Packing

How to Pack a Motorcycle for Touring

You need a plan for how to pack a motorcycle for touring. Just getting on and riding would be simple and that’s probably your goal.

However, a packing system can be a huge stress reducer. Leaving on a trip is exciting enough.

If you started with our suggestions for what to carry and then modified it to your taste you’re off to a good start. Now if you want to take everything you need on your tour, then you need to plan how to pack.

If your tour involves many travel days you’ll find yourself unpacking every evening, and repacking every morning.

If you plan well, you won’t have to dig through everything you brought just to find your socks.

Saddlebags are great but you can’t take them in a motel room. A removable tail-bag to pack clothes works great.

If your motorcycle tour involves many days and long distances; it’s doable. We pack for a few days and that will carry us over a few weeks.

Loading weight correctly (Safely)

Once you have sorted out what you can carry from what you think you need or want to take, then and only then can you figure out how to pack a motorcycle.

It is absolutely mind blowing to realize how much space a pair of jeans steal away from that pile you need to pack your motorcycle. Here we’ll say it again, you must trial pack everything long before the departure day arrives.

Make a pile of all the stuff and try to pack it in your bags, re-prioritize and try again……in the end there is so little space, but it can be done. We travel two weeks at a time and have everything we need.

Everyone has different capacities on their bikes and some like pack your motorcycle using cargo netting and strap things to the top of saddlebags, on the front forks…..on and on. The General rule for motorcycles is to pack the heaviest items as low as possible. How to pack your motorcycle is like a puzzle.

Pack everything on the bike and (with a passenger if that’s how you ride) and take it out for an ride locally, before the tour.

You want to know at highway speed, and at low speed, how this machine is going to react.

How much can you carry ?

This is the news no one wants to hear and really, most people are going to ignore it…
Beware bad things can happen.
On every bike there is a sticker put there by the manufacturer, to tell you how much weight it is designed to safely carry. GVWR, or Gross Vehicle Weight Rating is the total weight of the bike, passengers, fuel and luggage or anything else you can carry. You’ll be surprised at how low it is.

How to Pack Clothes on Your Motorcycle

Clothes are essential; but you need to get them as light & small as you can.
We say, never go without rain gear. Being soaked is miserable and if it doesn’t rain you’re lucky, because it probably will.

We travel the Western mountains, and summer thunderstorms are always a possibility. Then again, somewhere on that same trip it’s going to be 100 degrees and 30 degrees.

We have: Rain gear, heated gear and cooling vests.

Our Warm & Safe heated jacket liners are not waterproof, but pretty close. Sometimes we leave the rain liners home and wear the heated ones in a downpour. We still pack rain-pant liners and glove covers.

We only carry one pair of gloves. You do want dry gloves, so the covers are nice and they store small.