Road-tripping is an adventure in itself as it brings to you a sense of independence, a chance to see different cultures and taste different types of food around the world. With so many great landscapes to explore, riding motorcycles is incredibly fascinating and tempting for the riders. Whether you road-trip with a club or you are a lone-wolf biker, you can do almost every kind of riding imaginable— from the twisty mountain passes to the flat grasslands, and from the curvy Ocean highways to the sweeping skyways.
In the adventure-driven environment of today, there is no better experience than taking a complete trip on your motorcycle. However, your adventure can turn into a disaster if not planned properly. You need to do a perfect packing for your trip; neither over packing nor under packing. Instead of doing prodigious and all-inclusive packing, you should pack according to your destination and its climate.
Here we have listed down some packing tips that will make your ride an enjoyable one while ensuring you have only what you need.
What kind of luggage do I need?
Before you decide what to pack for a multi-day trip, you need to figure out how you’re going to carry it. If you have a touring bike with built-in saddlebags or tank bag, no worries there. But for bikes with no such facilities, you should try to bring the only definitely needed items in your backpack. All trips are unique and people pack different according to the needs and type of the trip, here are some most important items needed for a bike trip.
- Clothing: As far as clothing is concerned, try to bring multipurpose clothes. It is recommended to bring more tops and fewer bottoms.
- First aid kit / Medical: You should take a first aid kit, which should include some medicines for common diseases like flu, diarrhea, cough, headache, and fever.
- Tracing and Communication: You will need a GPS device beside a map and a helmet that can help you communicate with fellow bikers.
- Riding Gear: For a bike trip, riding gears like gloves, helmet, vest, boots, and bottom are very important for your safety and comfort. Viking Cycle is one of the best sources for buying motorcycle gears.
- Important Documents: The documents you need for your trip include, passport, driving license, motorcycle documents, credit cards, and maps.
- Food: You should bring some snacks and dried fruits for your trip too.
- Stuff for safety against corona: As the world is dealing with the corona pandemic, you need to take recommended safety measures for your trip. Bring some face masks, hand sanitizers, and medical gloves with you on your trip.
- Camping equipment: When you are road-tripping, you never know when you have to sleep in a camp. So, its highly recommended to bring a sleeping bag, mat and a camp on your trip.
- Toiletries: You also need some items to keep up your hygiene and grooming duties. When you are road-tripping does take these items with you, bug repellents, soap, shampoo, deodorant, sunblock, toothbrush, toothpaste, and shaving items. You can skip some of them if the motel you are going to stay offers those things.
How to pack your stuff?
Heavy on the Bottom:
Heavy stuff should be in the bag that you will mount on the bike. In most cases, you put your heavy items in your saddlebags given that your bike has this luxury. It will save you from the worry of keeping the weight balance. However, if you don’t have a saddlebag, take a big sack, which should be weather-proof, durable, and flexible to accommodate different stuff, for the large stuff. If you have more than one heavy item, it is recommendable to balance them equally on both sides, but always closest to the bag as said earlier.
Packing for two:
When you are riding with your partner, you need to do some compromises. It’s recommended to bring fewer clothes and more money because a passenger along you is already covering some space and you also have to carry her clothes. Try to get your clothes washed from a motel laundry whenever you get a chance. Hotels also provide you with some stuff that you need when you are on a trip. Also, it’s not some kind of party where you have to wear very tidy clothes. Moreover, if you are traveling in a group or with a club, you can share your items with each other and everyone not needs to bring all the stuff.
Pack Small:
First of all, bring as few clothes as you can; try to use multiple tops with a single bottom. Four tops, two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks and underwear, one pair of shoes and two pairs of gloves are all you need for your trip. You can wash them on the way if they are not thick cotton clothes, they will get dry very soon. Secondly, while packing them roll these clothes and put them into the mesh bag, it will help you save some space.
Multitask:
Take items that can be used for multiple purposes. There are some casual clothes which can be used as sleeping clothes. Some casual shoes which can be used for stretching on the trip. You can also bring some multi-purpose bags like a waterproof bag which can occasionally act as a raincoat too. This technique will surely help you to minimize space.
Learn to prioritize:
Prioritizing your luggage is very important to save some space. You should bring all-weather clothing on your trip because you never know when the weather changes from hot to chilling cold in the mountains. Moreover, a rain suit is also an important item to bring even if the weather forecast shows no rain. Don’t bring items that you need just in case kind of stuff.
The upshot:
Traveling is the most thrilling experience and when you do road-tripping on a two-wheeler, you will get a beer and skittles experience. Behind its adventurous part, road-trip can turn into misery if you are not fully prepared for that is coming your way. What to pack and how to pack is one of the biggest confusion and if you do good packing, you will save yourself from lots of troubles. Here in this article, we tried to guide you in this regard
