I actually taught Spanish for years in a previous life, so I'm all about the "safety in numbers" thing and not about the language thing. I've reached a stage of life where "I have the time" and "I have the money" are no longer mutually exclusive. It takes a certain amount of strength to handle a motorcycle 1-10mph, and I'm also all about the adventure during the motorcycling years I've got left in me.
About the time, there are two ways to look at it. One is to base it on how much vacation time you've got left and then ride down and turn around when 1/2 of your vacation is up. An alternative to this would be to ride until you have to catch a flight home and then leave/sell the bike. Otherwise, it comes down to picking a destination, getting the total mileage, then breaking it down to how many miles you can do in a day and figuring tentative stopping points. That gives you the time needed. Oh yeah, and the Panama to Colombia gap has to be figured in. I did somewhere over 6,000 miles in 3 weeks in May with several days that I didn't ride at all in there. 6,000 miles in a straight line would have gotten me pretty far down into South America. You know, just Boston to Brownsville is a nice little ride for Javier, so two weeks would be the shortest that I would even suit up for. My plan, if I do it alone, is to ride a bike down, leave it there, and fly back. Actually, I've already got a couple buyers lined up/in mind. Obviously there are no interstates to go 80mph for hours on, but there are nice paved roads that you can make OK time on. I know a lot of people choose dual sport bikes for the trip, but I'm not really sure why. I've been on the roads of Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, and they were just fine--no knobby or high clearance needed--except for Bolivia after about 2 hours south of La Paz. I don't intend to include Bolivia in the trip this time. Wait, there is one more option, a very attractive one for me, but it's different from the above. I've been in email contact with a motorcycle rental shop in Santiago, Chile that rents bikes at a reasonable rates. I actually crossed the Andes on a Honda Falcon two years back, and it was the experience of a lifetime. This time I would like to ride from Santiago to Patagonia and back, and if I didn't have to do it alone, that would be great. Would anyone be interested in doing any of the above? Your thoughts? If you don't want to make this all public, feel free to PM me at the email address above. On Saturday, June 28, 2014 8:06:16 PM UTC-4, Melissa Hickson wrote: > > Hi folks, > > This summer, I rode my 1986 CB450sc from Knoxville, TN to Yosemite, CA on > a solo road trip. It was a great time. I saw some amazing sights and met > some interesting people along the way. I had a myriad of mechanical issues > during my trip, and learned a great deal about working on my bike. Now that > I'm safely settled in at the park, I thought I would share a few photos > from the adventure. > > All told, it was a bit over 3050 miles, in about 3 weeks' time. I either > camped or couchsurfed along the way. > > During that: > carburetors gummed up > reserve gummed up > ignition switch and kill switch lost the ability to kill the engine > tachometer quit working > headlight went out > fuel line kept kinking > front brake light switch broke > bolts on luggage rack sheared off > dropped the bike :( and bent the gear shift so far as to be unusable > exhaust melted holes in saddle bags (and contents) > > And a few other minor things that I can't remember right now. > > It was quite an experience! > > The photos are probably in a crazy order... > > Eventually I want to blog about my trip at adventuremel.blogspot.com, but > I'm really far behind. > > Cheers! > Melissa > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
