Coast to Coast on a rental

[jolyon_russ]

My first post on HU so here we go!

It's a bit of a long story, but I'll try and keep the pre-amble short.

I work for a company that have a head office in NYC, last November I got sent over for a week one of the guys in the office has a mad Can-Am Spyder, so I asked him if he knew of any rental places in NYC, so I could take something for a spin while I was over. All he could find was Harley places miles from Manhattan, where my hotel was, so I kinda gave up on the idea.

Then, out of nowhere I get an email from him saying there's this new place that's opened up that are renting BMW's, I had a good look at their website and in the specials section they offer 1-way rental from NYC to LA. This got me thinking.

I did a little googling and some simple sums, NYC to LA via Dallas is about 3000 miles. If you take 14 days that's about 210 miles per day. So I send a quick email to find out how much 14 days would cost and he comes back with $1500 off peak (Oct - Nov) on a R1200GS

Initially that seemed very reasonable and after some more googling it seems very good. It has a number of major advantages over buy/sell or shipping my own F800GS, mostly that I'm only going for 2 weeks riding max.

I guess my main question is, can it be done in 2 weeks?

Am I setting an unrealistic target?

My worry is I’ll spend the first week stopping every 5 mins to take photos then rush the last week to try and catch up, missing loads of cool stuff. I suppose America’s such a huge country you could spend your whole life driving around it and still find new interesting bits to see.

Your opinions and guidance is appreciated.


Jolyon

[yuma simon]

At a reasonable speed, one can drive straight from NYC to L.A. in about 3 days keeping to the major interstates, and stopping for the night. That should give you 11 days to play with, taking a route that is not on one of the major interstates (the side roads and non-interstate highways are much more scenic). But you do need to consider the weather during those months, so you would definitely want to ride in as early October as possible. By November, it could be mild, or wintry already.

[Ruud A]

Ever read the classic "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac? Although a little dated by now, it shows it can easily be done.

Best of luck,
Ruud

[John Ferris]

Thats a great trip. Leave as early in Oct. as possable to avoid snow.
Some possable routes are on the site -
ROAD TRIP USA

Its a easy 10 -14 day trip on two lane roads with occasional rides on Interstates.

[petefromberkeley]

Keep off the main interstate freeways and you will have a great ride.

[John Ferris]

I have made 8 cross country trips in the USA and it is much better to use the Interstate Highways when you are going through big cities.
The old 2 lane US highways go through the older and some times run down parts of town with a lot of slow traffic.
As you get close to large cities you can get on the Interstates and go around them.