When in Rome, do as the Roman’s do. Finally the time has come to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, ride coast to coast USA. Life has managed to get in the way for several years but this year I was having none of it and said to the Mrs I was just popping out on my bike, again. Well not actually my bike but a hire bike. She was well up for it, which was a result. However things unraveled. ‘Jorg the laughing German’ was recruited, my bro number 2 was also recruited as was his Mrs, happy days. She however after giving it some thought bailed preferring to walk up Annapurna in the Himalayas instead! Whattt the? She couldn’t see the attraction of sitting on a motorbike for such long distances, fair enough. At which point my Mrs understandably bailed as well, preferring not to be the only female. She also declined the invitation to walk up Annapurna, which I can also understand, who a blame her, that’s a serious schlep. Instead she chose to go and see our one and only grand child and our son in Amsterdam. Which left Pedro the Cruel (bro 2), Jorg the Laughing German and myself. Well will you look at that, a boys trip. Everyone’s happy, result. Jorg and I got up early the other day, caught the train to Gatwick and are thanking our lucky stars that we were not held up by the bonfire at Heathrow, which I suspect a number of others may well be. The weather was fantastic, with the early morning frost Britain looked at its best and laughing boy was impressed. So here’s a picture with a flare from the train window. Meanwhile Pedro the Cruel left rain lashed southern Spain, flew to Barcelona, then Mexico City and a short hop to sunny Orlando Florida. Today we’ve recovered from the flights and prepped for the tour. We went to the shops and tried to buy some strap on beer bellies and ZZ Top grey beards but failed miserably. Won’t we just be the odd ones out because tomorrow we pick up three Harley’s from EagleRider Orlando and head, errrr, east! Not west. When in Rome do as the Romans do. You know, Make America Great Again, ride a Harley, some of it is put together in York, Pennsylvania don’tcha know. What happened to Milwaukee? It wasn’t a choice anyway. We’re going over to Daytona not just because I want to go to Daytona but because then and only then can we say we’ve actually done coast to coast.
Lived 4 years in the Pensacola Beach area (Gulf Breeze). These are the most beautiful beaches in North America, with sands as white as snow. They call it the Emerald Coast. Don’t miss it! And for dinner, try their blackened mahi, grouper or red snapper (fish in the Gulf of Mexico is incredibly good) as well as their pulled pork barbecue. That’s the typical southern dish along with fried green tomatoes, grit and catfish nuggets. All absolutely delicious… Further west, in NOLA, try gumbo and jambalaya, typical creole dishes. Texas barbecue is to die for as well! That’ll change from highway food… For the rest, well, riding my 848 in the US was the most boring experience I have ever had as a motorcycle rider. To the point that I quit riding altogether after a year an a half… You can’t split lanes (except in California), so don’t try to pass cars on a single carriage way or go to the front of the line at a traffic light. You will get dirty looks or even pulled over and fined. Brace yourselves up for Texas, as this will be a very long stretch. Long as a day without bread, as we say here in France. Especially West Texas… I would have personally angled a bit further north to the Tail of the Dragon (North Carolina to Tennessee), a very famous an exhilarating stretch of road that attracts bikers from all over the US. I never got to ride it. Even when my neighbour invited me to join him and his buddies on a trip up there. Riding straight at 55 mph amidst a bunch of HDs for 11 hours one way… I passed. Also, be extremely cautious with the weather. Tornadoes, thunderstorms, etc. Missouri was hit not long ago, if I am not mistaken. Monitor the weather forecast very closely… Godspeed for your very long trip coast to coast! PS: I did a very similar road trip (and return) in my 69 Mustang in 2015. Started from Key West US road one mile 0, for the symbol and cruised all the way to SF. Two weeks.
Have a great trip Sam, no doubt you'll continue in the same vein and provide us with updates on your experience. How long are you intending to take for the coast > coast?
All good advice and gratefully received. Last time I rode a Harley, which was probably 10 years ago I/we went to The Tail of the Dragon. It was hilarious, most of the Americans had no idea how to take a bend. They were obviously so used to doing long straights and 90 degree corners. We swept up and down the canyon and ground the running boards/foot boards into the tarmac, sparks all over the place. I remember seeing one guy going round a bend like it was a 50pence piece (pentagon to you). Wobble, wobble, wobble. At the top of the Canyon they have a tree called The Tree of Shame where they hang parts from the many motorcycle wrecks. Great stuff. We don’t do big groups of bikes all plodding along either, just not our thing. I’ll be sure to try the food, some I had on my list already but great to find out about more. My main concerns about the whole trip, getting bored of the food and long straight roads
I did the tail if the dragon a couple of years ago. In a car unfortunately. Be great on a sports bike.
We’ve got 15 days. Apparently loads of people hire in California and ride to Daytona week then fly back. As a result EagleRider do a great offer in order for people to ride their bikes back rather them having to truck them back. I offered to ride more than one back if they paid me enough. It fell on deaf ears and I got sick looks. Hmmm, American humour. Now there’s a thing. No no, I mustn’t say detrimental things, let’s make America great agin. Which reminds me, there was a guy getting on the plane at Gatwick wearing Trump cap. Bold move I thought. They searched his baggage for the second time before allowing him on the aeroplane, yes aeroplane.
We did a US C2C in September 22, started in San Francisco and finished in NYC about a month later. We had longer stays in Page Arizona, Yellowstone, St Louis, Pittsburgh all book ended with four night stays at the start & finish. We hired a BMW RT from Eagle Rider. We had one wet day, but the heat in the first few days of riding were extreme. We loved the whole event, enjoy and ride safe.
On a completely different trip we had four nights in New Orleans, absolutely loved it, a great destination.
Hello. That looks like a great trip, and I wish you well. I have toured on a motorcycle quite extensively in the USA, and often using Eaglerider one way rental, although Some HD dealerships offer a similar service now. Flagstaff, not far from Kingman, is worth a visit, and Kingman is not too far from the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and Las Vegas of course. I suggest caution on a motorcycle at 4 Way Junctions, as not every other road user follows the first-come first-served and priority to the right rule. Obviously, on a Harley, keep your eye on tyres, fuel and oil consumption, and we have found the all fill-up together rule works well. Have a great trip, and I'm envious. Good Luck. Tom.
There's some lovely little towns around the bottom of those southern states. One that stands out was ocean springs in mississippi. Lovely beaches, shame you can't go in the water
Enjoy your trip Sam. I have to admit, this wouldn't interest me remotely. Harleys + the good ole US of A, what's (not) to like..............
Oh what a day. “Ok guys here’s the plan. We get up early because we’ll probably be awake anyway, leave the bags packed in the rooms, get outside at the front well before 7.00 Get the first shuttle bus to EagleRider. Give them the driving license and credit card details again. Pick up the bikes, back to the hotel for breakfast. Load up the bikes, check out, all by what? 10 probably”. Yehaaa. “Good plan”. All agreed. What could possibly go wrong? Everything went well for the first 30 seconds. Outside the front we discovered that 98 out of over 100 bikes had decided on the same strategy, doh! It was rammed. The Italian contingent had done this before and jumped the queue by taking Ubers. Fair enough. We got on the 2nd shuttle bus which was a result in the circumstances. When we got to Eagle Rider, there was a massive queue and only two people checking us in. An hour later tempers started to fray, especially the French. Zut alors et merde! This was made far worse because instead of checking out all the bikes, the two guys behind the tills were doing transactions for the Italians who were buying out the shop, T-shirts, scarves, helmets, trinkets etc etc. Why couldn’t they have done that before like Jorg the laughing German and I. We had gone down to Eagle Rider a day or so before, to check things out. We’d given them our credit card details etc and while doing so I spotted an Easy Rider style helmet behind the cash desk, hilarious. I couldn’t bring my full face helmet because of the baggage allowance and I wasn’t keen on the half shell helmets but an easy rider style helmet….nah, a bit much. However, there was another open face lid with red stripes and a big star on the side, a bit more reserved, which looked much better, with better lining and it was a really good fit. “Perfect.Yeah I’ll take it”. I was very happy with my impulse buy. In fact I have to confess, I was seriously happy with it. So unbeknown to me for the princely sum of $99 I became Captain Americaaaa! ‘Yeeehaaaa, way to go! Let’s make America gread agin’. I just didn’t clock it. Hilarious. Meanwhile back in the queue, Pedro had to go and sit down because of his bad back. The Italians were buying and jumping the queue. The French were getting cross and very vocal. The Germans were surprisingly cool and the British just took it quietly, talked bikes but underneath were getting very fucked off. The Americans who were serving, were very polite, as ever but it was a shit show. Is there any nationality I haven’t stereotyped? I hope not, I love political incorrectness. An hour and 45 minutes later, we got keys to the bikes and then spent a good deal of time fighting with a satnavs. Eventually, I put the keyless fob in my pocket and well behind schedule we headed back to the hotel for breakfast. My first reaction was Jeez, this thing truly is agricultural. Oh well, only 3,000 miles to go. Bub, blub, blub, shake, shake, shake. We got back to the hotel and as I got off the bike, Jorg the not laughing German pulled up next to me and announced loudly; “Oh! My key’s gone, my key has gone from the ignition!” Whereupon Pedro said; “Oh! Mine’s gone too, it’s gone from the ignition!” Knowing no better, they both turned the engines off. These two tractors now were truly keyless. How many expletives can you get into one sentence? Seemingly there are only two bits of sophistication on a Harley, a shatnav and keyless ignition. Both their own bikes had ignition keys, they didn’t know and nobody had told them it was just a steering lock key, it was in the ignition! What could possibly go wrong? How many expletives can you get into a second sentence?
Things can only get better. I got straight back on the bike because it was the only one that worked and went back to EagleRider, in search of keys. When we left earlier, the first thing we did was take a wrong turn and went down to a little dead end industrial estate. We’d had to do a U-ey and I had a hunch. I did my Hawkeye thing and there they were, a set of keys + clueless fob, lying on the ground. Perfect, not crushed by truck wheels, just perfect. Result, one down one to go however try as I might, I tracked the whole journey back-and-forth but the second set of keys had disappeared. So I hatched the plan with the EagleRider guys, Pedro could put a pin in and make the bike work and they would arrange a new key for the steering and luggage. Jorg would become laughing boy again and off we go. So eventually, we were out of EagleRider nice and early…. At 12:30 pm. From that point the day got better. We blub blub blubbed to Kennedy space Centre and took pictures of the rockets for my grandson. We didn’t go in because we just didn’t have time. Then we headed off up the coast to Daytona which is a place that I’ve wanted to go to since I was about 14. Daytona itself looked a bit down at heel, however we don’t think we saw the best parts of it. We headed to the speedway which I have to say was truly impressive. The stand was absolutely massive. I’ve certainly never seen anything that size in Europe. The track still has sections of banking and it must be a real spectacle when there is a race on there. Today however There was a classic car meet so we watched them by this time it was about 4 o’clock and it was finishing and we watched some of the cars leave. Every single one seem to have a really deep throating V8 engine which the drivers loved to gun the engines as they left the track. It certainly put a smile on my face seeing all those classic cars and I spotted this 1958 Buick, which I’m glad to say mine is in much better condition than that one however it’s a style apparently which I won’t be subscribing to. I like my vehicles to be absolutely puckka and as the present Mrs. H will attest to, my obsession is getting worse or better depending on your point of view. We took pictures and then blubbed off in the direction of Saint Augustine, which is the oldest city in the entirety of the North American continent. Which was clearly evident in the really attractive looking old Spanish style architecture. One to come back to. We went out for dinner in the evening, met a nice young American couple and had a great chat with them. Afterwards Pedro and I agreed that despite our mirth we like America, we really enjoy it. We’d ridden Harleys in the sunshine, we’d been to the Kennedy Space Center and Daytona Speedway and despite everything we’d had a great day.
