Passes & Canyons Blog

Each year I plot out where I’m going to go, which motorcycle rallies I’m planning to hit, what trips I’m going to take. This year I got lucky when I learned one trip can do double duty.

In a little over two weeks I’m going to be heading down to Scottsdale, AZ, for Arizona Bike Week. Of course that’s providing that Ma Nature lets me. Last year when I went to the Laughlin River Run, in Laughlin, NV, I didn’t actually know if I’d be able to go until the night before I planned to leave. The weather cooperated, I had a great trip, and it snowed the day after I got home.

I’ll be heading further south this time so that should help, but a blizzard on departure day will still require a change in plans. Fingers crossed.

So anyway, here I had my plans made for Scottsdale and I discovered that another event, the Overland Expo, will be taking place in Amado, AZ, on the last three days of Arizona Bike Week, April 1-3. Amado is a tiny burg a little south of Tucson. The Overland Expo is a gathering for two-wheelers and four-wheelers who are into adventure touring. A lot of the sessions and classes are how-tos on adventure touring. Sounds very interesting.

Not that I’m planning on going adventure touring. I followed Alisa Clickenger, aka MotoAdventureGal, on her ride through Central and South America about a year ago and I concluded that that’s just not something I want to do. But I still find it extremely interesting and I have no doubt it will provide some great topics to write about.

So great. I’ll go down to Arizona Bike Week as early as possible, stay there most of the week, and then on Saturday go down to Amado for the last day or so of Overland Expo. That could actually benefit me on my return trip because from Tucson I’ll be able to take Interstate 10, a more southerly route, back east as far as the center of New Mexico, and then head north on I-25.

I don’t normally care to ride the interstates but in this case I have a lot of distance to cover. Plus, I figure if there is weather to contend with, the interstates should be in the best shape of any road. As I say, fingers crossed.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
More Daytona Bike Week in words and photos

Biker Quote for Today

Adventure is just bad planning. — Roald Amundsen

Tags: Arizona Bike Week, Overland Expo

This entry was posted on Monday, March 14th, 2011 at 10:47 pm and is filed under motorcycle events, Rides and Rallies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.