A west coast odyssey

[K_C_M]

I'm a long term GTR1000 (Concours C10) owner with 3 of the beast in my stable here in the UK, but I want to ride in the USA next year!   My partner and I hope to ride down the west coast highway in July to celebrate my 60th birthday.

So what are our options ?
1. Hire a bike in Seattle and ride down to Los Angeles.
2. Forget the bike and hire a car.
3. Buy a bike in the Seattle area and sell it when we gat to Los Angeles.

Option 1 seems to offer a wide variety of bikes, as long as it a Harley and is somewhat expensive for a 14 day hire and drop off in a different city. This option is a well trodden route but is highly organized and that attracts a hefty fee too.  We prefer to be a bit more of free traveling spirts.   

Option 2 is not much of an option seeing as the purpose of the trip was to ride the west coast, but is considerably cheaper.

Option 3 seems fraught with difficulties;  arranging the purchase without a USA address, arranging insurance to start in advance of our arrival and sorting out road side assistance and possible recovery in the event of breakdown.

Has anyone any experience of this, or advice on how to go about option 3?  Of course given the opportunity I'd prefer to do this trip on a Concours, but I'd also quite like to use either and FJR1300 (I have one of those as well!) or a Goldwing.

Any comments or advice will be much appreciated.

Kevin.

[Boomer]

Hi Kevin,
For one way rentals your only choice will be EagleRider.
They do rent FJR1300s out of Seattle but one way is gonna cost.

Buying a bike in the USA is difficult without an address, as is getting insurance.
Doing it for a few months would be worthwhile, but pointless for 2 weeks.

Most of those I know of who did longer rides in the US either rented or else shipped their own bike over there and back afterwards.

I've done 2 trips where Coggers lent me their spare bikes but I returned the bikes to their owners, or owners friends.
Cheers,
George

[GRR125]

Re "I hope to ride down the west coast highway"; just for perspective, I rode much of this route, from Mexico to Vancouver Canada, over a 3 day weekend. Fourteen days will give you ample time to expand your itinerary.

First, I would travel before June 1 or after Sept 1 to avoid vacation travelers that will be on this popular route with you.

If I had 14 days, and didn't get to the seashore very often (because you're going to travel about 1K miles of it), I'd start in Seattle, head toward Astoria, Oregon,then follow Hwy 101 to Legget, Calif. From there, continue on Calif Hwy 1 through San  Francisco, Monterey and on to San Luis Obispo, CA.

The route above constitutes the best of the Pacific Coast Hwy (PCH).

From there, I'd leave the coast route and either head east to Las Vegas or continue 2 hours further south to Ventura, where I'd still turn east and ride toward (Death Valley and ) Las Vegas.
PCH (Hwy 1) from Ventura south to the Mexican border is hard to follow and mostly uninteresting urban slab.

From the Las Vegas vicinity there are several amazing sites and parks that are an easy one-day ride (Hoover Dam, Valley of Fire; through Zion Natl Park to Hwy 89, then Cedar City, loop back to Vegas).  I'd turn north again and travel north (Calif Hyw 395, Nevada Hwy 95 or any other route north - I love the desert) to Reno NV or thereabouts.
From Reno, pick any northbound route to Boise Idaho, Bend Oregon or Spokane Wash. Your final leg then takes you back to Seattle.

If you have to travel one-way with Los Angeles as your destination, your options will be limited as others have explained.

You might be able to rent something you'd enjoy from Riders-Share.com, but I think you have to return to where you rented it.

Best of luck. Gary