Personally, IMHO, a "bucket-list" type of detour would be to turn off on a little side-loop of a coastal outline of both North and South Americas, and likely with little figure-8's for each individual country and each of the islands which could be reached by ferry-boat - I've been planning some circumnavigations of Canada - and now that the USA has had a "regime change" (ostensibly) from the Reagan-Bush-Bush dynasty ... I no longer have an excuse not to go down to California and visit my sister. As such, I guess there's no reason NOT to take the Pacific Coast Highway. Ha-ha. Supposed to be legendary. But then, there are some legendary rides up here in Canada too -
Which is why I say, if you're up in the North-East of the USA, might as well hop the border and go to NOVA SCOTIA, for the JOHN CABOT TRAIL - It's supposed to be incredible. Now THAT'S a respectable North-end destination point!
Personally, I'm wondering whether it can be any better than the roads I've seen on the WEST coast out in British Columbia, so I'd be very keen to take in one long trip incorporating both! And then of course there are the roads across the prairies, Robert Pirsig's old haunt - but at the same time one should also take the HIGH road, up across the North of Canada just as far as one's tires can make purchase and of course ideally in the summertime. So that's AT LEAST the four major directions and cardinal points, the four corners of the Earth.
But who am I to talk? My teenage daughter went to Costa Rica, ALONE at the age of SIXTEEN no less, and rented a highway sized scooter (a Burgmann or some such) then trekked around crossing borders without checking in, up around Lake Nicaragua etc - she even picked up some college boy and chained him to her bike, made him her pillion-#$%*. Right NOW she's in the North of INDIA just back from NEPAL, at the ripe old age of just turned 19 - she's gonna be over there for at least the one year without a plan or a map and she's PROMISED me to spend at least one month of that time travelling on a motorcycle of some sort or other. About 1/12 as much as she SHOULD be doing, IMHO - I'll probably wanna shoot her a few $$$'s to make sure she can get a good bike. And the question being, whether to rent one or to purchase then sell.... Either way, the summer after next the Kid will probably be teaching ME something about long-distance motorcycling.
But yeah, when she's BACK I hope to have made a few more travels of my own, having only recently got back into the saddle after some ten YEARS off my mount due to health reasons. But even if not, I'm hoping we'll make some long-distance treks on a couple of DOHC-4's - my "CB900K0 Bol Bomber" and the next which I'm already collecting parts for, another DOHC-4 project the "Featherweight 750 for Ever" which will be another wire-spoke wheel swap of course, and using a bunch of good gear taken off the 900 etc - Just needs an engine re-build and tires and we're away. Then again, there's at least a whole year to complete the thing - and I've also got my mind set on a quick conversion of a GL1200 to DLF-1000 replica spec, or a V65 Magna/Sabre hybrid converted to "CZ860K0 Sand-Cast" specs aka homage to the CZ Type 860 - 'Cause much as it'd be fun to build a 2nd DOHC-4 with a completely alternative approach to that of my current 985 ridiculousness, I'm surely becoming obsessed with either or both of these two shaft-drive ideas. And I'm sure she'll jump straight onto the Bol Bomber anyhow, and be disappointed with anything smaller. Not much hope of touring with her "KZ440LOL" which is all geared up as an inner-#$%*ty commuter. In fact that's how I KILLED my original KZ440LTD was trying to pull an IRON-BUTT weekend on it, with passenger and camping gear in tow. Perhaps as a single-seater it's possible. But the KID sez "SIDE-CAR!!!" so yeah that one's a ridiculous suggestion as a long-distance mount. Hence the urgency with building the next BIG-bore project, you see.....
ANYWAY yeah - What all I'm getting at here, is that if YOU'RE of a mind that a 2000-mile trip is just a SHAKE-DOWN run, then nothing less than a border-hopping Iron-Butt "Continental Outline" with the bonus level CRISS-CROSS side-trip, is gonna float your ... carburetor-bowl fuel-level valve! Ha-ha.
The '03 CONCOURS seems like a very interesting platform for that type of travel. Very sporty stuff. It's like a bigger version of the "Eliminator" engine, right? Seems like a WAAAAY way better chassis though. I seem to recall something from a Streetfighter magazine or some such, about a monster drag-racer built from that model, was like a far out off-the-beaten-path Ninja of some sort, with shaft-to-chain conversion and all sorts of stuff like that.
Well I guess you could look forward to an entire trek free of break-downs with minimal maintenance etc. ME and the bikes I'M into, I couldn't even fathom what that kind of peace of mind must be like! Ha-ha. That's the way to do it, I guess. One of these days I'll have to get myself something built within the last 30yrs.... In the mean-time I might as well get the mind wrapped around the idea of a HITCH-HIKING tour across the continent, or at least HALF of one! Ha-ha. Well, either that or learn to respect the red-line and/or speed-limit!
One thing's for sure, is I'm pretty lucky for the range of motorcycling habitat right around where I'm at, here in Southern-Alberta. There are wide open flat-lands interspersed with rolling winding roads "coulee" hills around long meandering rivers OR one can take that type of challenging tarmac all the way up the spectrum to it's absurd conclusion with the Rocking-Friggin'-Mountains - everything from horizontal to the vertical and all in between, and right where I'm at you could take off a huge bite of that in one afternoon's riding. And the truly wonderful thing about it all is the near dearth of any-& all type of COPS such that even going balls out -literally, in the friggin' nude at times - on my old '82 CB750F up around 250kph+ all summer long and not so much as a near miss of a traffic ticket! It's almost a prerequisite that you speed, actually - 'cause the local driving culture expects a highway speed of around 130kph just to keep from being ass-ended.
I often think to myself that the extreme South-West of Alberta would make a great place to set up a Classic Bike Rally on par with the Targa Newfoundland auto rallies, as a lot of the turf could stand in for the Snaefell Mountain course on the IOMTT and some of the near ghost-towns could allow for some amount of through-town speeding. I'm sure the local Tourism board would eagerly welcome it. But if not, either way I'M gonna go right on ahead with pretending that they did! Ha-ha.
Yeah, I'm definitely suggesting that you should make a trip up to Nova Scotia and the John Cabot trail, which advertizes itself as a welcome route for motorcyclists - But if you're gonna come up to Canada and ride, you'd be remiss not to make the trip clear across from the Atlantic to the Pacific!
Sure, you could do the same thing on the State-side end of the border. But down there, you've got a heck of a lot more towns all crammed together end-to-end. (Quite literally for the bottom half of the much vaunted Pacific Coast Highway - I remember very well making that trip as a teenager, and from Imperial Beach to Los Angeles I don't recall reaching so much as the outskirts of town!)
Whereas up here in Canada we're all about our wide open spaces . . . .
-Sigh.
