Motorcycle – Page 4 – Third Wheel Adventures

My Must-Have Road Nutrition

December 31, 2018January 9, 2019Third Wheel Adventures

If you’ve been to any of my endurance riding presentations (or even just chatted with me for a few minutes about hydration and nutrition), you know there are two food products I recommend by name: Justin’s Nut Butter and SPORTea. I enjoy them on the bike and off, I bring them with me on all of my motorcycle travels without fail, and I absolutely swear by them.

I found Justin’s single-serve nut butters out of a need for rally food that was portable, easy to eat on the move, and delicious without being packed full of garbage. I’d almost perfected my healthy food packs for rallying, but I wanted to add something with a little more excitement. I tried a few different butters but I was solidly unimpressed. Some were a cocktails of sugar and preservatives; others had odd protein additives that unleashed some pretty unpleasant gastrointestinal demons. Not exactly great for peak rally efficiency.

Justin’s are made with a handful of wholesome, easy-to-pronounce ingredients. They’re packed full of protein and flavor without being packed full of sugar. It’s a wonderful little treat for my tastebuds without ending up with some sticky mystery mess in my tank bag. I stock up on the full-size jars for home so we can satisfy all of our butter munching needs. Monty loves it, I love it, and I bet you will too.

SPORTea fell into my lap at at time when I was desperately looking for a way to improve my hydration routine on endurance rides. I lost several finishing positions in the 2011 Iron Butt Rally because of dehydration; I was drinking so much water that I felt sick, but still couldn’t manage to overcome my rate of fluid loss through sweating on a sweltering 112 degree Texas day. I had to call it quits and rework the rest of my rally because I knew I was dangerously dehydrated and, as painful as it was to knock my ride out of podium contention, it was the only safe choice. It was almost an exact repeat of the 2009 Iron Butt Rally, which saw competitors slogging across the Mojave desert in blazing August heat nearing 120 degrees. Wetting my clothes, stuffing my jacket with bags of ice, drinking as much as I could stand, I still felt awful. I knew there had to be a better way.

Around that time, some friends of ours opened a restaurant in Kernville, California. Not only did they make the most amazing pizza in the state, they served this amazing, light, refreshing iced tea. I’d never tasted anything like it; not too sweet, not too boring, none of that weird chemically aftertaste. Turns out it was SPORTea. It’s a completely natural herbal tea designed to help athletes rehydrate more efficiently than water alone and without the negative effects of sugary, caffeinated drinks. It has no calories, caffeine sugar, or artificial sweeteners, and it tastes amazing without having to add a thing. It cold brews, so I can toss a pouch in my hydration jug and have wonderfully refreshing tea all day long. Most importantly, it actually refreshes and rehydrates me in a way I wasn’t coming close to achieving with water or other drinks.

When I anticipate an exceptionally hot day, I’ll make sure to start brewing a jug or two first thing in the morning. It is a game-changer on those days where I can drink water till I’m sick and still feel dehydrated; sipping SPORTea through the day not only tastes great, it makes me feel thoroughly refreshed in a way that water alone does not. I drink it at home, I drink it on the road, I give it as a gift. I’ve shared it with people who swear they hate tea, who are pleasantly surprised to find they love SPORTea. I may not drink it every day on the road, but I never leave home without it.

These are my favorite nutritional must-haves, not only for riding but for an active life in general. What are your favorite nutritional tips and tricks? Let me know in the comments!

-Wendy

These are a few of our favorite things…

December 31, 2018January 9, 2019Third Wheel Adventures

While we’re new at protracted world travel, we’re not new at extended motorcycle travel. We want to share a few of our favorite tried-and-true goodies that will be making the trip with us. Gear to Grub, Tools to Tracking. First up: What all the intrepid Third Wheel Adventurers will be wearing this season?

In 2004 I entered the FirstGear Great Rides contest. I told the exhilarating tale of my nearly-10,000 mile solo journey around North America. I won second place, which was a complete set of FirstGear riding gear. First place was a motorcycle tour, but I honestly felt like I came out ahead because my FirstGear kept on protecting me well after that trip was a distant memory. In fact, I only parted with that original gear earlier this year!

I’ve been a devoted fan of FirstGear ever since. It fits me right, protects me well, has all the functional features I need and, possibly most importantly, is just plain comfortable to wear. You can have all the greatest armor and a gazillion pockets, but if it’s uncomfortable you’re just way less likely to put it on. FirstGear has been there for the last 15 years of adventures, they’re definitely going along for our biggest adventure yet!

For functional base layers, there is no competition. LDComfort makes the highest quality, purpose-made products on the market. They utilize rapid moisture transfer technology and strategic seam placement to keep you dry, comfortable, and enjoying your ride long after the competition has dissolved into a soggy, stinky, itchy, funky mess. You don’t want to be that kind of rider. Your friends don’t want you to be that kind of rider. Trust me on this.

I love all my LDComfort gear: My riding shorts, mock turtle neck, and riding sleeves are indispensable on all my motorcycle trips, whether I’m on endurance rallies or just meandering around the country. I actually wear one of my Women’s Comfort Tops every single day, riding or not – I haven’t found anything that surpasses it’s fit and function for long hikes. Don’t waste a bunch of money on layers that don’t live up to their claims; I bought the very best and I’ve never looked back.

This doesn’t make up the entirety of our moto-wardrobe, but these are the pieces that make up the unwavering core of our ensembles. Some things I’m willing to compromise on or grab whatever catches my eye – I probably have 57 pairs of gloves – but these are the product lines that I continue to support because they just plain do it right.

-Wendy

The Adventure Begins

December 31, 2018January 27, 2019Third Wheel Adventures

No, we’re not leaving yet. We’re a good nine months away from departure at this point, give of take. “Give or take” because deciding on a method and precise dates for shipping vehicles to another continent is not nearly as straightforward as buying airline tickets. I feel like a lot of other elements of our trip planning would benefit from knowing when our travels are going to commence, so I keep circling back around to vehicle transport. But you know how when you were a kid and you’d get the merry-go-round spinning like crazy? You could stop the ride, but your brain would just keep right on circling for a while yet. This is me right now, just circling round and round. This, my friends, is the REAL adventure!

And I really do feel like the planning is the toughest part. It’s the whole mind-twist, running through all the what-ifs, how-tos and might-needs. The first day out on a major trip is always the worst. I frantically run back through all my planning at hyperspeed, hoping to identify anything I may have overlooked before I’m too far from home to rectify it. After that bandaid is ripped off, I’m good. In spite of my propensity for meticulous planning, I’m really more of a seat-of-the-pants traveler. I don’t want or need every minute detail planned out; I just don’t like to be derailed by “surprises” that were totally foreseeable. I don’t want to be blindsided by a big expense that I should have known to budget for. I don’t want to be turned away at a border because I failed to secure the proper paperwork. Those types of things are where I focus my planning. I’m actually pretty solid for dealing with real surprises, expenses, and drama; it’s just a lot easier when I haven’t brought it all on myself. The further I get from home, the more I let myself dissolve into the experience. Gone are the routines, schedules, expectations. I can go with the flow in a way that eludes me in my “real” life. When I feed my need for adventure, I feel like I have powered up my ability solve problems, overcome hurdles, and find silver linings.

Mike, on the other hand… Mike likes to have a home base. He likes to have a home base, he likes for it to be readily accessible, and he likes to visit it fairly often. He loves travel (for a while), freedom (as long as it involves a hotel), and adventure (not to include any unpleasant surprises). His normally relaxed, easy-going demeanor is replaced with a sense of foreboding, a feeling that little hiccups are insurmountable and that California has quite probably fallen off into the ocean in our absence.

OK, that’s maybe a bit of an exaggeration. But it is interesting that the very thing that makes me feel so powerful and free makes him feel powerless and lost. Agreeing to this trip is a HUGE thing for Mike, and I don’t for a second underestimate how violently this has shoved him out of his comfort zone. My asking wasn’t a surprise; I’ve been proposing this trip for nearly 15 years. We came close once, even going to far as to buy a couple dual sports in preparation. Even then, though, it wasn’t “Great, we’ll leave in the fall! We’d better buy some more appropriate bikes!” It was more like, “I guess we can pick up a few bikes, just in case.” We owned a home, had a booming motorcycle shop, our finances were focused elsewhere and the timing just wasn’t quite right.

And then came our BIG surprise: nine years into our marriage, our daughter FINALLY decided to come along. That definitely put the brakes on any major two-wheeled adventure aspirations for a while. But slowly, life brought us back around to where The Big Trip was once again a possibility. And this time it wasn’t just a possibility. We’d been ready to get out of California for a while, and having Montessa only strengthened that desire. For the first time in over a decade, we were both open to the possibility of selling our house and closing our shop. We bought a sidecar rig, which turned out to be one of Monty’s favorite things in the world. We didn’t jump right back into home ownership, so we’re not locked down with a mortgage. The shop is carefully packed away, ready to unfurl at a later date, but we no longer have the worries of managing a business over an extended absence. Monty is old enough to enjoy and benefit from travel, but not yet old enough to start traditional school. From a purely rational standpoint, the time was right. Mike, understanding this, said yes.

And this is where his adventure begins: Working through his anxiety and mentally preparing to fully enjoy this trip. To shift his thinking away from “Terrifyingly devoid of a house to run home to!” and towards “Blissfully unencumbered by the burdens of home ownership!” Yeah, that might be a bit much for me to expect. But hopefully while I’m deeply entrenched in the myriad daunting tasks of a Type-A micro-planner, he’ll be working through his fear of the unknown. And Montessa? Yeah, she’s ready to head to South America tomorrow. She’s got the heart and soul of a true adventurer. If all goes well, come next fall we’ll be prepared both mentally and logistically to embark on this amazing adventure together, as a family.

-Wendy

Sidecar Crew Update

December 29, 2018January 27, 2019Third Wheel Adventures

Preparations are slowly coming together. Wendy put some amazing time and effort into getting our website, ThirdWheelAdventures.com, up and ready for our posts, I spent a minuscule amount of time getting our Instagram account up and running, then looking through 10 years of downloaded photos to find some of our best shots. Monty has spent an equal amount of time wearing us down with her four year old, Christmas vacation mischief. Monty and I did manage to bust out the sidecar from its winter storage to rack up some miles and grab some reference photos of the rig for our graphic designer. This kid loves riding in this thing so much, she didn’t want to put it away even though a South Dakota blizzard was breathing down our necks.

Photo work done, its back to preparing our extensive lists of tools, equipment, camping gear, not to mention a couple changes of clothes and all the other stuff that needs to fit on two bikes and a side hack. I’m still researching video equipment but I’m resigned to waiting until closer to D-Day to pull the trigger on cameras. That way we’ll either be getting good discounts on year-old tech or getting the cream of the crop.

We will need to pack the bikes and try some moto-camping trips once the South Dakota winter breaks in a few months. As has been stated by Wendy, I am not really built to sleep on the ground. It seems that I’m related to the adorably sensitive princess and the pea, with a delicate disposition and a very strong desire to be comfortable. In all honesty, between sleep apnea and insomnia I do have some pretty serious sleep issues, so being comfortable on the ground is really one of my primary concerns for this trip. Making sure I can find a way to sleep on the ground without a whole bunch of unnecessary gear is a big priority for me, so we’ll be trying out our gear – new, new-to-us, and/or long unused – several times before we commit to a setup. It’s got to be comfortable, pack small, and allow us to take full advantage of all the nooks and crannies on the sidecar. We’ll only have room for a couple extra large items, and a king size air mattress probably won’t make the cut.

That’s it for now. Seeing Monty’s enthusiasm for spending all that time together is starting to help ease my tension, but we have a long way to go before departure. A lot of work, a lot of planning, and a lot of worrying are between here and there, but I’m doing my best to contribute to making this trip an incredible family adventure.

-Mike