Motorcycle once-in-a-lifetime tour

Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Holidays, Honda XRV750, Matthew's wishlist, Motorcycles

The short of it: Naisha and I on motorbikes travelling from North Canada to South South America over 20 weeks costing around £40,000…or the DVD for £13.

After getting my teeth done and the Mercedes converted to run on vegetable oil, this is one of those wishlist items that I often consider selling everything off to do, and then starting again when I get back. Sadly I think Xanthe and Zac would suffer quite a bit from doing this! So I blame them for not being able to achieve this, just watch the DVD, and they can shoulder the guilt for the rest of their lives as I do with my private education guilt (thanks and sorry Mum & dad!)

I bought a friend’s old Yamaha FZR1000 to see if I was still ‘into’ motorbikes. Yes I was, but not like before. I guess it is an age thing. Motorbikes mean different things to different people. Most non-bikers hate bikers, for all the wrong prejudiced reasons. I used to like motorbikes because of the thrill of speed, but once you have experienced 0-100mph in 5 seconds enough you realise that you just need ‘more, more, more’ to get that buzz. I guess jet pilots say the same thing. Also the UK roads are lethal, no-one cares anymore, no-one is considerate, and no-one looks where they are going. I feel like I’m riding a motorbike against the flow of a stock-car circuit.

Horizons Unlimited website resulted from Grant & Susan Johnson’s travels which totally eclipses The Long Way Round but the media just hasn’t reported on it at all. Ewan and Charlie rode 20,000 miles across 12 countries in a few Months, Grant and Susan rode over 70,000 miles across 39 countries over 14 years! Now the Horizons Unlimited website acts as an experience portal, which records hundreds of ‘real’ motorcyclists travelling around the world. I picked up on this around 1995, around the time I owned my Suzuki GSX600F, but at that time the Honda Africa Twin was three times the price of the Suzuki, and travelling the world was presented as too expensive, too dangerous, and you’d catch Ebola and die a horrible death. How misled I was.

One thing the motorbike and bicycle does give you is direct interaction with the surroundings as you pass through. Open top motoring gets closer to this, but only two wheels provides the full experience. Two wheels can also get you where four wheels and even four-wheel drive can’t - or flying. In short, to take in the most yet cover a large amount of ground, the motorcycle is hard to beat. I guess this is why The Long Way Round has been such a huge success because it brought into the public domain what a lot of motorcyclists have done for decades - toured the world slowly. And one doesn’t need a 20-strong team of fixers, medics, camera crew, and BMW trained mechanics either.

While I like the idea of travelling by myself to conquer my fears and prejudices, such a ride needs to be shared, and for practical reasons too. You need the loo, but leaving you bike unattended can end your trip. Who’ll take pictures of you in remote places? Can you change a tyre by yourself? If the bike falls on you, can you get it off yourself, and if you are seriously injured in a remote location, who can go for help? So, like skiing off-piste, three is really an ideal number.

Planning a route and navigating it can be part of the fun, but on a large tour, especially if you have taken a Month off work, you need to be realistic about the amount of time and skill you have to do this, and this is why guided tours are becoming so popular (did you know there are quite a few jobs going as tour guides who can earn around £40k a year…should I look into this?). I’d like to go touring with someone I know, but all are family men with full-time jobs like me, and taking even two weeks off with all the DIY, chores, and childcare just seems to kill those dreams dead. Unless you are a famous actor…

This is why most of those on these tours are either childless, before children, or after children have left home. This is a shame because when you are young you don’t appreciate culture and foreign lands as much I don’t think (I didn’t) and when you are older, there is always that fear of health related issues and brittle bodies.

To rub salt into all this, just around the corner from where we used to live in Histon Road (Cambridge) is the base of GlobeBusters, who specialise in global motorcycle tours. Kevin & Julia who run GlobeBusters hold two Guinness World Records for global endurance motorcycling. I sometimes see their motorcycles filling up at the Sainsbury’s down the road from us and go all misty eyed. Yes, I have been in touch with them, and my favourite tour would be the Pan American Highway from Prudhoe Bay down to Ushuaia. About 17,000 miles, taking 19 weeks, costing £17,000 per rider. About £1 per mile, which is very good value when you divide it up!

Yes I’d love to take 20 weeks off with Naisha and ride this, using up nearly £40,000 of bank loan before we are too old to do it. I can’t think of a better way to see the whole of the Americas, especially Canada and South America. I guess I’ll just buy the Miles Ahead DVD and dream about it…at £13 maybe I’ll get lucky. ‘The Ride’ DVD also looks good.

Or you could add the DVD cost to my trip savings account, which would leave only £39,987 to go! You know, those London based fund managers get £millions in bonuses, and to take 20 weeks off and use up £40k would be nothing to them. Sometimes I think I’ve really screwed up somewhere!

My current Africa Twin fuel consumption