800 Mile Motorcycle Road Trip Gear & Essentials! (Harley Low Rider S)

what's up blockheads in the garage today and uh as you guys know or if you don't know we recently took a trip up to georgia and back so basically made it up to georgia and back in 32 hours to visit john maxwell we were supposed to be continuing with her two wheels on up to ohio and then we were going to hit tail of the dragon blue ridge and then up to ohio but unfortunately i had some stuff come up where i had to come back to florida but i actually had a lot of you guys ask me about the bike and how i had it loaded out so i wanted to go over what i had on it to kind of make a trip like that and i also wanted to go over some things that i'll be changing in the future whenever you use your loadout you kind of realize the the little small changes that you need to make or the big changes that you need to make based on the stuff that you're experiencing as you're using it just figure out how to go through this show you guys what i how i currently have it set up and what i'm going to be [Music] changing if you guys are interested in any of this stuff i'll be sure to drop links down in the description below but if you have any questions on it be sure to post them up down in the comments also so as you guys know uh i have built out the bike what they call club style right so you've got like the front fairing on it you've got taller bars nine and a half inch hard case risers 29 inch i think they're 29 inch wide lucky dave's mx style bars get the mirrors down below arlen s grips saddlemen's seat which is a step up with the tuck and roll on the front and the diamond stitch in the back we've got the bassani sweeper pipes thrashing pegs we've got a speaker system from plex audio here but regarding the things that i put on here or have for the for being able to do more distance uh we basically did 802.4 miles i think in 32 hours 804.2 in uh yeah 32 hours so we basically left here in florida went up to georgia met with john maxwell hanging out in a shop for a while checked in at a hotel and then we grabbed dinner with him you know had some beers and then came back the next morning so pretty crazy a couple things that made that trip easier for me is the height of the bars so you basically have like i said the nine and a half inch hard case risers plus the mx style bars i think they come up about like inch and a half like two inches more so the ergonomics of the bike for my my hands my hand placement and my arms while while riding the bike is very just like they're even with my shoulders and that's kind of what you want if you think about like when you're driving a car usually the steering wheel you're reaching straight out and it's even with your shoulders so the height of the bars huge absolutely huge thing that uh helped with the trip another thing that helped with the trip that i would highly recommend is this airhawk seat so i do have a saddlemen step up for around town and stuff this is great i went with the tuck and roll because it is softer option than the diamond stitch i've got a lot of friends that have saddlemen's and the diamond stitch whenever it's here on the actual seat area it definitely makes it a bit firmer so i go the tuck and roll option then on top of that went ahead and threw the air hawk that's basically just like a layer kind of goes around your seat be these straps here and they are just soft straps oh that one came undone there's like this little you can unzip it here and you put air in it right based on uh however firm or soft you want it and so i bought this years ago whenever we did the qs trip but that was absolutely essential i put the bar on it because i was taking a backpack to work a lot of you guys said just put your backpack on your back to anybody that says that you've clearly never ridden with a backpack on your back on a motorcycle because whenever you get to wherever you're going especially if you're in a hot climate and florida is a hot climate and a human climate you've got a big wet spot on your back from sweating so backpack on your back not an option whenever you're going to work so i got the bar and this bag i ended up getting a couple years back as a gift from get lower they sent it for i want to say for like christmas or something at the time i was just kind of like i don't really know what i would use it for but this is a what they call the icon dreadnought and it's like a i want to say like almost completely weatherproof it's basically made of you know like rubber and then the inside is totally weatherproof the way it seals up is it folds down clips on it's got multiple compartments it comes with like a little thing for a tool roll we'll definitely have to do like a feature on this bag give it its own video because it's it's an amazing bag it is now my go-to so big thanks to get lower i appreciate you guys so reece was kind enough he actually lent me these bags which are the thrashing supply the essentials they have two sizes they've got these this size which they say will fit a six-pack and then they've got another bigger size which they say will fit a 12-pack now this is a smaller of the size in this side i end up doing i would buy a drink you know at a gas station and then drink one and then i'd keep one in here i also did like some hand sanitizer there's a microfiber there's some stuff to clean a visor extra set of gloves i got some stickers and then the very bottom i've got some tools a couple wrenches adjustable crescent wrenches and then on top here a helmet lock and then you've got a multi-tool which is actually from harley so these are both reese's so thanks man once again for lending those to me i appreciate it using these has made me realize that like having bags that you can just like throw on and throw off like super easy like these ones incredibly useful but i would need bigger because i i absolutely maxed these out without even trying now you guys did ask me what the underside of these looks like little strap that goes in between there so the underside of this is soft it's it i don't know it shouldn't scratch your paint if you have denim paint it might like polish it a little bit you can always like add like a layer in between also if you want but it goes under your seat so you can't really see it oh man i absolutely use the passenger pegs ton so we'd be riding and like you know your legs get tired of being forward so i'll just tuck my legs and put them back crazy nice to be able to ride flick that down and have my foot here usually like with my boot especially my boot would just catch right there and set like that i used the uh the bar bag here quite a bit this is a san diego customs thrashing supply also makes a bar bag but you know just whenever you're riding quick easy access to stuff i had like some snacks in there i had some peanuts and cashews sunglasses in here heatwave visual saved 10 off of those using coupon code do with dan i had extra gopro batteries i had um i had my mask eventually like i kept on forgetting my mask in there so i just put it in my back pocket of my jeans also another thing i used an absolute ton you know for the gps was this rokform phone mount incredibly useful the rokform phone mount uh basically you know attaches to wherever you want on the bars also if you don't have a bar bag there's a spot and the risers where you can mount it into right there on my phone i have an otterbox because you know i freaking love otterbox keeps the connections like secured down here from like weather rokform sells this like little accessory that you can put on whatever phone case you want and then whenever you do that you know it's got the magnet so you can pretty much you know magnet it to whatever you want it has that four-way latch piece onto the mount and then the magnet also helps to hold it in place and it's just crazy like rock solid and that was incredibly useful during the trip needing it for like gps and stuff like that having that there and then being able to run a usb cable from the new soft tails you've got a usb plug down over here in the neck of the frame so being able to run that from there and then into the phone crazy useful i just ratted it through the bar bag here as well so that was incredibly useful during the trip being able to keep my phone uh visible with gps going since i didn't know where i was going and powered up through the usb so far so good i've been using them for over a year but if you guys want a discount on that check out the link down in the description below you can save up to 25 off of everything on uh rokform's site the fairing helped an absolute ton obviously like to to break up the wind but i did find that the windshield wasn't quite tall enough so this is like the 13 inch i also have the 11 inch vented the 11 inch vented is good for around town but the 13 inch obviously not vented is better for those distance trips and since we went out 804 miles definitely a distance trip but based on my height i found that like you know an extra like two inch tall windshield would definitely probably have been a little better for me so i'm gonna make that change i did have an extra visor so this is a clear visor for my helmet and i just kind of stuck it in here which wasn't the best place for it because it kept on like coming up and then sometimes whenever we would hit bumps it would like you know pop out and it'd be like down here and i would catch it and that's that's kind of dangerous obviously like that's definitely something like i gotta find a place for that i tried to fit it into these bags but it wouldn't fit in the bag so hopefully it with the bigger bags that i get it'll fit into those clear visor for riding at night if you have a helmet that has like an internal drop-down visor that's probably not something that you need to worry about obviously this side has a full set of rain gear in these bags which is crazy so like the effect that i'm able to fit a full set of rain gear in here granted like i mean this thing is packed tight you guys can see it's packed to the brim we've got the boots your boot covers that's the pants nope so pants jacket and boots all fit into there i mean that was pretty much all that fit into there you couldn't even have anything up in this top part but they fit great i mean i had this thing packed up with like seven shirts seven pairs of socks seven pairs of underwear extra pair of pants a little case with like my electronics and stuff in it batteries charging cables like usb blocks stuff like that and the bar held those on great using rock straps so these rock straps are amazing i just always leave them on the bike on the board just in case i ever need them one of the biggest most important pieces that's it right there guys i think that was like one of the most important pieces of gear that i had during this trip was these they call them plug phones so i was basically able to plug this into my senna their earplug headphones is what they are so they basically protect your ears from wind noise but you can also still hear your senna and so you can talk to other people communication is you know really important when you're doing a trip like this and you can also listen to music which is also really important during a trip like this because it prevents you from becoming exhausted it kind of like i was listening to audio like podcasts i was listening to music i listened to some five dirty bikers podcast i listened to the what is it the 180 in a dream podcast which is danny dixon and then just all sorts of music through spotify you know which was on my phone mounted to my bars i think within like the last 10 miles uh i unplugged these if i didn't have those whenever i got to our destination you know going there and then whenever i got home coming back it would have been like so different my hearing would have been totally shot i would have been completely exhausted i can't recommend these things enough guys that's like they were just such a lifesaver during that ride in regards to stuff that like i realized that i would change since i've done this trip and i know kind of where the the weaknesses lie now one of the big ones is definitely a taller windshield to help with that buffeting because there were times where i was ducking down to kind of get away from the wind whenever it would rain we definitely got hit by rain quite a bit the windshield pretty much kept the the top of me dry i was just wearing this textile jacket it was like not enough like rain to wear the rain gear because we would just get wet it would stop raining and we would dry off so if it's going to be like just constant rain then obviously like put on your rain gear the windshield kept me dry for the most part my upper body my gloves kept on getting soaking wet i don't have any hand guards so that's one of the things i would definitely want to add is like some of those memphis shades hand guards here to kind of keep your hands dry whenever you do hit rain and it also helps with the wind as well like i was saying i would want to do larger bags so definitely i'm going to be scooping up a pair of the larger thrash and supply bags today from a friend that's selling them one of the things that i also did on this bike was cruise control that is absolutely huge during one of these trips so if you if you have the ability to add cruise control onto your bike with this bike all i had to do was buy the new like housing here and then it comes with the wiring and everything and you hook it up and then harley davidson is able to just reprogram the ecu or whatever to uh be able to have cruise control so that's huge but if you don't have the ability to do cruise control having something over here on your throttle like a throttle lock i would highly recommend i was thinking of maybe highway pegs but like based on my seating position i don't know that it would be such a great addition but uh i suppose it's worth a shot i saw some online that might be uh worth trying out so that might be something that i do just to see if it helps a little bit in the rain you've got like all the slush that's thrown up by like other vehicles in front of you having my shoes here or my boots here like i was fine but there was a time where i rode with them back here my boots just filled with water so that sucked we ended up arriving to john maxwell's boots completely wet socks completely wet we just powered through it because it was like within the last 30 minutes if i'm overlooking anything i'll be sure to note it in the in the description or in the comments or whatever but yeah that was pretty much my loadout for uh making that 800 mile round trip like i said definitely some things that i would change and uh some things that i will be changing so look out for those changes coming soon and then i'm also going to be making a separate video with like five essential things or like however many essential things that i would highly recommend if you're looking to do distance a lot of you guys out there probably going to say just get a touring bike i don't really want to because i don't make these trips like that often so being able to take this platform you know the the soft till and throw some things on it to kind of fit my application fit my needs uh if i am doing you know deciding to do distance uh it's more useful for me but i usually don't do 400 600 mile trips with it i do want to do some but for the most part you know it's usually me and friends we're riding around orlando we're doing like you know one hour two hour trips we're going over to the beach grabbing some lunch having some drinks coming back i don't really have a need for like a full touring bike so but yeah that's uh that's the rundown of the loadout that i had while going up to georgia riding with jess her two wheels and greg hi viz greg if you guys do have any questions be sure to post them up down in the comments below it's definitely a learning experience definitely going to be making some changes here very soon because we're planning on some more trips some longer trips here very soon as well hope you guys did enjoy the episode though if you did hit that like button hitting that thumbs up helps the channel out quite a bit if you guys aren't subscribed already hit that subscribe button hit that bell icon also so it sends you notifications of future uploads and activity until next time you guys ride safe out there stay vigilant we'll catch you guys in the next one [Music] you

Channel: BLOCKHEAD

Views: 205,875

Keywords: Harley Davidson, Harley Sportster, Harley Iron 883, Honda, Honda Grom, Grom, Motorcycle, Motorcycles, Motovlog, Blockhead, Blockhead Moto, Harley Motovlog, Harley Motovlogger, road trip, road trip vlog, road trip hacks, motorcycle road trip usa, motorcycle road trip packing, motorcycle road trip tips, motorcycle road trip essentials, motorcycle road trip vlog, motorcycle road trip florida, motorcycle road trip documentary, motorcycle road trip gear, motorcycle trip packing

Id: 4Y9YG0zhNPI

Length: 15min 9sec (909 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 24 2020