13 Dec Post TAT #7 – Lets talk gear
Who doesn't love to talk about their gear? ...
12 Dec Post TAT #6 – How We Rode on the TAT
DISCLAIMER!!! All figures are approximate. The maths mostly adds up, but please don't get upset if there are a couple of errors here and there. We rode a total of 11,388 km (7,090 miles) over 45 Days from New York to Port Orford. That means our little 12 inch Grom wheels did almost 40,000 revolutions over all sorts of terrain.That is a LOT. That 11,388 km is according to the odometer on the bikes, the GPS seems to think we did 11,202...
11 Dec Post TAT #5 – How we slept on the TAT
We really wish we had camped more. Not only is it cheaper, but for us it is more fun. We struggled to be in the right places at the right times though. At the end of the day there wasn't always a convenient campsite nearby, and a motel was the more realistic option. We originally budgeted for doing motels every other day, but had secretly hoped to be doing motels every 4th or even 5th day to tie in with...
10 Dec Post TAT #4c – Paperwork
There is a fair bit of paperwork and cost involved in moving a bike between countries. Here is a list and description of all the paperwork we had fill in to ship our Groms from New Zealand to the USA and back. EPA Waiver - Foreign registered bikes are allowed to be temporarily imported into the USA for up to a year provided they have a little letter from the EPA saying its OK. Basically you send the EPA a nice...
10 Dec Post TAT #4 – What we spent on the TAT
We started off trying to record everything even fuel consumption, but after a couple of days, that went out the window and it was just easier making a note of food and accommodation costs rounded off to the nearest Dollar. We may have missed a few items here and there, but it mostly matches up with the bank account balance. For fuel, we just estimated based on 45km/litre and 3.4 USD per gallon average. Our initial record keeping indicated we were...
09 Dec Post TAT #3 – Favourite/Memorable Parts
The bits in the East People often poo poo the eastern part of the TAT and the MABDR, complaining that it is too tame and boring. We really enjoyed it. Yes, spending a lot of time in the trees with no views can get a little tiresome, but we liked the fact that it was a good mix of back roads, hard packed forest roads, and lots of little towns. It made for a fairly varied ride experience, and it was...
24 Nov Post TAT #2 – They are BACK!!
Yippeee!Our little buddies are finally home! We picked them up this week from the shipping agents depot where they have cleared all their customs inspections including being fumigated for stink bugs and other nasty cooties they may have caught in America. The bikes started right up after reconnecting their battery and Simon had to take his for a quick ride up and down the street. Huge grin on his face when he got back. Its good to have them home...
20 Sep Post TAT #1 – The Voyage Home
After the weekend abusing our motel room we had all our gear clean and ready for New Zealand's bio security officers...
14 Sep TAT DAY 45: Skull Creek Campsite OR to Port Orford OR (148km/92mi)
Woohooo!!!!! We made it. We are elated, knackered, sad, happy and relieved all at the same time. The tent fly this morning was covered in ash, which goes to show how much of it must be in the air around these parts. We took our time packing up knowing it was the last time packing our saddle bags. It was a weird feeling getting on the Groms this morning knowing it was going to be our last day on the Trail. We...
13 Sep TAT DAY 44: Diamond Lake OR to to Skull Creek Campsite OR (287km/187mi)
Up early to get on the road. After packing everything up we had a gear malfunction. After Sim had posted that our headsets had done great so far, his one up and died completely. Luckily we had a spare. Unluckily, it was buried somewhere under his seat, so he had to pull everything off to get to it. Amazingly enough the spare headset had a full charge and paired immediately after all this time sitting there :) The short bit of...