Day 01

 First day of our trip started today. We rode from Bristol, TN to Hopkinsville, KY, around 370 miles. To start out with, last night I attempted to start my laptop and it is dead. I was going to run a check disk function because I was going to install a new SSD drive. While the bottom cover was off, I vacuumed the dust in the fans. My theory is the vacuum introduced static electricity into the components. So it appears to be toast. The smart dash went out for some reason, but after a stop, it started working again. 

René and I went for a walk after we settled in and on the walk came across one of my ROK straps in the road. How it got there from inside my top case, I have no clue. Unfortunately a car had run over the buckle breaking it.

I would not have been able install the new drive anyway because the Amazon two day delivery did not come through (again). While traveling, I have been trying to procure another laptop that has the specs to be able to process video. Hopefully when we get to Springfield, MO there will be better choices in stores and laptops. Until I can get a new laptop, and get it loaded with the correct software, I am doing this blog on a tablet and I won't be able to include photos and video.

The ride was not bad. The GPS for the most part worked. There were some extra detours that I was able to avoid. I did have to restart the route a number of times to get it to direct us. The error in the routing appears to be the route doesn't align with the roadway. I suspect this could be an issue with the other routes created for this trip. I will know better with the next few routes during the next few days. 

Tomorrow we head to Springfield, MO. The challenge will be the weather. Rain and thunderstorms predicted for the whole trip of 370 miles. No predicted threat of tornadoes,  but heavy rain, hail and winds are a possibility. I installed pin locks on our face shields to hopefully keep the fogging down. The new Gortex gear will hopefully keep us dry.

 I am working on getting things working. The bike is set up with a number of cameras. There is the two camera dash cameras for documentation of an incident. The old dash cams on my other bikes were much easier to work in getting the Micro SD card out. The unit I am using for this dash cam set up is actually a Chigee Smart Dash. Now all your motorcycle dash cam makers seal the card and use blue tooth or wifi to transfer files. The problem is the bike has to be powered up which drains the battery. Plus the file transfer is not that fast and you need another device to receive the data. Then transfer that data to the device you will use to process the data into a video. To eliminate that monkey circus I will try to use a 360 camera, a hand held gopro style camera, a helmet camera, and possibly a little cheap video camera. The 360 camera can be a circus in itself as the video below shows. The transitions are slow, but that is mainly because I do not know how to process that video very well. It is a test video, but one I processed on my desktop. I have to try it on the laptop to see if the laptop can process it. The helmet camera has always worked well except for the last three trips I broke it off the helmet each time so it became useless for the rest of the trip. I have since machined a mount for it so it should stay attached to the helmet. In the following video I used clips from the 360 camera and the helmet camera while doing a shake down ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

 

 

 

 

This next video is another test with a cheap hand held video camera. You can see it has no such thing as image stabilization despite it having it, or so it says. I explain the bike a little and it is one of the few narrated videos I will ever do. You will see and hear why.

 

 

 

 

 I am starting this new blog for our 2024 journey to Alaska. I first did this trip with my first blog in 2010. I bought a new 2009 BMW R1200GS in the Spring of 2010 for that trip. You can see that trip and some other trips on my original blog, fabiusrider.blogspot.com .The last trip on there is partially on my latest blog before this one at fabiusrider2017.blogspot.com . Last year we did Newfoundland and that can be found on that blog. If you are going to visit those blogs keep in mind the latest post is the first post you will see, so it reads backwards. I haven't found a way to reverse that. We can be tracked live on the blog by visiting or clicking on a link I will have on the blog page.

For the 2024 trip, I purchased a new/used 2023 BMW R1250 GS Adventure Rally Edition. It was used with 179 miles on it. I have had it in for it's break in service, and I have added a bunch of things to it. One challenge I am having is getting all the bluetooth items running together at the same time. Another challenge is mapping the routes. In the past I have tried Garmin Basecamp and frankly, the developers should be kicked off the planet. I have a few other programs but they all just load the start and end points and the GPS calculates what it wants to route instead of what I have routed. I am trying a program called Tyre 2 Navigate and it does load all my waypoints and appears to use voice commands. My test with it was brief but I hope to complete a better test in a few days. The problem with the software is it is buggy and glitchy, freezing up often, and scrolling the map is a painful endeavor. The program has great potential, but for me it is a challenge working with it. I have loaded into my GPS 36 routes. I will add some fun rides that we will do while at the rallies.

Here are some facts or projections on this trip:

Total Days Planned : 56

Days Traveling: 36

Days for exploring and rides: 20

Travel Miles (excluding exploring and errand miles): 11418

Average miles a day on travel days: 317

High mileage day: 488

Low Mileage Day: 115 (note that Homer to Seward was not GPS and that mileage could be close)

Estimated fuel usage (excluding exploring and errand miles) at 42 MPG is: 271.8 gallons

Fill ups at 5 gallons a time results in 55 fuel stops for 36 days of travel, excluding exploration and errand usage.

Where we have the opportunity, we are staying at hotel/motels that offer free breakfast. We will make PBJ sandwiches for lunch and have modest dinners whenever possible. This will save on two meals a day and require just purchasing fluids and dinner.