Why the DR650 and Why the TAT

Reasons why we chose to tackle the Trans-America Trail and why the Suzuki DR650 is our bike of choice.

Welcome to our Trans-America Trail Blog. We will use this page to document our journey as well as to upload pictures to keep our loved ones from worrying about us too much while we are away (love you Grandma and Mrs. Peacock!) I will do my best to get my post up in a timely manner and to keep them interesting along the way.

So why did we choose to tackle the Trans-America Trail and What is it?

Simply put Mr. Peacock mentioned he wanted to do it for his birthday and that is pretty much all the convincing my dad needed. Randomly one night my dad asked me over the phone if I wanted to join their trip and ride dual sport bikes across the country. I had no idea what the TAT was but it sounded interesting enough to me. Obviously I quickly agreed and miraculously got approval from my boss to complete the journey! Shout out to Lynne for always allowing me to go on my crazy adventures after breaking my neck my third day in AK before I started work.

The Trans-America Trail or TAT is a roughly 5,000-mile (8,000 km) cross continent vehicular route, intended to be a way to cross the United States using the fewest paved roads possible. It is most commonly traveled by dual sport motorcycles, off road vehicles, or touring bicycles. The route was originally pieced together by Sam Corerro over the Span of 12 years. Currently the route is modified by several riders and contributors to remain on public use roads and to extend the route completely to the Atlantic Ocean. Our route is still some what of a mystery to me because we have left Preston in charge of route finding and navigation. My father Brett or dad, as he will most likely be referred to as here, will be our team mechanic for obvious reasons (find out more in our about us tab). That leaves me with first aid and choosing our gear.

Why the Suzuki DR650?

The DR650 seemed like an obvious choice for my father when trying to decide what bike we should use. The main driving factor was the price. DR650's have been some of the most economically priced dual sport bikes, while retaining a bomb proof construction since their birth in the early 90's. Its only competition in our decision making process what the Kawasaki KLR650 which has a similar pedigree and reputation. Ultimately we decided to with the Suzuki because its lighter weight, lower center of mass and its ease of off road riding compared to the KLR. So it was quickly decided that we would all ride the same bike (dad lives for the idea of interchangeable parts as a mechanical engineer).