Preparring for first really long trip.

[JHutch808]

There is some bad advise here, whether you should wear mesh or not. As long as you stay hydrated, such as wearing a camelback, mesh is the way to survive in the 110 degree plus heat. Trust me, I ride in it on a daily basis.

You have to understand, yes, you want to sweat, but you need the air to breath through your gear to cool you down. Yes, it's hot air, but you are simulating like if you were just getting out of a swimming pool all wet and the air hitting your body seems nice and refreshing. Wearing no mesh, you will literally die out in the desert.

Try wearing a cooling vest underneath, for $40, soak it in cold water in the sink and it stays wet for a couple of hours.

Remember, try to wear full gear, including riding pants with armour, preferably mesh. You will be a long ways from home, if something were to go wrong, it could be the difference of just picking your bike off the ground and riding away versus going to the hospital in an ambulance and having your bike towed away.

Bring rain gear!

I saw in another thread someone talking about a cooling vest so I did get one of those already, it worked great here last weekend with the heat in the high 90s and even with 70% humidity it still worked awesome. Living on the "wetside" of Washington now, I always keep full raingear in my saddlebags. I have some regular crap riding pants but was planning on picking up some armored mesh ones to go with my Cortech GX Air 2 armored mesh jacket.

 

[JHutch808]

My jacket was not completely air tight. I could feel some air coming through which was enough to do it's job.

Looking at the cooling vest. That would definitely be a good investment. I would even be cooler in that.

I also used my stock windscreen instead of my Puig Double Bubble for more air flow.

I'm bringing both my Cee Bailey screen and my stock one for that reason. I want to be able to switch for airflow when needed.

 

[JHutch808]

Well, barring anything else coming up, my trip is back on and merely delayed until next weekend. Looking at the bright side, it allows time for my new Joe Rocket Phoenix 3.0 pants to arrive. It looks like I won't be coming back through Valencia, so I'll probably cut straight over to the coast after leaving AZ and head up the coast line. Of course I'll just wind-up going whatever way I feel at the time. Who knows, maybe I'll go through Nevada on the way home instead.

 

[Marthy]

I envy you my friend! To have the time, or take the time to go out for a long ride. This is something I'm planning to do in the near future. I'm getting my bike ready for a long run, I'm at the point of fine tuning few things now... the list is getting shorter! Maybe next year if everything work my way... I'll go for a long trip back home. (6 to 7 days Iron Butt!)

 

[JHutch808]

I have completed my trip. I was gone for 16 days and logged 4,408.7 miles in 10 states. I just got done transferring my pictures to my computer and now need to resize them. Once I have a free moment to take care of that, I'll detail my trip to include the good the bad and the ugly. It'll probably be this coming Sunday before I have the time to start posting.

 

[tejkowskit]

Awesome! I'm excited to see the pictures.

 

[JHutch808]

Pics and story can be viewed here: http://www.600riders.com/forum/touring-traveling/40712-first-really-long-trip-good-bad-ugly.html