Packing a Motorcycle for a 30-Day Adventure Ride

Packing List: 30 Days and 4,500 Miles on a Honda XR650L

After our Trans America Trail series, a lot of you asked my riding buddy Tim for his packing list. Tim was the guy on the Honda XR650L, the one who was dialed in before Greg and I had even finished testing our gear. In 2020 he was about to leave on another month-long ride, so he laid out his entire kit and walked us through it.

The trip: 4,500 miles, starting in New Mexico, running up to the Canadian border and back down through Montana on the Backcountry Discovery Routes, with a little of the Continental Divide route mixed in. Everything on these tables fits on that one bike, with room to spare.

Navigation and electronics

Tim carries paper maps for both routes, the Backcountry Discovery Route and the Continental Divide route, plus a 13-inch MacBook Pro, a bag of cables and chargers, and a small screwdriver set so he can get into his GoPro gear without digging out the whole tool kit. A spare key and a lock round it out.

For safety off the grid, he carries a DeLorme inReach satellite messenger and a personal locator beacon he can fire off if things go really wrong. Since he was headed for the Canadian border, the bear spray came too.

Maintenance and tools

This is the part most people underpack. Tim brings a chain breaker and press, chain lube, a tire pressure gauge, work gloves and latex gloves, an Allen wrench set, and filters for two oil changes. His favorite trick is about nine pre-oiled filter skins (he uses PC Racing). He swaps one out and tosses it, and that gets him through the whole trip without much maintenance on the air filter itself.

For flats: CO2 cartridges, a spare front tube, a spare rear tube and a tire-changing kit. He also packs a tow strap with some stretch in the middle, which he was trying for the first time on this trip.

First aid and recovery

A full first aid kit, plus a SAM splint and an H-bandage trauma dressing. He also carries a cargo net and a collapsible 20-liter dry bag, which together let him expand his carrying capacity when he needs to haul extra gear.

Sleep system

Tim used to carry a full tent. Now it’s an emergency shelter setup: a down sleeping bag inside a bivy (that’s a bivouac sack), plus a sleeping mat and a pillow. It’s much more compact and lighter than a tent, and on a solo trip that adds up.

Food and water

Beef sticks, bars, little tuna packs and beef jerky for everyday eating, plus five freeze-dried meals as insurance in case he gets stuck somewhere without food. (Tim’s review of the freeze-dried meals: really good stuff.) He cooks on an MSR WhisperLite stove and carries a spare water bottle and a 2-liter Platypus bladder for long dry stretches, plus a water filter, an emergency fire starter and vitamins.

Clothes

Three merino wool short-sleeve shirts, three pairs of socks, three pairs of underwear, long johns and a fleece down jacket. That’s all the clothes. A merino buff helps on cold night rides and keeps the wind off your face. For rain, a Mosko Moto Deluge jacket and waterproof shells that go over his regular gloves, plus heavier gloves for cold weather. A little collapsible hat, a knit hat, and toiletries finish it off.

The fun stuff

Two GoPros (a 7 and an 8) with extra batteries and a Dango Designs chin mount he loves, a SureFire Sidekick light, a headlamp, and a cable lock so he can leave his helmet on the bike. And an Echo travel fly rod he’d just picked up to try: a 5-weight that breaks down into eight pieces only 18 inches long.

How it all goes on the bike

The luggage is a Mosko Moto Reckless 80 system, with a 3-liter hydration pack and a couple of small 4-liter bags. Up front he runs a Wolfman bag on the number plate for tools and a pair of Wolfman 7-liter tank panniers. They’re not waterproof, so he waterproofs what’s inside. He runs a Giant Loop bag too.

Two smart touches on the cockpit. First, the phone: Tim’s friends have collectively trashed six or seven iPhones running them on the handlebars. He ran an iPhone 8 up there for 12,000 miles to navigate, kept a second phone on his body, and was trying a new Mosko Moto phone holder for a softer ride. Second, a little spray bottle of visor cleaner hung on retractable fishing zingers, so he can clean his visor and his GoPro lens on the move without stopping.

Out back, the smaller Wolfman bags carry about 30 ounces of extra fuel and some oil, which is a pretty handy place to keep them.

CONCLUSION

A month on the road and 4,500 miles, and it all fits on one dual-sport with room left over. The lesson from Tim’s kit is that the weight goes into the stuff that keeps you moving (tools, filters, tubes, first aid) and comes out of the comfort gear, like trading a tent for a bivy. Use his list as your starting point, grab my camping checklist above, and watch the full walk-through in the video. Then see how my own TAT gear shakedowns went.