Top 10 Road Trip Cars with 400 Horsepower or More and Room for Four
400 HP and Room for Three Friends
Take a Visual Trip to the 2012 SEMA Show with the First Part of our Mega Gallery [350 Photos]
There's a very good reason why the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas is considered the biggest trade event of its kind, not only in North America, but in the world. Every year at the end of October, thousands of companies from automakers to tuners and parts providers make their way to the Las Vegas Convention Center to exhibit their production and conceptual goods, be that complete cars or aftermarket accessories and components of all sorts. Read more »Copyright …
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Take a Visual Trip to the 2012 SEMA Show with the First Part of our Mega Gallery [350 Photos]
There's a very good reason why the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas is considered the biggest trade event of its kind, not only in North America, but in the world. Every year at the end of October, thousands of companies from automakers to tuners and parts providers make their way to the Las Vegas Convention Center to exhibit their production and conceptual goods, be that complete cars or aftermarket accessories and components of all sorts. Read more »Copyright …
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How to Estimate Your Road Trip Duration with Google Maps
Planning out your motorcycle road trip with Google Maps is the quicker, cheaper alternative to using an actual GPS devise. While Google Maps can be a big help when it comes to planning your rout there are several things you can do to enhance the accuracy and usefulness of this tool, especially when calculating the duration. This can be especially helpful when you need to reach certain destinations within a certain time frame. Let’s take a look at what can be done to ensure that you can accurately plan the duration of your motorcycle trip using Google Maps.
The Default Calculation
When you type in a starting location and a destination Google Maps automatically gives you a calculated travel time. This calculation can be accurate or it can be incredibly inaccurate, depending on a huge variety of factors. The travel time is located via speed limit data gathered from public records and road signs provided by Google Maps data providers. This would be fine if you could guarantee that you would travel at each specific speed limit for each area. However, as well all know, this isn’t always possible.
Variable Travel Speed
While Google Maps provides a travel time based on speed limits it can’t cover other factors. Things such as traffic, school zones, accidents, bad weather and many other factors can slow your travel speed and contribute to inaccurate travel time estimation. Additionally, if you’re traveling faster than the speed limit in some areas that can also contribute towards an inaccurate estimation. This is especially true on interstates since people tend to travel faster than the speed limit there.
Improving Travel Time Accuracy
One way of improving the accuracy of the duration of your motorcycle road trip is to get regular updates on the travel time provided by Google Maps. This will required a couple of things to do though. First you must have a mobile device capable of accessing Google Maps so you can check it as you go. Second of all you will have to be within a city to get an updated estimate.
For example, let’s say you’re traveling from San Diego to Houston. You can start by getting the travel estimate at your starting location, then at each city you come to replace the starting location in Google Maps with the new city name and get a new estimate. While this isn’t quite as good a method as using an actual GPS to get real time trip duration estimates it is a good free alternative.
Google Maps Forums
There are forums for Google Maps where you can get additional data. You can post and ask if the travel estimate from your starting point to the destination is accurate and get feedback on what to expect. You can also see if there is anything in particular on your rout that may slow you down. Don’t forget to mention that you’re using a motorcycle, this could have a big impact on the advice you get.
You can also ask if anyone who’s driven a similar rout to yours has their own estimate as to about how long it takes. The more people you can get to talk to you about their experience the better since it will help to improve your own estimate.
Considering the Weather
Bad weather is a much bigger problem for those traveling by motorcycle than those who’re using a car or truck. Due to this fact it is very important that you check the weather in advance before you start out on your trip. If you’re traveling a particularly long distance you will probably want to get weather forecasts for each segment of your journey. You can use the Google Maps travel estimates as well as the estimates you get from the forums and other sources to get an idea of when you’ll be passing through each area of your journey.
While Google Maps is a handy tool for calculating road trip duration it isn’t 100% perfect. More than anything your own experiences and the experiences of others will be a better indicator of how long it will take to get from one place to another. Also, don’t forget to use Google Maps to update your estimate as you pass through each city if you don’t have a GPS. This will further refine the accuracy of your travel estimate as you go.
Sam is an avid Harley rider who loves nothing more than packing up his saddlebags and heading out onto the open road!
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The Reetz family’s epic road trip
We’re glad we came across this video of the Reetz family’s epic road trip from North Dakota to the Pacific coast and back. It’s a great little story, almost like a trailer for an upcoming film, but more than that, it’s great inspiration to plan a summer road trip of our own, and right about now is a good time to start planning. Got plans for a road trip in your old car this year?
(via)
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‘Drive’ Kicks Off With A Trip To The 24 Hours Of Nürburgring: Video
Drive is a new channel for automotive enthusiasts on YouTube, featuring high quality video and higher quality commentary from the likes of Matt Farah, Leo Parente and Mike Spinelli. Kicking off the series and the channel, Leo Parente takes us to last year’s 24 Hours of Nürburgring to explain why the race is like no other. It may not enjoy the fame of LeMans, but the ‘Ring race is even more taxing on driver and car. There are more turns on a longer course, more elevation changes and plenty more cha…
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Drivelapse USA: The Great American Road Trip In Five Minutes, Fifteen Seconds
Americans may no longer be as completely obsessed with road travel as they once were, but for first-time visitors to the USA, a round-the-nation roadtrip is always the ultimate fantasy. And really, what better way is there to appreciate the great expanse and diversity of this great nation than by car? Luckily for those of [...]
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The tale of a trans-American Triumph trip
Just arrived on the Hemmings bookshelf is Turn Left at the Pacific, John Macartney’s account of his 2009 coast-to-coast journey by 1973 Triumph Stag to raise money for PTSD treatment and research.
Longtime readers of the blog will recall our earlier posts on John’s adventure, which covered 17,866 miles in the United States and Canada and took 69 days to complete. All the while, John, a native and resident of England, was keeping a diary of his trip, in which he recorded not just the experien…
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Video: Soyuz Launches for First Manned Trip to ISS Since the Shuttles Retired
Soyuz TMA-22 Blasts Off
After a string of space launch disasters that have pushed Roscosmos’s morale into the gutter, the Russian space agency today launched three astronauts–two Russians and one American–into orbit aboard a Soyuz-FG rocket. It marks the first manned launch of a Soyuz rocket since a similar Soyuz-U failed to lift a robotic Progress spacecraft to orbit in August, and ensures that the international space station will remain manned after the current crew returns to Earth on November 21….
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Diesel Jaguar XF sets off on U.S. mileage-test road trip
Thereand#8217;s a diesel-powered Jaguar XF on U.S. pavement, but good luck catching a glimpse of it.