One of the common questions Mrs. C. and
I get about our road trips is, how do both of us live out of a little
t-bag for 8-10 days. Well that is a good question. When we were
making these trips on the Vrod, we didn't even
have saddlebags. The first thing you have to do is totally change the way
you think about packing for vacation. You are not taking 2 suitcases and a carry
on for a week in Maui. You are taking a motorcycle trip with an
18x14x12 bag strapped to the sissy bar of the bike. You have to
lose the "more is better" thinking immediately and
become a "minimalist". What is a minimalist? I'm not sure, but
you will know you have become one when the zipper goes shut on the
bag.
A minimalist by definition is: "Being or
providing a bare minimum of what is necessary." That really sums it
up very good. If there are 2 of you, the first thing you need to do
is lay out all of the clothing and items you think you will need, for
example, an eight day trip. After you have done this, you will find that what
you have laid out would barely fit into the trunk of your car, much less a T-Bag
to be strapped to a motorcycle. Remember, we aren't programmed to think
minimal, so you will have to change your thought process.
What you do next is take what you have laid out
and cut it in half. Guys, if you think you need 8 shirts and 8 pair of jeans, a
fresh one for every day, get over it. It is not illegal on the road
to wear a shirt, pants and socks more than one day, especially if
you are riding in cooler country. Just get the powder scent deodorant, that
will help to make you smell fresh. Ladies, you only need one pair of shoes on a
motorcycle road trip, those are the ones attached to your feet. You are also
allowed to wear the same outfit more than one day. Remember..."a bare minimum of
what is necessary".
Once you have gotten over the fact that you
might have to wear the same shirt, pants and socks more than
once, you can both reduce your stack to
what still looks impossible to get into the bag. Now start
tightly rolling your garments securing them with a big rubber band and
position them into the bag, preferably in categories, I really don't like
sorting through bras and panties to get to my BVD's. Use every square inch of
space by rolling or sliding things in small vertical areas. Now that you
see that you still have too much stuff for the available room in the
bag, you will both have to step back and revisit what you are actually
packing for. Are you going to Maui for dinner every night at 5 star
resorts? Or is it 8 days on a motorcycle with the wind in your
face, communing with the elements of the road, getting close to nature,
enjoying the sights and smells of the great outdoors for 8-10 hours a
day? After you have brought yourself back to the reason you are packing in
the first place, you will now be able to take out a couple more
unnecessary items and be ready to close your bag.
But wait, you still have not packed your
toiletries. This is where once again, you will have to
get used to the fact that your hair might not be able to have that
bounce or shine that it has at home with your designer shampoo. Most hotels and
motels provide soap and shampoo for you to use, which means one less bottle for
the bag. Those will work just fine for these 8 days. Remember, when you are out
in the middle of Montana, no one is going to know you and no one will care if
you shampooed with Paul Mitchell or Holiday Inn. For the rest of those
personal items, get travel sizes of whatever you need that will be just enough
to last you for those amount of days on the road. This will conserve a lot of
space. Then find a small cosmetic bag to put all of these items in.
Now comes the fun part of packing for an 8 day
trip in a 4 day bag. Actually getting the bag to close and zipping it up.
I had once heard that Siegfried and Roy tried this trick in their
act, but could never get it to work. Once you have made the 2 reductions in
clothing, you will vow to not take one more thing out and will be determined to
get that sucker zipped up at any cost. This is usually a 2 person job. One
person needs to be the one to sit on the bag and compress all of the things
in the bag that you think you need to take with you, and the other one is in
charge of pulling the zipper to secure the bag. This can also be quite humorous.
So if it is a lot of effort the first time around, remember that you have to do
it 7 more times. But you will probably find that by day 3 you will be able to
open up the zipper a mere 6 inches, put your arm in the bag, find whatever you
want and pull it out without disturbing anything else in the bag.
If you find that you still did not get
everything that you wanted in the bag, which is usually the case, you can get a small carry type bag and spider
bungee it to the top of your T-Bag. These are
also useful to strap a leather jacket to the front of your bike. You can get
spider bungees at most of the motorcycle dealerships. You are now ready to strap
your bag to the bike and enjoy your trip.
I have obviously poked fun at how to pack
for a motorcycle trip, but there is also a lot of truth to what I have
said. If you are going to take more than a couple day trip on a
motorcycle, you are going to have to change the ways that you would normally
pack and wear clothes. Remember, think minimalist,
"Being or providing a bare minimum of what is necessary." If
you can grasp that train of thought, you will get by just fine. Especially if I
am going to a cooler climate, I can easily get 2 days out of a shirt and socks,
and usually 3 days out of a pair of jeans. This will cut the load on packing by
a lot. Jeans take up a lot of room. Once you get on the road, you will be so
excited to be doing what you are doing, you won't care how many days you have
worn that shirt. Hope this helps you in packing for your next
trip.
A few things that I have found to come in handy
on a trip are: flashlight, extra batteries, Advil, a three way
outlet if you need to plug in more than one charging device and there
is only one available outlet, small tube of sunscreen, small siphon hose in case
you missed that last gas station, small can of fix-a-flat and an extra spider
bungee in case you buy something on the road that you need to strap on
somewhere. I will be back next week with a full list of things to take on your
trip.
If you are like us,
you do accumulate garments along the way. About half way through, find a
UPS store and ship some stuff home.
