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Jarrett

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Go west young man! 10 days in Arkansas would get old real fast. It’s all beautiful but it is all the same.
 
Last October I hauled my bike to Cloudcroft to go for a 7 day ride. I headed West through New Mexico, Arizona, California, and then making a looping back to where I had left my truck in Cloudcroft.

Some of the highlights of my ride were Hiway 191, the Mogollon Rim, and Grand Canyon in Az. Death Valley, Sequoia and Yosemite National parks in Ca. Plus a lot of misc.

Death Valley turned out to be one of my favorites. So if haven’t ridden out West yet, I highly recommend it...
 
Last October I hauled my bike to Cloudcroft to go for a 7 day ride. I headed West through New Mexico, Arizona, California, and then making a looping back to where I had left my truck in Cloudcroft.

Some of the highlights of my ride were Hiway 191, the Mogollon Rim, and Grand Canyon in Az. Death Valley, Sequoia and Yosemite National parks in Ca. Plus a lot of misc.

Death Valley turned out to be one of my favorites. So if haven’t ridden out West yet, I highly recommend it...

Would love to see a map of your route. Sounds great! Also sounds like a lot in just 7 days!
 
Depends on what you plan to do. It’s a days ride to the Ozarks and one back. I can easily spend a few days in the area. Slabbing out miles day in and day out gets old in a hurry. Your loop looks like it’s about 2300 miles without accounting for riding when you get to your destinations. How many miles are you good for each day? Add in some more days, because it usually takes longer than planned. Also, some days you don’t feel like being on the bike 8hrs a day. So the loop alone might be 4-6 days. It doesn’t allow for a lot of down days to actually explore areas your riding to. You start running into rain, hail, strong cross winds, etc. and those too can easily change the dynamic.
 
Just spitballing here based on Rsquared's idea of trailering to Cloudcroft. Some great riding area for sure and could certainly be trimmed down as necessary.

 
9 to 10 days can get you just about wherever you want to go.

We went to Seattle and back in 9 days a few years back. 6500 miles in 9 days is a bit much, but you can fairly easily average 400 a day which brings both East and West coast in play if you chose to go that far.

Personally, I'd work my way up to Glacier National Park via Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Montana. You could even go on up to Banff.

I think our Glacier / Banff trip was about 4500 miles over 8 days. I'll see if I can find my old routes and post up..
 
Smokey Mountains are a gorgeous fall ride, your route is similar to what I'd have suggested. Keep in mind that weather may be less predictable that time of year and tourist traffic may cause serious congestion on some of the two lanes roads. If you ride BRP, traffic will be much lighter on week days.
 
Going west in the Fall is our favorite trip. BUT a huge word of caution. Try not to pack so much into your trip that you really do not enjoy the trip. I have planned each of our 4 western trips down to the nth degree (multitab Excel spreadsheets w/exact lunch spots and gas stops) and finally this last September realized it really doesn't work that well. We got to Yosemite heading to Lake Tahoe when the first major cold front came in from the Pacific. Everything from Reno north to Olympic Natl Park east to Nez Perc By-Way in Idaho to Chief Joseph back home got scrapped due to rain/ice/snow. We ended up coming home from Reno via Zion and Santa Fe. I will still do a spreadsheet, but never again will it dictate the trip.

Sorry for being so long winded. Bottomline is there is so much amazing stuff to see going west plan conservatively and just enjoy.
 
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