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Toronto to Los Angeles

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palmpalm

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I'm planning to ride to LA (with a few stop-overs on the way of course, including Las Vegas) and then up the Pacific Coast all the way to B.C. then back through Canada home. I was thinking to take 21 days to do this in August but could also do it some other time. Any climate/weather/other reason not to do it in August. I could theoretically do it in July or September too. But August likely works the best.

Any tips/advice? Route planning thoughts/suggestions? Places to see/stay/do? To avoid?
 
Chaos said:
21 days sounds short to me. Are you planning any rest days?
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Yah. I figure 5 days of riding to Vegas, then 2 days in Vegas. 1 day of riding to L.A. then 2 days in L.A., 4 days up to B.C. 1 day in Vancouver, 5-6 days back across Canada to Toronto. No good?
 
Lightcycle said:
We've done TO to San Fran in 18 days, including two rest days and lots of roadside hikes. 21 days to LA is fine. Count on a few 1K km days through the Grand Prairies.

There are a quite a few recent TO->Cali threads in here complete with sample routes, if you do a search.
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I need to do the entire trip (including back to TO) in 21 days. Or is that what you meant?
 
Lightcycle said:
Yes, TO->San Fran->TO in 18 days.

Here's our route, map has the stops for each night: http://www.RideDOT.com/cali
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Reviewing some of your pics and trip, makes me so jealous! I am recognizing a lot of the shots you've taken. I did it in a car, unfortunately... would love to get a bike back there. My friend and I rented a car in Vegas, and drove around the entire Grand Canyon in about 15 hours... left over the Hoover and came back through Utah. It was awesome.
 
Ok, let me qualify my original reply with the fact that when I've toured I don't normally go beyond 500-600 KMs a day (did Vancouver and back in 4 weeks; did St. John's and back in 3), so I usually take more time to get where I want to get.

If I were to go to Cali, I'd budget 4-5 weeks for it. I figure I'd want to stay a few places for a few days.
 
Chaos said:
Ok, let me qualify my original reply with the fact that when I've toured I don't normally go beyond 500-600 KMs a day (did Vancouver and back in 4 weeks; did St. John's and back in 3), so I usually take more time to get where I want to get.

If I were to go to Cali, I'd budget 4-5 weeks for it. I figure I'd want to stay a few places for a few days.
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Yah, would love to have the time to do that but I don't. Can't take off more then 3 weeks at a time without significantly effecting my income (and don't want to do that right now).
 
palmpalm said:
Yah, would love to have the time to do that but I don't. Can't take off more then 3 weeks at a time without significantly effecting my income (and don't want to do that right now).
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Well, if the American midwest is like the praries, you can make very good time and chew a lot of KMs on the way there.
 
Yeah sometimes you have to work with what you've got - I max out at 2 consecutive weeks for my vacation at work, though I get 4 in total. So sometimes its 1,000 k + days on interstates to go where I want to go. Shrug - I figure the payoff is worth it - but its not for everyone.

Really tough to choose in terms of timing for weather when you're looking at starting at LA and heading up the Pacific Coast. The southern SW is quite likely to be brutal in August - in fact you can pretty well count on it. 2 years ago in mid June in NM I was starting my riding days at 3:00 a.m. to be able to make up time before the heat got too oppressive. Even the midwest was hitting over 100 F during the day. On the other hand you should be in perfect weather for the northern part of your coastal route. I had a softside cooler with a plastic bucket insert which I filled with a lot of ice and a little bit of bottled water and had ice water all day long - I just bungeed the handle to my tailbag and didn't care if it looked silly. Its not like here where you have a convenience store or gas station every couple of hours - it can be long stretches in no man's land.
 
I think you might find going in Sept also offers less holiday/tourist traffic, but of course more in-city commuter traffic, and that accommodations would be less expensive, if you aren't camping.
I usually wait until after labour day so all the childrens are back in school and out of any attractions you might want to see.
 
Later August is Ok for Colorado - and 21 days is more then enough time. ( It will all depend on how much you can ride each day)
We did the West Coast around the first or second week of Sept and the weather was fine.
 
GF and I are flying to San Jose on May 22 to get our bikes (shipped over the winter and we went to Cali in late December for 10 days).

Plan is to ride all the way back and we have about 10 days to do it. We have very rough idea of the route and we hope that going
south we can have less of the flat parts in the middle and less of the could mountains.

If anyone has suggestions please let me know.

This is not a thread hijack as it is same trip just in a different direction ;)

Cheers!

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=...=ptk&mra=ls&via=3,4,5,7,8,11,16,17,21&t=m&z=5
 
Germax I'd certainly swing up to Utah on that trip - the parks there are incredible.

Starting at San Fran.
Catch 101 south to San Luis Obispo - might be the nicest part of the trip..

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then hit Bakersfield - cut north to Kings and Sequoia and then down back to Bakersfield via the steeper curvier route ( see below ) to Death Valley and then Las Vegas but you have to research it - was a wild road down from Sequoia.
You go from 9,000 ft down well below sea level - make sure your brakes are good.

Re: Driving from Sequoia National Park to Death Valley
07 July 2011, 3:37
Hi, Carolyn. You don't have much choice about route - you can't go over the Sierras to the east from Sequoia without going down the Western side. It is definitely possible to do in a day.

There are two choices for going down the mountain: the 198 (faster, but curvy and some people think it's too curvy or steep - we use it all the time) or the 180. Either will get you down to flatland, where you'll take the 99 southbound to Bakersfield, where you'll take the 58 eastbound till you get to the 395 and head north.

It's about 6-6.5 hours of driving (Google says 5 hours from Bakersfield, which sounds right to me). Some of it will be scenic (near lake Isabella), but there won't be a lot of services past Bakersfield (there are little places to catch a bite to eat and get gas; for tourist services and a choice of places to eat, you'd want to make it to Lone Pine, which will add a bit of time to your trip).
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http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowT...ey-Death_Valley_National_Park_California.html

Here are some tips as well
http://www.roadtripamerica.com/foru...ion-Grand-Canyon-Hoover-Dam-Sequoia-in-9-days

After that it's pretty boring coming east...I've done Toronto to Amarillo non stop in the van. You have to time the major cities too - Chicago can hang you up for hours in traffic as can Kansas City.

The western mountains is where it's at for scenery and good motorcycle roads....spend the time there but beware of May 24th long weekend - all the major attractions will be jammed.

Take layers.....even tho it looks south you are still up on the continental divide and will get cold in the desert and hot in desert. So go by topography.
 
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OP - I'd definitely stay a bit north of the route you -want and unless you reaaalllly want to do LA stay north and pick up the PCH at San Luis Obispo. LA traffic is horrendous almost 24 hours a day.

San Fran is much nicer in my opinion and getting there best of all.

You may want to hit Mount St. Helens on the way north and even Yosemite can be worked in with some wiggling.

I'd say Sept is better - we had a great trip in the car in November up the PCH.
You will get seriously bored of high speed slab
By all means take to get out there but if you can skip LA then you may be able to catch Banff and Lake Louise etc.
But depends on your goals...
 
Thanks MacDoc! Awesome info!
 
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