Preparing the route
In part 1 we stopped to explain how to prepare the route.
Now we will go a little further into this. Preparing the route in detail is the most time-consuming part of the preparation. However, by doing this extensively you will have it a lot easier during the trip itself, all you can look up in advance you don’t have it to do along the way. So be sure to take the time to prepare your route properly!
I prepare the route with basecamp (previously mapsource) from Garmin. My first device to buy was a Garmin GPS, always been satisfied with it and I think the software is great to prepare routes.
I will not go into further detail how basecamp is used, here are enough tutorials on the web. However, I can give a few tips that make it easier to use.
A number of useful tools to prepare the route include Google maps and Motorcycle Diaries. On this site you will find hundreds of routes made for and by motorcyclists. Be sure to include a few of them in your route. Recommended!
The routes
- Do not divide the daily rides in ride1, ride2, ride3, but name them as follows: 01-Monday 7 May, 02-Tuesday 8 May, etc. The numbering is to show them in order in the GPS, and the day, you will see the use of this automatically after a few days. Then you know immediately, today do I load the Thursday ride. (instead of: “Was it now ride4 or ride5?”)
- Give each day in basecamp a different color, that makes it much clearer in the preparation.
- If the route will to be used by more than one person, see that everyone uses the same activity profile (eg motorcycle, fastest route) With different profiles the route may start to deviate.
- If there are older Garmin devices with the friends, these devices convert the soft points into hard points (waypoints). So it is best to use only hard points (the known flags) when creating, so that there are no differences in the different devices.
- Try to include the stopping and sleeping places as well as sights in the route as much as possible. Again this saves time on the way.
Here the discussed points clarified in an image (basecamp)
Making choices
I choose to spend as much time as possible on our 11 day trip in the south and therefore offer the outward journey and part of the way back by doing this via the motorway. This is obviously a choice that everyone has to make for himself. This gives us a week that we can divide over a distance of about 1700 km, which means trips of +/- 250 km per day.
We ourselves will go camping most of the trip. This of course provides more luggage than when you choose a hotel for the overnight stay. Make clear agreements with each other for this, who takes what.
In part 3: what do we take with us?
Continue reading in part 3 : what do we take with us?
