The Essential Guide to Motorcycle Travel: Tips, Technology, Advanced Techniques
by Dale Coyner
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Book Summary Information
Author: Dale CoynerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-03-15
ISBN: 1884313590
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Whitehorse Press
Book Reviews of The Essential Guide to Motorcycle Travel: Tips, Technology, Advanced Techniques
Book Review: This is the book I wish I'd had when I started touring.
Summary: 5 Stars
Imagine that you are in your late 30s, you've never owned a motorcycle in your life, and you want to begin motorcycle touring. Where would you begin to find out? That is the dilemma that I had when I first got into the sport, eleven years and 100,000 miles ago. Mostly, I got information from word of mouth, members of our local BMW club, and blind experimentation.
Someone starting out today, however, would not have as hard a time getting started because of Dale Conyer's wonderful new book, the Essential Guide to Motorcycle Travel, Tips, Technology, Advanced Techniques. What I found was a veritable encyclopedia of information that is just as valuable to this experienced learner as it would have been to my newbie self a decade ago.
The book is organized into sections entitled:
Planning your trip
Preparing yourself
Outfitting your bike
On the road
The section on planning your trip lays out all of the essential questions that must be answered before you leave home. Yes, I've left home with some basics and expected to "wing it" but the result is usually less than satisfactory. Using Dale's checklist and putting some rudimentary planning into a trip is going to pay dividends when you are in a convenience store, asking the Highway Patrolman getting a slurpee if he would stay in the motel across the road. When he answers, "no way," and you end up riding another 30, groggy miles, you will wish you had planned better.
The section on preparation is valuable as well. It covers what to wear as well as what you should have between your ears in the nature of mental preparation.
Something that I'd never seen approached in a systematic way before was "What's all this gear gonna cost?" I must admit, that acquiring gear a piece at a time from vendors at rallies, used from the internet, or at my local BMW dealer was my preferred approach to assembling a crapload of motorcycling gear. I'm not sure that if I had done the budget, I wouldn't have chosen a cheaper hobby, like sailing. Just kidding, anything for boats is expensive.
The largest portion of the book is devoted to farkles, the mechanical modifications that we all make to our machines in search of better tunes, more comfort, more visibility, more MORE. There are chapters on tunes, lights, cockpit electronic countermeasures and position systems, and cameras. Part of the appeal of this book is that there are really useful illustrations showing wiring and set up for electrical connections with relays and fuses.
Finally, the book concludes with the section "On the Road." This section includes a chapter with tips for putting it all together, which gives handy lists detailing what to do at six to twelve months before the trip, two weeks before, the week before, up to the day before. If you have ever had to pull an all nighter working on your bike so you can be ready to meet your buddies at oh-dark-thirty for a six-hundred mile ride, this might spare you that fate.
The last chapter in this section and in the book deals with Contingencies. It is an essential for anyone who decides that they are going cross county on a bike. That is my picture on p. 161. My wife and I had a broken throttle cable in Socorro, NM, over 800 miles from our home in Kansas and a long way from a BMW dealer. We met some good Samaritans that helped us get to a dealer in Albuquerque and back on the road.
This book will help you prepare and execute any motorcycle tour that is more demanding than your local club bike night or poker run. It's well worth the money.
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Summary of The Essential Guide to Motorcycle Travel: Tips, Technology, Advanced Techniques
This book is written to help motorcyclists prepare themselves and their motorcycles for traveling long distances over extended periods. Whether you are getting ready for a weekend trip beyond your home turf or for a transcontinental odyssey lasting several years, Coyner's book details the fundamentals for riding in comfort, safety, and convenience. In three major sections, the book covers trip planning, rider preparation, and outfitting the motorcycle. An appropriate level of planning for a long motorcycle trip can help maximize enjoyment and minimize irritating annoyances on the road. Coyner lays out the steps for planning a worry-free, fun trip. Over 250 full-color photographs illustrate riding gear, accessories, and modifications that will make any motorcycle adventure the trip of a lifetime.
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