The swiss are coming, just another TAT report, to Baja in between.

Hi everyone,
since so many of you guys in the states have done the TAT and reported about it it got me thinking. Since I'm always looking for new offroad destinations I asked my little girl about her opinion and she did not say no.
And so a plan was made for this year. First I send an order to Sam and after a couple of days the postman brought us this:



Then Sandra found a transporter with a reasonable price to get our bikes to the US. Well Boston is not really close to Tellico Plains, but it was by far the cheapest we could find.
Then I got to the phone and called a couple of motorcycle dealers and asked if one of them had us a crate for the flight. I was lucky that one dealer had two in his backyard that were waiting for the junkyard. We jumped into the car and picked them up.

This is what we got:


I had to do a bit of disassembling to get the bikes into the crates and in the end they looked like this:



Then the day of delivery to the airport came. Sandra got a truck from the company she works for and here we are about to do the loading:



And here our babies are at the airport waiting to be taken in.



The down side is that my right shoulder isn't ok. Having pain in it for over 4 months now I finally landed at a shoulder specialist and after looking at the mri pictures the doctor said that two tendons were a little torn off and that I would have to have a operation. I told him about my TAT plan and he right away said: go and ride! (He's a biker) We will have the operation in January. So I got an injection and two boxes of painkillers and the order to have fun. So I said to myself: you are going to take it easy, no falling, and if pick up the bike carefully.

By now our bikes are in Montreal and hopfully are in a truck to Boston tommorrow. We will board a plane to the states on thursday and can hopfully start to ride on friday or saturday.
We will see.

See you in the US soon.

Cheers Thomas

Sounds like a fun ride!

As I did with RTWDoug, I could offer to join along with you guys for a couple days through Mississippi/Arkansas if the schedules permit and if you don't mind some random dude tagging along.

In any case, I'll be following your ride.

Jamie

I live close to the TAT start.
PM if you need a place to crash in east tn.

It's a lot closer than Fribourg.

How do you plan to get from Boston to Tellico Plains? I'm about halfway and know some of the "better" (non-interstate) routes north and south.

If you have the time, you could take the TET (to southern West Virginia) and the TET-S (from WV to Tellico Plains) all the way down.

Probably add about 4 days, but good riding all the way down.

Track files are available around here in Layin' Down Tracks.

Looks like you got the route sheets from Sam, many prefer the tracks (now available) and a GPS.

Hi guys,
thanks for all your replies.
First of all some good news.
Got a mail from the transporter. He managed to put the bikes on an earlier truck. They are in Boston allready and waiting for us. Yeah!!!
Boarding the plane tomorrow and will be in Boston in the evening. I hope I can get on the bike on friday allready. (If all goes well and I have all the right papers.) We'll see.


Jamie: We'll see by what time we make it to Tellico and let you know. Maybe we can work something out.


MichaelJ and Northern Traveler: Thanks for your advice. We are not sure yet which route we will take. We will first get the bikes, pack up, look at the weather, and then decide if we race to Tellico or go a bit slower. I will have a look at the TET if that's an option.

And MichaelJ you are right Fribourg is alot further away but we are coming.

Until tomorrow in the USA.

Cheers Thomas

Definitely in.

This should be good - can't wait

Looking forward to a play by play.

I'm in.! morning coffee stuff here !

I'm in.. Welcome to the US! Have a great trip!

Should be a great ride. The weather looks to be pretty fantastic in the East the next week or so. Looking forward to you two in the backwoods of 'merica.

I'm in Wash DC, hit me up if you need anything midway to the TAT.

I'm in

Let me join in on the fun too!! Don't want to miss this one.

Im in

subscribed! looking forward to a great ride report!

If anything goes wrong and you find yourself within 200 miles of Sioux City, Iowa call, I'll be happy to do what I can to help. My phone # is 712)251-5421 and I grew up in Glattbrugg, just north of Zurich.

LaDue

Wooo this is on my bucket list and I'm in! How much did you pay for the bikes transportation to the US? I got a quote not long back for shipment of my KTM to South America with plans of watching the Dakar, but the price was way out of my league! Looking at hiring a bike instead now.

Hi every one

Thanks a lot for all your comments. We are here!

After arriving in Boston, we went to Air Canada Cargo, looking for our bikes. Everything went really smooth. The bikes were there, the Customs guy was waiting for us and it only took more than five minutes because he wanted to small talk. With our stamped forms we went back to Cargo and in another five minutes we had our bikes.

And here they come:


Then we took apart the crates:



Put everything back together again:



And here they are. The two bikes, ready to ride:



The guys at Air Canada Cargo were really nice. After a small chat with them, they even took care of disposing the crates and wished us a safe ride.

Then it took two long days to ride down to Tellico.

Here I am, getting the first roll chart mounted:



After a short lunch in Tellico, we were where the asphalt ended (for the first time):



And then came the five water crossings. Here's Sandra taking one of them:



After zig zaggin the whole afternoon through Eastern Tennessee we finally arrived in Dayton, where we're spending the night.

That's it for today.

See you guys