jacket and figure a way to lock all that
stuff to the bike so I could walk out to a vista point, snap a
picture, walk back, unlock all that stuff, put the jacket, helmet and
gloves back on, then ride the motorcycle a half mile down the road and
repeat the whole routine.

After I'd done that five times in an hour, I decided that touring
national parks by motorcycle was silly.

And there were thousands of *cars* in the national park, but there
were only a half dozen crazies on motorcycles.

It's just so much simpler to fly into Sky Harbor in Phoenix, rent an
economy car, throw my junk into the car and drive all over Arizona in
my T-shirt and shorts, just like the sane tourists.

An even better way to tour Arizona is to forget the motorcycle tour
completely and rent a small RV. The beauty of the RV is that you can
always sleep in it on some dirt road if it gets dark before you get to
a town that has an RV campground.

And RV-er's can also park overnight at Wal*Mart in many towns. They
expect RV-er's will want to buy something in the morning.

 


I stayed at a Phoenix Motel 6 twice. SWAT team made an arrest at 6pm,
rather
inoffensive looking chap.While checking into the same motel a couple
of months later a
female attempted to run over her boyfriend in the parking lot . She
made two passes
but he was agile. Price was right and I was carrying.

tt

 

<snip>
I stayed at a Phoenix Motel 6 twice. SWAT team made an arrest at 6pm,
rather
inoffensive looking chap.While checking into the same motel a couple
of months later a
female attempted to run over her boyfriend in the parking lot . She
made two passes
but he was agile. Price was right and I was carrying.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beats the hell out of cable TV!

CS