Riding Young and Stupid, My Frist Motorcycle Trip 

Great story Craig! Thank you for sharing. I started laughing right at the "we left after we got off work at 5"...uh oh, this isn't going to end well.... 😂

That was a refreshing reminder of how naive we were. It reminded me of the lack of rain gear on a highway on a Yamaha DT400 Enduro, 1978. It felt like being shot with a BB gun for 2 hours all over my body.🙄. Sometimes I shake my head in disbelief that I survived all of my stupidity. Age 66 now, Honda VTX1800R.

Great story. My ears perked when heard Z1R 1000 as I had bought a 1978 Z1R in 85, my dream bike at the time, and planned on taking it across country at 20 yrs. old. Due to lingering charging issues that I could not resolve in time I bought an 82 GS1100 E and took that instead. Came across a photo of that bike packed up for the trip and it made me laugh how little I brought for a 5 week 10k mile trip back then compared to my loaded up Africa Twin now. Keep up the good work Craig.

1981, the year I graduated from high school. Found myself that summer on 2 different occasions in Longview, Tx. working for a pipe testing company out of Lafayette, Louisiana. Worked at the pipe yard in Lone Star, and stayed at the Continental Inn in Longview. Those were my wildest days. Drinking partying and whorer hopping 😊

Our first motorcycle trip was around Lake Superior, in 1970. I was riding a new Suzuki 350 Rebel 2 stroke, and my friend had a old Sears Allstate (Puch) 250 Twingle. Our motorcycle luggage were Army surplus ruck sacks that we tied on the bikes with clothesline. My sleeping bag was a cheap with a yellow liner that dyed my skin yellow. Tent was a cheap pup tent with no floor and ribbons to tie the door flaps closed, mosquitos could find their way in the tent but not out. No ground cloth sleeping bags on the damp earth, soaking wet after one night laying on the ground. Cooking gear was a cast iron frying pan to cook over an open fire. The worst thing have eaten was a canned whole chicken in a tomato juice type can, we fried the whole chicken in the chicken jello that was in the can with the chicken. We had just enough money for gas, camped off the road in hidden places. It was an adventure, and we had a great time. Looking back the Canadian and US Customs more or less just waved us across the borders, sure they did not want to deal with a couple of long hair hippies on smoking two stroke motorcycles .

Wonderful story & as many of us - I have been there also - young & single (28) & living with 3 other guys (all working for Delta Airlines) in a big house with a pool in Ft. Lauderdale (girls galore) & one night we watched Easy Rider on TV & decided that we would ALL go on a trip out west the following year - at the time only one of us had a bike - the following year I purchased a new 1976 Kawasaki KZ 900 & in September of 76 I was off by myself as one by one the others dropped out - I went out to Yellowstone Montana & back - a 22 day trip with 2 snow storms but zero rain - went to the top of Pikes Peak (upper part was all gravel) & camped by the side of the road many a night - one night there was some tall grass behind my tent & some railroad tracks beyond them & about 3 AM a train came by & I broke a tent pole trying to escape the tent as I thought I was dead - I had no idea what the heck was happening - it was one of those "check your underwear moments" - even ran out of gas outside of a place called Goodnight Texas - I had no worries whatsoever because I was as young & dumb as one could be - I had no game plan either but it was my very 1st LD trip on a bike & I was hooked - still doing them now at 76 (yoa) & still loving them - so much happened on that trip & I sincerely thank you for bringing back all those memories & like you my trips all have a game plan now. :-)

LMAO! Great story Craig! Literally laughing out loud too my dogs 😂 Thanks man! Sometimes we forget what life was like before the internet.

LOLLLLL! Love it!!! Making memories. I've been there to. Thanks for the laugh!

💯👍Always Amazing What We Did in Our Youth and Survived, To get to our Golden Years and Have Abit more Wisdom.Stay Well Sir

In 1981, rain-gear consisted of one of those yellow two-piece rubberized fisherman suits. 😉

Great story!

If everything went perfectly there'd be nothing worth remembering. My first trip was a 4 week, 8 country, European camping trip on a 2 stroke Yamaha RD200 in 1978 aged 20. I'd never even put up a tent in my life and spent most of the first night scraping stones from under the tent and wondering how anyone could sleep at all. I had no idea you were meant to sleep on a camping mat. A great adventure and a good laugh - looking back now.

That was a great story.. 👏 When I finally purchased my large BMW adventure motorcycle, I had a fair amount of on and off road riding experience... The $130 dorky day glow yellow rain suit I bought with the bike, advertising the brand like a schmuck.... Is still my favorite piece of just in case riding gear ⚙️ ... I'm still immature in my early 50s so I do plan on taking a 1000 mile 24 hour challenge soon... After the rainy season😂

If it had all gone smoothly you probably wouldn't have remembered it so well 🙂 In 1978 I packed all our stuff and my girlfriend into my Ford Capri 1600 and headed from the UK to the South of France, only the ferry was booked, no hotels, no roadside recovery, no insurance, no phones, just a guide book and maps to help with hotels and routes and stuff, we avoided motorways (Freeways) Even today I don't meet many 19 year olds that can say they have driven around the Monaco GP circuit and swam off the beach in Monte Carlo at 7.30am. 🙂 I sure do miss my 19 year old reckless self 😢 Great story. What is it 'they' anything that doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Unfortunately, wisdom comes at the price of experience. Great video!

Sleeping on the beach still sounds good even at 63 y/o. Ride safe

been there, done it and learned from it. Oh! God bless gore-tex

That's a common story for first time trips. I was about 22, 23 when, on a sunny afternoon, I and 2 friends decided to take a quick trip to a state park for an over night camp out. We all grabbed sleeping bags, strapped on the back of the bikes, and headed out. We had a tarp, some rope, and none of us knew what safety gear was, (helmets only, state law) and didn't care. One friend talked his gal into going as well. My Seca 750, a Honda Nighthawk, and IIRC, a Suzuki 550 were headed west on 44 outside of STL when the skies opened up with a heavy downpour. We took shelter under a gas station canopy. One of us had the great idea of buying a box of trash bags and fashioning "rainsuits" by cutting appropriate holes for heads and arms. We got to the state park, setup the tarp over a rope strung between 2 trees and some sticks pushed in the ground at the 4 corners. No firewood, wet, cold, soaked sleeping bags, wet clothes, miserable obviously. We survived the rainy night, (the lady got extremely sick with chills, fever, and cold like symptoms that lasted for a while) and swore never again. And we never did. BUT, I did learn valuable lessons on that trip that I have applied to other areas of life, and subsequent tours and trips since. My beautiful spouse and I are planning a Blue Ridge trip for August. I can gar-an-tee we have rainsuits, gear (my Klim, she Olympia) several sets of gloves, (vented, non vented and waterproof) boots, extra clothes, and new Shoei's for the adventure. All in LOTS recommended Suited Nomad bags. I've got credit cards, cash, tools, tire patch kit, inflator, and GPS. I think our CanAm Spyder RT-L will get the job done comfortably. And I have trash bags, although I suspect I'll be using them for dirty clothes rather than protection from the elements. LOVE THIS CHANNEL. Craig is a wise man, listen to the Preacher!

Craig - I laughed out loud the entire video!!! We've all been there. How we survived............too funny. Mine was a trip to Florida starting on Good Friday from OH. Once we were tired and couldn't find a room anywhere, I asked the hotel receptionist what in the hell was going on that everything was booked. He asked me if I ever heard of spring break! Egads.

Same ect...over pack now. Great when I was young and dumb ,just go!..good story ❤

Great experience - sounds familiar….

Allow me to also say that on that Yellowstone trip my luggage was my army duffel bag tied down to my Kawasaki KZ 900 with rope of all things - how did we ever survive our youth. 🙂

At 17 I had a Kawasaki 100 and we drove Montreal to Plattsburg lake ( no issue crossing the border, we did not have passport, did not exist to go to the USA in those days) we were 2 on the bike and drove pretty fast on the highway , coming back later in the afternoon , just after crossing the Us border ... the engine died , no money , no back up , Cell phone did not exist , we pushed the bike to the closes tourist stop , left the bike and hitch hiking home.( good thing it was not raining ) I had to ask my father to rent a truck the next day to go and get the bike. good thing it was still there, found out we damage the engine ... well you need to learn some lesson the Hardway , since I did not have any money for the repairs no more bike for the rest of the summer. I was able to save enough to have it repair but had to wait for the next season to ride it. Yep young adventurous and stupid . We were young and we had to learn, at 63 I still ride , not the same way , I might be a bit to much prepare and much less adventurous but I enjoy my time on the road very much like you say and love that one Squeeze the juice out of life Thank you for the great video and bringing back this memory as this what make life interesting all our Memories and experience. Alain & Yellow

I am 58 and i do what you did back then lol i dont book anything i just sometimes dont even plan the trip i got my rain gear lol. To be honest i like doing trips like this no plans just get on my bike and go i will figure it out when i get there lol a little more expensive but i am having fun plus i am single and dont have anyone to answer to and i am also retired the one thing i try not to do is take a major trip during any kinda holiday this way i am almost insured that not all hotels will be booked and usually there is always something available i know this is probably not the smartest way to take a trip but i am still having fun ride on my friends...

I was riding to get my marriage license when I was 22, it rained the entire 100 miles. I stood in the courthouse dripping water everywhere. Rain gear?! What's that? 😋

Been there, done the same fucking shit Mr Craig.

Love the story, like hear your best motorcycle trip story right after this one, but most important for me, is how do you like your shoei neotec helmet? I plan on getting the neo2 soon ,just wanted to see if you had any inputs specifically on noise insulation isolation??

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 It happened to me too 😅😅😅😅😅

Hilarious, but I’m sure it wasn’t funny at the time. 😂

If you were on a Harley, everything would have been just fine.

No wonder you're such a "trip planner" ... You have "PTT" .. Past Trip Trauma .... 😉

😂

It's called "learning the hard way", and if you avoid the experience you never gain the perspective. Throughout my life I have engaged with reality without "the proper gear". In a bubble of "safety" the world may as well be a museum. You did ruffle my feathers when you said "3am in the morning". That increasingly common redundancy strikes me as "less than educadit". Here I am, burn me.🥱😊