Alone Or In A Group
You have to decide if you're going
to travel alone or with others. There are advantages
and disadvantages to both choices. I like both
depending on my mood and who the others may be.
During the past five years I've found that whenever
I travel alone I get rained on about half the time
I'm on the bike, sometimes more. If I travel with
someone else I never even take out my rain suit,
even when I can see thunderstorms on all points
around me. There may be some cosmic meaning here but
I'm too dense to figure it out.
Touring Alone
If you travel alone you can do
whatever you want whenever you want. This can be
very nice. You also tend to make much better time -
high mileage days are MUCH easier when you're alone.
It's also easier to find a place to sleep since you
only have to satisfy your own motel or campsite
requirements.
On the down side there is no one
to talk to on breaks or during meals. If you
breakdown you're on your own. You're also more
vulnerable to the crazies and the local rednecks who
like to mess with bikers. This isn't common but it
still happens.
Touring In A Group
In a group there is more security
and people to talk to but at the price of lowest
common denominator behavior and decision making. The
degree to which this is a problem varies with your
personality and that of your travel companions.
Remember that the IQ of a group is the IQ of the
dumbest person in the group divided by the number of
people in a group. As a consequence, groups can do
some pretty stupid things - things that the
individual members would never do on their own.
You will not make as high an
average speed in a group as you would alone. This is
true for ALL groups regardless of makeup. With a
group all stops will take longer. On average planned
stops for groups take the planned amount of time
plus a minimum of an extra 5 minutes for each bike
beyond one. For example, a planned 15 minute stop
with three bikes will take 15+((3-1)*5)=25 minutes.
You can see that for large groups once you stop you
run the risk of never leaving until it's time to go
home. This rule is true for day trips, multi-month
tours, and everything in between.
You must also consider the
frequency of stops, also known as the pose factor.
Posers are not touring motorcyclists. They seldom
ride more than a couple thousand miles (3200 km) a
year, mostly from their house to the nearest biker
hangout and back. To them a serious road trip is
about 100 mi (160 km). Don't get me wrong, I have
nothing against posers per se, many of them are
really nice people. It's just that if you want to
actually ride your motorcycle having posers in your
group can be really frustrating as they always have
some silly reason to stop. They say things like
"we've been riding nonstop for 50 miles (80km) and I
need a break." On a day-trip this can drive you nuts
but on a cross country jaunt it can ruin the
experience (unless you're the person who wants to
stop).
Fortunately, most posers have no
desire to go on long trips. BTW, posers are not
limited to a particular brand or category of
motorcycle. They are not limited to any particular
profession or socioeconomic strata although lawyers
do seem to be overrepresented. They are just people
who are not into long distance riding. That's fine
as long as you don't expect them tour.
Some Rules For Group Touring
Pick your group carefully. If you
pick the wrong group you'll be miserable, or they
will, or both. The wrong group is one where not all
the members follow the same rules. It doesn't matter
so much what the rules are just that everyone
follows them. If there are no known rules then no
one can (or will) follow them and therefore EVERYONE
will be unhappy. If you don't want to follow other
peoples' rules, don't ride in a group. If you're in
a group of squids don't get pissed if they ride too
fast - they're squids and that what squids do. Don't
say I didn't warn you!
There are some rules that apply to
all groups. All groups have to have some way of
keeping together. There are two common methods.
-
Before you leave a stop decide
where the next stop will be so that the laggards
and speed freaks can be reunited with the group.
-
The leaders stop at the next
turn and don't leave until the last bike gets
there.
There are variations on both these
methods but the important thing is that some method
is chosen, communicated to all the group's members,
and followed by everyone. This is important!
There is a third method that many
groups follow - everyone will stay together on the
road so we don't have to do one of the first two
listed above. This almost never works and is always
a bad idea, don't do it.
Be willing to leave the group if
things get too bad. On a day trip this isn't a big
deal but on a two week trip it can be a substantial
problem. The best way to make it possible to leave
is to be self contained. That means no shared
resources, everything you will need is on your bike
at all times, not on someone else's. If you decide
to leave and you need an hour to unload everyone's
bike to redistribute all the stuff so that you can
leave, this will just increase the bad feelings. If
it's a quick "I'm going to take off, have a good
trip." things will go a lot easier. BTW, if you do
decide to leave the group always tell someone that
you're leaving.
For long distances, groups of more
than four are pretty much unmanageable. If you must
travel with more than four bikes break up into
smaller groups on the road and plan to meet using
rules one or two listed above. I prefer two to three
bikes in a group.
Ref:
http://www.visi.com/~dalebor/group.htm |
