Two week motorcycle adventure from Canada to Mexico through the western USA mountains
See the Pacific Divide Review in UPSHIFT Magazine
About the ride
We are very excited to offer this new adventure route down the entire length of the west coast of America. The route follows the western mountains known as the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada Range. The ride starts on the border with Canada and finishes at the border with Baja Mexico. While the ride follows through the spectacular mountains, it offers 3 options of adventure:
First, riders can choose all paved options enabling a relaxed, more street bike style adventure (Green Routes)
Second, riders can choose an adventure bike style ride similar to the popular backcountry routes which offer a lot of dirt roads, both graded and jeep style 2 track (Blue Routes) (Yes, good tough guy stuff)
Finally, riders can opt to bring Dual Sport style bikes and elect to take rougher options including some trails and rougher dirt sections (Red Routes)
The exciting part about this ride is that riders can choose their own level of adventure exposure each day to meet their desire and excitement.
The ride includes motels and we will be eating at restaurants so riders will not need to bring camping or cooking gear. Each day our route will take us to the next motel and many days we will have an option of lunch on the trail. Each morning riders will grab breakfast and team up with their riding buddies, grab their daily snacks and begin their adventure. The day's adventures are long with many rich options along the way.
After the day's ride, riders perform bike maintenance and join up for happy hour and dinner. Then it is often to bed early as the next day comes quickly.
Riders should carry any supplies for bike repairs and maintenance on the trail (like flat tires).
Call it like I see it gpsKevin: "The Great Pacific Divide Route is fast becoming one of the Great American routes. Like the Great Continental Divide Route it covers spectacular remote mountains but of the western states of California, Oregon and Washington. The remoteness and beauty are second to none. After having ridden this route last summer and hundreds of other rides like it, I understand why they say all the best riding is out west."
Self Guided Adventure: The PDR is designed to be a self-guided adventure. As GPS units have become both more powerful and easier to use, it has enabled nearly everyone to easily find their way along the route. This adventure route overcomes many of the challenges in planning such a grand adventure. The route has been established with riding options (blue/red/green). Distances are known and shown. Gas stops and distance between gas stops is identified. Lodging and eating establishments are identified as are points of interest. For many folks, this information allows them to just experience the adventure without the burden of having to extensively plan or risk getting seriously lost or running out of gas well before a gas stop.
Buy the GPS Card and Adventure Maps:
You can order a microSD card for your Garmin GPS and a complete Riders Packet which consists of a ride description booklet and large 11x17 daily ride maps as well as a set of quick reference 5x8 tank bag cards. These maps are designed in combination with the GPS to aid in visualizing the daily route and associated information (gas/food/lodging/points of interest).
PDR Choice (Scroll Down Menu)
International Shipping (Free Shipping to Lower 48 States)
Checkout View Cart
Notes: I suggest you plan and order early. Normally I ship within a week. But sometimes I run out and it can take me several weeks to get new cards and maps. And sometimes I am out riding and building new adventures so that can be hard too. I list the Option for 2 SD cards because many riders like to carry a backup card or a cheap backup GPS in the event of unforeseen circumstances.
Ride Details
I know many of you also enjoy dreaming about the ride and making your plans, so here is the detail, enjoy!
View the ride maps below
OK since many of you like to study more detail about the ride, below are the ride maps.
I put these ride maps on the web page because I know a few of you love looking at the ride detail and dreaming about the ride. At first glance these maps do not look so impressive, but they are way cool. If you start zooming in, you can see the ride in incredible detail. I have spent a ton of hours sorting through the details of the ride for each day, so for those of you that enjoy this sort of thing, well enjoy!
Legend:
The Blue lines are MAIN Backcountry Routes mostly dirt roads
The Red lines are Hard Alternate Routes (Dualsport)
The Green lines are a mix of back Paved Routes
Black lines are out and backs to gas and motels
Motorcycle Shipping Options
Notes: Riders bike shipping options:
Ship bikes to: Seattle WA
Fly into Seattle International airport
Drive time on a bike to the starting hotel is 5 hours
Ship bike home from: San Diego
Fly home from San Diego Airport
Drive time on a bike from the ride finish to San Diego is 1 hour
Recommend Federal Companies Transports: 888-483-7117
Note you can make arrangements with gpsKevin to store your bike and you can ship from this location
How does the ride navigation work?
This is a self-led GPS ride; all riding is on your own. You are responsible for your own riding. You will be given a GPS map file and instructions on how to use your Garmin GPS unit. People will hook up in small groups of less than 6 riders and tend to ride together. You are not encouraged to ride alone. You are responsible for your own riding and yourself.
(see my ride Navigation Video)
Are you right for this ride?
When something goes wrong on a ride, would your riding friends say that you are more likely to need help or more likely to give help? You should be in the more likely to offer help camp. This ride is filled with riders that are more likely to give help, so most of the time the riders never need help. Additionally there is all the normal stuff, come prepared to maintain your bike, fix your bike on the trail, repair flat tires, deal with bad weather and rain and make a joke or two.
How do I make the GPS stuff so easy?
I develop very high quality ride maps custom for our ride. They come from much of what I and others have ridden. I take the best from all my rides and make new ones.
(See my Custom Ride Maps Video)
Note from me, gpsKevin
My goal for this ride is simple, great riding, so you can count on great routes and places to ride.
But in addition: the ride is about discovering new places, meeting new friends, seeing new parts of the Southwest.
Thanks
gpsKevin
