Motorcycle Rider

 

“Of the gladdest moments in human life is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the Slavery of Home, man feels once more happy. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood. Afresh dawns the morn of life” – Sir Richard Francis Burton  

Why I ride:
I have always had a life long fascination with motorcycles and traveling. When I first started traveling, motorcycles served as an inexpensive means of transport to get me to new undiscovered places. Later on, as I continued to travel, motorcycling became more than just a means to convey me from one place to another, it become an integral part of my travelling experiences. To quote a old cliché    “Its not the destination but the journey that counts”. To those uninitiated with the motorcycling experience, it is hard to convey the viscera experience of sitting atop a speeding motorbike rushing headlong into the landscape before you, your senses and perception become more focused, you become more aware of the environment around you. Ask me about a vacation I spent at some holiday resort and then ask me about any of my  past motorcycle trips, and without a doubt the memories of those motorcycle trips have become permanently etched into my consciousness, while those memories of some beach vacation have long since faded from memory.

About Me:

From my ride up to Alaska in 2008

I am recently retired from a career spent working as an IT professional with the Canadian Federal Government. For the last couple of decades I have lived with my family (single dad) in Ottawa, Canada. I started my working career back in the mid seventies as an underground geologist at a copper-gold mine near Stewart BC and Hyder Alaska. I worked there for about a year before leaving with the ambition of riding a motorcycle around the world. I bought myself a motor bike and spent the  next 6 months motorcycling around parts of the US, Canada and Central America. My plans at the time were to ride down to the tip of South America but soon discovered that I lacked the right customs documentation for my motorcycle and was unable to get across from Panama to Colombia. From there I headed back home to Quebec Canada and waited out the winter before resuming my motorcycle journey over in Europe, where I would spend the next 5-6 months travelling around the southern parts of  Europe and North Africa. My trip would eventually end in Turkey where I met up with another intrepid traveller who was also riding around the world on a motorcycle.

Bike I bought in Portugal for Trip around Europe and Northern Africa

He was traveling east to west having just come over from Iran and Afghanistan. He was riding an older BMW motorcycle. At the time I noted that he had a number of puncture holes in the side of his gas tank, when I asked him about the damage to his bike, he said that he was shot at while passing through the infamous Khyber pass. He cautioned me against continuing my journey eastward. Aside from the problems along the Afghanistan and Pakistan borders, he mentioned that troubles were now brewing in Iran. The time was the late seventies and many parts of the world were in turmoil. Reluctantly I changed my travel plans and started heading back into Europe and my eventual return back to Canada, having unfulfilled my plans for riding around the world.

After returning from my adventure abroad, I found employment in the oil patch as a petroleum field geologist. For the next 15 years I worked in this profession as a wellsite geologist, production  engineer and eventually as a manager and partner in an oilfield engineering services company. The job gave me the opportunity to travel and live in many different parts of the world and throughout those times there always seemed to be a motorcycle parked in the garage ready to indulge my motorcycle wanderings.

Now 38 years later from when I first attempted to ride a motorcycle around the world, I now find myself planning a similar adventure. In a way this trip is a continuation of the one I started so long ago, the dream lives on.