Ray's Motorcycle Experience

Camping is another of my passions these last few years. Probably influenced by my brother, sister-in-law, and one of my first cousins all of which are avid campers and love the outdoors. Even before the Yamaha was found and purchased had thoughts of traveling on the motorcycle, not staying in hotels but rather camping overnight, saving money and doing something enjoyable at the same time. (Doing this while recovering from bypass surgery done in January of 2019.) Side note: they told me I shouldn’t be riding a motorcycle for at least the remainder of 2019, too much vibration? It came up in conversation with one of my nurses who rides. 🙂

I’ve seen where other people have camped during their travels on a motorcycle carrying all they required, tent, sleeping bag, food, clothes, etc…. but for the life of me I could not see how to carry all the things I would need on a long journey possibly multiple states and weeks at a time. Maybe it’s because my requirements are many in that I really like to stay as clean as possible, eat well, and sleep in more comfort that just a tent and pad to lay on? 🙂

Since I had not done a lot of camping alone in a long time my first task was to basically figure out what supplies and and other requirements would be needed, yep, made a list. This list of course came from conversations with my camping experts, brother, sister-in-law, and first cousin who I actually visited in TN back in August of 2019. Had never been to Tennessee so it was quite an experience. Spent a week with my cousin and then a week with my best friend from high school days who also lives in Tennessee, another area of the state. Saw sites and things of interest that I had only seen in books and TV. It was an awesome trip. May go back someday on the motorcycle.

Okay, sorry I get side tracked sometime so back to the process of making the list, food, bedding, clothes, toiletries, fire wood, tent, etc etc etc….. no way in hell was that all going on a motorcycle.

First thought was maybe I should consider a small RV camper that was self contained and then tow my motorcycle on a trailer behind. That way I could camp at great places for motorcycle riding, have a place to sleep and ride the area during the day. Great idea right? Yes, good idea but way too much money involved in finding the right RV. Way out of my budget, so that was discarded after a few days maybe weeks of looking and thinking about the situation. Remember these thoughts were before finding the right motorcycle right price.

Then it hit me, I already had a truck, all that I needed was the right trailer to tow the motorcycle one I could use for carrying all I needed plus a place to sleep after unloading the motorcycle. So the search began, needed to be a covered trailer at least twelve feet long and inside height of six feet or more. Also had to have a style door that when lowered would be a ramp to load the bike. Timeline: This planning was happening during and after my trip to Tennessee, August, September, October and into November of 2019.

First things first, had to make a decision on one of the many motorcycles that I had been looking at and researching. FOUND it, 2005 Yamaha Roadstar XV1700 located at Rucker’s Auto and Cycle Sales in Enterprise, Alabama. This was somewhere in the first week of November 2019. Had to go see it, turned out was a beautiful bike, had lots been done to it recently, and was in excellent shape mechanically and otherwise. Even had a cup holder, phone mount with charger. Perfect for me and fit into my price range. It had all the bells and whistles I wanted and more. Owner Danny Toole was very nice and worked with me on every question or concern I might have. Even helped me at the local Credit Union to get financing. Long story short, Danny loaned me a trailer (didn’t own one at that time) to bring the bike home which I did on November 14, 2019. 🙂

This post is getting long so will cut if off now but stay tuned for Motorcycle Camping Part 2 coming out soon! 🙂

Remember not an “Old Biker” by definition, just an old man (by birth certificate) that loves to ride motorcycles. Feel free to leave comments and suggestions. Stay tuned, hit that follow button to be notified when next post publishes. 🙂

Tags: camping, motorcycle, motorcyclecamping, motorcycletrailer

This entry was posted on April 1, 2021 at 8:22 pm and is filed under My Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.