Trans America Trail (TAT)

[HadesOmega]

So one of the reasons for buying the 500 exc was because it’s the most powerful / lightest bike that I looked into. And one of my concerns is fatigue from riding on the dirt. I noticed that I was way more tired at the end of the day when I rode 200 miles of the Continental Devide than when I rode to Alaska. On there Eason would be that the bike being light, I would have an easier time of picking it up if I dropped it on technical terrain.

Which reminds me to ask.
How technical is the terrain? How far between fuel stops (I am adding a 4 gallon tank)? How long are the highway miles? What where the hardest parts?

On this page I have some videos and it shows what I thought were the hardest sections. Like I mentioned Utah and Colorado were the most difficult sections. A lot of the TAT sections are just these dirt roads that go by farms and stuff. Some forest some desert, some mountain. You can be in hot desert at the beginning of the day and riding on mountain forest roads with some snow in a few hours. But like I said I would ride a KLR650 for the stuff that was on the TAT. That's why I recommended just taking the GS, also it's shaft drive that's one less headache to maintain at the end of the day. Those steep passes in Colorado you go down might be difficult on the GS though I"ve never ridden a GSA in the dirt or up and down hill so I don't know how it'd do, I see them do all sorts of crazy stuff with GSs. But all I remember is we went down a kinda technical downhill on the Sheetiron 300 and these riders on R1200GS were having a hard time and I was just I'm glad I'm not riding a starship on those trails haha. But yeah it's mostly just dirt road stuff, in the video I showed an OHV trail I think I accidentally wandered onto it but it takes you the same way and it was pretty gnarly compared to the normal TAT roads.

Also like to mention that you have to improvise on the navigation. MANY times you will be following the roll chart or tracks and it's a dead end. There's a huge flooded section or the road is closed for whatever reason. So you'll have to go around it or something. It's gonna happen and it's gonna happen a lot. The maps are not the most up to day. Like i think I was in Mississippi or something and I go to this road closed section. It's like an old bridge that goes over a HUGE swamp area. Then I try to find away across and nothing. So I see this other highway/bridge that goes over it and I take that across and link back to the tracks. The route was taking you on an old bridge that doesn't exist anymore, that route I did take was the newer bridge. HAHA after riding along I saw that there was no way I was getting around that swamp or I think they call it a bayou too. I got TAT stories for days haha.

https://bayarearidersforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=516380&highlight=Trans+America+Trail

This one is all the prep I did leading up to the TAT. You can skip all the bike prep stuff but there's is all the navigation stuff in there watch those. I took HELLA maps with me, I must've had like 10lbs worth of maps. As I rode home I started mailing stuff home that I didn't need anymore. I would suggest you do that. Plus I kept buying souvenirs along the way also, but there's not much souvenirs to buy on the TAT though I visited a lot of Nation Parks on the way to the TAT. Which leads me to there are other things to see along the TAT. I went to Pikes Peak when I was in Colorado so I peeled off there totally worth it and I camp in some amazing canyon on the way back. Colorado was beautiful would love to go back there some time. Tail of the Dragon is in NC. There's a dead volcano you can ride up in New Mexico. So much amazing stuff to see along the way. You got to do your homework every night, look at the maps and find a place to stay or camp. Sometimes I would pass a nice place to camp and even if there were a couple hours of day light I would just camp instead. Most expenses for me were food, fuel, and err souvenirs.
https://www.bayarearidersforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=513314

 

[HadesOmega]

This ones shows all the maps I took with me. I used everything, I wanted to use the rollchart because that's how they intended you follow the TAT but after all of it I would rather of just followed the GPS tracks, sometimes the tracks were right and the rollchart was wrong. I found so many errors in the rollcharts. I guess if you are riding in a group though you'd really only need one person to carry all this stuff.


youtu.be/OdQeXlALOcg

 

[usedtobefast]

So enterprise you can do a one way rental for pickups? I think that was going to be my original plan but I know for Uhaul they only have pickups for in town rentals plus you gotta pay the miles and fuel.

Yes. The fee for the one way is roughly related to distance ... so one way to CO is less than one way to VA. But sometimes it is odd ... like one way to Vegas vs. one way to LA ... they may want more trucks to move to LA so that fee is cheaper than Vegas, etc.

Oh, and unlimited miles on the truck!!

If you go to reserve one you can look at the detail of the fees and see what the one way fee is.

 

[usedtobefast]

Which reminds me to ask.
How technical is the terrain? How far between fuel stops (I am adding a 4 gallon tank)? How long are the highway miles? What where the hardest parts?

gpsKevin tracks have some optional hard parts. I have not ridden the new East Coast parts but from reading on advrider it seems like you can get into (or avoid) some more technical riding.

I'd say 80% of it you could do in a 67 cadi with bald tires.

I did it on a DR650 with dunlop 606 tires ... one day was mostly 75mph on dirt roads, think that was Utah.

There was one sand section (that had an easy route around) that was maybe 1/2 mile long. CO dirt roads had some rocks.

Basically if you can ride the blue trails at Metcalf and Hollister you have the dirt part covered.

My bike had a ~220 mile range and I never had an issue. Can't remember but I think the max needed is in the 180-200 mile range. And that was only 2-3 days with the sparse gas.

Highway as in high speed multi lane road is near zero. Highway as in a paved road is more but still very minimal. Like in a 250 mile day maybe 20-30 miles of backroad pavement was normal. And some days it was like 10-15 miles of pavement.

As for hardest parts, I did the "old" route through Nevada and there was one climb that was rocky and kind of steep ... it was a 2 track "dirt road" but rocky and the 67 Cadi with bald tires would not have made it up this one! It required a decent amount of clutch work (2 DR650s, 1 XR650R). But on a KTM 500 it would be super simple. The challenge for us was heavy bikes not geared low enough.

Oh, route chart and GPS and getting lost and work around ... the route charts are funny ... Sam (the guy that originally put all this together) has little pictures and stuff ... like one was something like go around the water tower to the left and then stay to the right of the pond with little pictures and arrows on it ... and when you get there, sure enough, it was very confusing but his little picture on the route chart got you on the correct dirt road/trail.

Navigation is very time consuming and you gotta pay attention. And as Hades pointed out, you gotta have great re-route skills. Oregon was a mess. Each day you will have moments of being totally lost and confused.

 

[EMTFERN17]

Thank you for the input. I almost want to saddle up next month. Lol