2001-2005
2001
31.05.2001 - 01.08.2001
USA Tour (Route 66+Higway1+PCH) www.utzmann.de (under construction, ready mid 2002
Steffen Utzmann (German, 08.12.1971)
and Alexander Köhne (German, 02.03.1976)
Steffen rode a '91 Yamaha
XT600, Alex rode a 2000 BMW F650, the trip was planned as a solo tour. About 13.000kms
95% on Highways.
Route: Main Route was Chicago - Los Angeles (Route
66), Los Angeles - Seattle Highway 1 and Pacific Coast Highway (101) Several excursion
for example Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Loughlin, NV,
Crater Lake, Victoria BC, Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helen's.
Purpose of travel: Fun, Route 66 75th anniversary, my upcoming 30th birthday, meeting people, see
the US
Highlights: Highway 1 North of San Francisco till it ends. Sundown/Sunset
at Monument Valley. Riding hours on Route 66 in the Great Plains without a curve.
Never a day without people asking: "where you come from" (German Number
Plates helps!). Grand Canyon North Rim. Riding hours without meeting more than
a couple of people. Meeting lots of very helpful and friendly Americans. The differences
in the landscape, people, climate etc. in the states visited. Pismo Beach, CA
and Oregon Dunes NP -> riding Pacific Coast Beaches;-) Loneliness in the Mojave
Desert.
The worst: On the 2nd day of the trip we took a wrong turn
in Chicago. This brought us for about 45min in a very bad neighbourhood, I was
frightened to death.
Tip: Never follow the original Route 66 too long
on Adams Street.
Book or publication: www.utzmann.de
Useful
informations and TIPS for others: Books on Route 66: Tom Snyders book with
the original old 66 maps. I used them to ride the 66!
Camping: KOA
campgrounds www.koa.com are a little bit
more expensive 18-30$, but very good equipped. E.B there is always a small store,
clean showers, a pool, washing machines and sometimes even free data-ports for
Modems. Wild camping' in a National forest is sometimes for free (e.g. Kaibab
National Forest at Grand Canyon North Rim). But usually there is no restrooms,
water, etc. But there is also Campgrounds in National Forest and National Recreation
Areas URL: https://www.reserveusa.com/
49.500 campsites
Most National Parks have campgrounds. Prices vary depending
how popular the NP is (staring around 8$) URL: https://www.nps.gov
State Parks are also very nice and sometimes pretty inexpensive (starting
around 8$). Minimum equipped with some sort of restroom. I always collected information
about State Parks in the Welcome Centers of the States when crossing the state
line. The Welcome Centers are usually after the state border on the Interstate.
Insurance in the US:
50.000$ base coverage is required by law . We
never has to proof that, but I don't know what happens if you have an accident.
The insurance is usually valid for USA and Canada.
Agencies in Germany:
AIU - American International Underwriters, 06122/15646. Tour Insurance, 040/251721-50
In the US: Dairyland Insurance Berglund Enterprises Inc.5625 E. Indian School
Road, Studio B, Phoenix Arizona 85018. Fax: 001 6029940321, Phone. 001 6029491034
Earlier Experiences of big Motorcycle-Tours: none, just short tours in
Germany surrounding European countries.
28.01.2002 - + 350 days
Jäger, Katja (born 1975) and Thorsten Wald
(born 1972) both German
USA. Mexico. We want
to fullfill our dream and ride for a year in USA with one year HONDA Africa Twin
XRV 750, RD 07
Planned Route: Germany - by air to USA (Miami) - Kraut-Meeting
in Daytona( 07.03.) - Bike Week in Myrtle Beach ( 11.-19.05..) - Kansas/ St. Joseph.
- Mexico - ? - Maybe back to Germany!
Earlier
experiences: Thorsten has already done some vacatios by motorcycle with friends.
Katja do not have a driving license but rode as a pillion rider for 2.000 kms.
It will be a new adneture for her."Our first paln was to ride for 3 months
in USA. After the terror in USA 11.09.2001 we wanted to ride in other countries
but finally decided to ride in USA".
11.2001 1st contact
2002
1975
17.02.2002 1st information by Oliver
Lance https://www.amadirectlink.com/magazine/2002/story1feb.htm I found your
story about NASA astronaut Duane Carey and Motorcyclist for two years in USA.February
2002 The Ride of a Lifetime
Motorcycling astronaut to carry
AMA
banner into space by Lance Oliver It was 1975, and Duane Carey,
fresh out of high school
in St. Paul, Minnesota, as throwing a leg over his
Suzuki GT750 Water Buffalo for a two-year journey with
no fixed destination.
At the time, it was the ride of his life. Now it’s 2002, and Carey
is a 24-year AMA member
and a NASA astronaut. On February 14, if the schedule
holds, he will strap himself into a 2,250-ton,
$1.7-billion
rocket ship,
blaze into space for 11 days, then coast
back to Earth. Once again,
it will be the ride of his life. It’s hard for most of us even to
imagine the experience
of piloting one of NASA’s space
shuttles in
orbit, but in one major way, Duane Carey is
just like the rest of us. Here’s
an Air
Force test pilot who has flown some of the fastest,
most exotic,
most demanding aircraft ever
created, yet he still says he enjoys riding motorcycles
more. That’s not just talk. In fact, when
NASA allocated him room
to carry one
personal item into space with him,
Carey chose to take a
flag carrying
the AMA logo, which he plans to donate
afterwards for display
at AMA
headquarters. In other words, when the space shuttle
Columbia
lifts off in a few weeks,
its seven-member crew will include one
guy who’s
very much one of us. The mission that will take 44-year-old
Lt. Col.
Duane Carey into space
is designated STS-109. Its purpose is
to conduct
routine maintenance
on the Hubble Space Telescope, which
orbits the Earth
and gives
astronomers a view into the farthest reaches of the
universe.
The crew aboard Columbia will
use a robot arm to pull the telescope into the
shuttle’s work bay to give Hubble a tuneup. There are two types of
astronauts aboard shuttle
flights. The mission specialists are the
scientists
or other experts who are on board to conduct
experiments or complete specific
tasks, such as servicing the telescope. Also on board are a commander and
a pilot, the highly
experienced fliers who actually control
the ship.
The commander, Scott Altman, will have
primary responsibility for handling
the shuttle.
But over 11 days, Carey will have his hands on the
controls
quite a bit as well. “The way I look at it, it’s the job of the
commander
and the pilot to get those folks up there to do
their jobs and
to get them back,” says Carey. It’s an assignment unlike any
other a pilot can be
given, especially when it comes to bringing
the shuttle
back from orbit. “We’re about a 220,000-pound glider coming in,” says
Carey. “We actually enter the Earth’s
atmosphere over the
Indian Ocean and we have enough
speed to glide halfway around the
world
and land in Florida.” Along the way, there’s a complex series
of maneuvers
that Carey compares to a motorcycle
racer hitting his braking
markers. For the shuttle, the
markers are “gates,” or designated
positions in the atmosphere, that must be hit in order
to stay on the right
trajectory for the
landing. And talk about coming in hot! In orbit,
the shuttle is
moving at more than 17,000 mph. By the
time it lands, it
has to scrub off nearly all that
velocity, touching down on the runway at
a mere
225 mph. “The space shuttle is unlike any other flying
machine,”
says Kenneth Cameron, an AMA
member and retired astronaut
who flew three shuttle
missions (see“Frequent Flier,” below).“It’s huge. It’s a bus. It’s like flying a large
building.” In comparison, riding a motorcycle sounds like a
breeze.“I enjoy
riding more than I do flying,” Carey says.“But I’m a
better
pilot than a rider.” Carey was introduced to motorcycles by his stepfather,
Claire Pastorius, who owned a BSA 650. When Carey was
13, Pastorius bought
two Honda CT70 trail bikes for
Duane
and his brother, and the motorcycling
hook was firmly
set. The first motorcycle Carey owned himself was a
Can-Am
175 he used for everything from off-road racing to
commuting
to high school. “I truly believe that’s what kept the boys out
of
trouble,” says
Carey’s mother, Penny Pastorius. Between riding
and
working part-time jobs to make money to pay for
motorcycling, the
brothers kept busy. In fact, years later, Mrs. Pastorius was surprised
that
Duane
ended up as a pilot. “He wasn’t the one who
was always drawing pictures of
airplanes,” she recalls. “That was
my other son. Duane
was
drawing motorcycles.” After graduating
from high school, Carey became what he calls a “motorcycle bum.” He bought a candy-orange
Suzuki
GT750 and went off to explore North America
and decide
the
direction of his life. “I had $200 in my pocket
when I left,” he remembers.
“I’d
travel until all my money
was gone, then I’d get a job
for a
while. I worked as a typewriter
repairman, a bartender, anything I could get.” When his desire
for the road was satisfied, at least
temporarily, he returned home and made
two big changes
in
his life. One was marrying hometown sweetheart
Cheryl Ann
Tobritzhofer. They’ve been together ever since, and now
have two teenage children, Zack and Erin. The other big change was enrolling
at the University of Minnesota, where he joined the Air Force ROTC. And
Carey
says all those miles on motorcycles came in handy when
he
applied
for pilot school. “I believe my motorcycle experience helped me do
well
on a
lot of the aptitude tests the Air Force gave me,” he
says.
Tasks such as glancing at a display and instantly
gathering
information were nothing new to a rider with thousands
of
miles under
his tires. Eventually, Carey was stationed in Louisiana and then
Korea,
where, after overcoming extensive red tape, he
shipped his Honda Gold Wing.
In a place where there
were
few motorcycles larger than 125cc, excursions
on the
big
tourer sometimes drew crowds of gawkers so thick Carey
was literally unable to move the bike. A key turn in Carey’s career
came when he was selected
for
the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards
Air Force
Base
in California. Test pilots fly a wide variety of
aircraft,
and
Carey further honed his skills at the controls of
experimental
fighters. On his own time, he also broadened his motorcycling
resume.
A group of officers got permission to build a
motocross track at Edwards,
and Carey took up the sport aboard a Yamaha YZ250. “At first
I thought, ‘Why would anyone want to do this?
It’s
hard work!’
” he says. “But I found out it’s a great
way to stay
in
shape. “There’s something very elemental about motocross,” he
adds. “It made me a better street rider.” In 1996, Carey
was selected as an astronaut candidate
and transferred to the Johnson Space
Center in Houston. After two years of training, he
qualified for his first
flight and was assigned
to STS-109. Motocross riding has taken a vacation
since Carey was
selected for the shuttle mission. Even
a minor injury
could prevent him from participating in
the mission, and that could mean other
crew members would miss their chance as well. “I just crank up the
YZ every week or two, warm it up
and then put it away again,” Carey says. Though he’s missed motorcycling during the intense
training required
of shuttle crew members,
he notes that it’s a small price to pay for
one of the
world’s hardest-earned thrill rides. Carey believes
in the old adage that luck is when
opportunity and preparation meet.
Competition
is so fierce for spots in the astronaut
program, he says, that a little luck
is
essential. But so is the preparation. “If you’re aiming
for high goals, you need to set
yourself up for opportunities that might come
up,” he notes. “You don’t know if they’ll come up, but
you have to be ready.” Even as he’s about to embark on his space
adventure,
Carey loves to talk about his
motorcycling memories, from trail
rides as a boy to
tours through spectacular scenery in Korea. One of
his favorite stories is about
the time he took his son, Zack,
with him
on the Gold Wing for a trip
from California to his
hometown in Minnesota,
all on back
roads. “We had a kind of ‘Zen and the Art
of Motorcycle Maintenance’
trip,” he says. “That’s something
we’ll always have between us. It
took us about six days, just putting
along. “Motorcycling is full of special
moments, especially when
you make
it a family thing,” he adds. That faithful Gold Wing
has since
been sold with 125,000 miles on
the odometer and replaced with
a new
Honda ST1100. Zack, who
was recently accepted for admission
to the Air Force Academy,
now rides a motorcycle of his own. For his
part, Carey is about to put his years of
training to use, embarking on an
adventure of
the rarest kind. Once the shuttle lifts off, he’ll
accelerate
from 0 to 17,500 mph in about eight
minutes, then circle the Earth more than
150 times. In
the process, he’ll join the ranks of the few
humans
who have traveled beyond this planet’s last
wisps of air. One
more ride of a lifetime in a lifetime of riding. Check in regularly for
updates and more information on shuttle mission STS-109 as we follow AMA
member
Duane Carey’s journey into space.
Click here to see real time
tracking of STS-109,
and
the International Space Station.
Here is
NASA's biographical data on Duane G. "Digger" Carey.
For more
information on STS-109, click here. © 2002 by the American
Motorcyclist Association
2000 five months
28.01.2002 - + 350 days
Katja Jäger (born 1975) and Thorsten Wald
(born 1972) both German
USA. Mexico. We want
to fullfill our dream and ride for a year in USA with one year HONDA Africa Twin
XRV 750, RD 07
Planned Route: Germany - by air to USA (Miami) - Kraut-Meeting
in Daytona( 07.03.) - Bike Week in Myrtle Beach ( 11.-19.05..) - Kansas/ St. Joseph.
- Mexico - ? - Maybe back to Germany!
Earlier
experiences: Thorsten has already done some vacatios by motorcycle with friends.
Katja do not have a driving license but rode as a pillion rider for 2.000 kms.
It will be a new adneture for her."Our first paln was to ride for 3 months
in USA. After the terror in USA 11.09.2001 we wanted to ride in other countries
but finally decided to ride in USA".
11.2001 1st contact.
11.2002 - 01.2003
Surmund, Wolfgang (German, born 1959)
Plan
Central-America. The tax-man Wofgang plans to ride solo for three months
with KTM Adventure.
Route: Mexico to Panama.
Purpose of travel: "There is something other than to work only in life."
24.02.2002
Wolfgang was here for recommendation.
2003
16.05.2003 + 38 Tage
Uschi Eller (German, born 24.08.1949 and Wolfgang Eller (German, 29.04.1945) https://www.reiseautoren-bikerfreaks.de
+ USA. Uschi (Harley Davidson Heritage Softail) and husband Wolfgang (Harley Davidson E-Glide) rode 6280 Kilometer in 33 days through 6 States of the USA.
Wir waren gespannt auf die grandiose Landschaft, die Natur und die Ursprünge des "Wilden Westens", den wir nur von Filmen kannten. Wir wollten Kontakt zu den Native Americans, die vielgepriesene Freiheit des Bikens in USA und den way of life Amerikas kennen lernen. Ich hatte die Tour selbst geplant und alles von zu Hause aus organisiert.
Route: Flug mir Airlines Lufthansa für 698,00€ von Germany nach USA (California, *L.A*). Übernahmen am 17. Mai die Mietmotorräder von Eagleriders - *Palm Springs*- *Arizona*, ein Stück der legendären *Route 66*- *Grand Canyon - Lake Powell* - *Navajo Country* - *Monument Valley*- route 191 durch die rote Felsenlandschaft nach *New Mexico*, the Land of Entchantment, zu den *Pueblos* der *Acoma *und *Zuni* - 3 Tage *Santa Fe* - *Rancho Taos* - *Taos Pueblo* - *Rio Grande*- *Colorado*. Die Fahrt nach *Silverton*, eine original restaurierte Wildwesttown, über *Ouray* durch die Bergwelt der südlichen *Rocky* *Mountains* beeindruckte uns gewaltig - *Utah* - zum *Arches N.P. - Canyonlands* - auf der 24 durchs glühend heiße *San Raphael Desert* - *Escalante Highway* - *Capitol Reef N.P* - zauberhafte *Bryce* - *Zion Canyon*- *Nevada* - *Las Vegas* - auf der 95 North durchs verdammt heiße *Amargosa Valley* - Desert Richtung - *California* - *Tiogapass* - * Yosemite N.P* - *Mariposa Grove* mit den riesigen Sequoias - *Goldcountry, Napavalley* - *Bodega Bay* am tosend Pacific* - *bekannt aus dem Hitchkockfilm "Die Vögel"* - *Highway 1* - *San Francisco, Monterey - St. Barbara* - *L.A *.
Highlights: Wir trafen Indianer, lernten einen Teil ihrer Tradition kennen und lernten viele hilfsbereite, nette Menschen in 6 Staaten kennen. In der Landschaft des Navajo Countrys überfiel mich ein nie gekanntes Gefühl, als hätte ich alles schon einmal gesehen, als wäre ich nach Hause gekommen. (Anm.der Autorin: Ich stehe den Lehren des Buddhismus nahe) Ich fand in den einsamen Weiten des Südwestens eine neue, innere Freiheit. Uns beeindruckten die unvorstellbare Größe des Grand Canyon, die gewaltigen Rockys und die bizzaren Felsen des Bryce Canyons. Die Sierra Nevada ist wirklich ein herrliches "Gebirge des Lichts", wie John Muir es nannte. In New Mexico könnte ich sofort leben, die Schönheit dieses ursprünglichen Landes berührte mich tief.
The worst: Mich berührte die Ausgrenzung der indianischen Bevölkerung, den Ureinwohner dieses Kontinents. L.A. ist ein gefräßiger Moloch und für Las Vegas waren 3 Tage absolut ausreichend. Dies waren die einzigen negativen Erfahrungen.
Publications: Berichte über mein Buch erschienen in der Bildzeitung. Bikernews. Motorrad-Reisen-Sport. Harley Davidson Magazin. Fiereks Harley Davidsaon Magazin. Aral Bikerclub. Motorrad.
Kleine Reisetipps: Motorradmiete lohnt sich bis ca. 4 -5 Wochen Reisedauer in USA, darüber hinaus wäre Motorradtransport empfehlenswert. Hotels oder Motels gibt es günstig überall, am besten Travellerguide - kleine Heftchen in allen Tankstellen - mit Gutscheinen für diverse Motels, Restaurants - erheblicher Preisnachlass! Wenn nur eine begrenzte Zeit zur Verfügung steht, die Route zu Hause vorplanen.
Nächstes geplantes Buch: Himmlisches Blau - Motorradtour durch Schweiz, Frankreich, Italien mit unserem sechsjährigen Enkel auf dem Sozius!_ Interessant für Leute die mit Kindern auf dem Bike reisen möchten. 2005 waren wir mit der Harley Softail de Luxe und der BMW 1200 CL in Ungarn, Rumänien (sehr abenteuerlich) Kroatien und Slowenien, 4200 Kilometer in 24 Tagen, unterwegs. Buch erscheint Ende 2006 Tipps + Infos unter *www.reiseautoren - bikerfreaks.de*
04.11.2005 Last summary
|
1895.Tom Winder and his route.
Since1903, when George Wyman became the first man to ride a motorcycle across the United States, many others have tried to become the next person to complete the feat more quickly than his or her predecessor. Early on, the record was broken by days. In 1906, George Holden knocked 20 days off of Wyman’s record. In 1911, Volney Davis knocked off another ten days, reducing the transcontinental ride to 20 days and nine hours. Just three years later, Erwin Baker knocked off another nine days, crossing in 11 days, 12 hours. But as time wore on and motorcycles became faster, success became measured in hours, and even minutes. And it was mere minutes that kept a New York Harley rider named Lenny Bauer out (pictured left above) of the record books in 1969.
also had improved over the ensuing decade, Sirossy’s achievement got more widespread attention than any of the men and women who had broken the record before him.
backrest for the rider. Baffles were welded inside the keg so the heavy fuel load would not slosh about and disrupt the handling of the motorcycle.
< Oluf Zierl and his Harley Davidson and B.T. in 1992 at the mc-fair IFMA 
<Oluf Zierl at the German Harley-Davidson Meeting in 1994 showing
Bernd Teschs book
Jo Deleker (C) in USA (Sunset auf der Baja California)
