The AMERICAN MOTORCYCLIST magazine editor suggested I interview one of my adventure riding heroes and friend, Dave Barr. A double amputee, Barr had circled the globe without the benefit of legs or a sidecar, and then did a ride across Russia in the winter. Not content with those accomplishments, he circled Australia for another Guinness Record. Barr and I had long been friends and the magazine editor, Grant Parsons, thought it would be an interesting insight into world of adventure riding for Barr and me to share thoughts and road tales. That interview was at http://tinyurl.com/dmvjb6.

Pictured here with his son, Dave Barr laughed when I asked him who he thought was the "# 1 Adventure Rider" from America today.

He said, "You are!" His eyes roamed skyward as he said I was still out there, on the road, riding most of the year, somewhere on the globe, while he was a happy house dad, married and raising two kids, something he would not trade readily for my lifestyle. We shared plans for our future expeditions but each knew they were contingent upon time and money. Barr had been at my earlier Adventurers’ Club presentation in Los Angeles and said it was the best motorcycle adventure presentation he had ever seen. I had watched his multi-media presentation and told him his was more motivating, but not so motivating that I would be found riding across Russia in the winter. Barr’s trips around the world were the real adventure riding thing.

Snowflakes blew around my home in Montana during late September. No lover of cold or snow, days later I was on my way back to my winter life of research and riding in Southeast Asia. Using my base of Chiang Mai, Thailand, I poked around Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Brunei, riding a variety of motorcycles ranging from a 125 cc Suzuki, 250 Kawasaki KLX, Honda 400, Kawasaki 400, BMW HP2, Yamaha Tenere 600 and Kawasaki KMX 200

I met Pete Wolverson, from Farnham, Surry, Great Britain, in Chiang Mai. He was circling the globe on a 2006 Suzuki DR 650. Chiang Mai was a popular stopover for motorcycle travelers exploring Southeast Asia. During the winter I met 30-40 travelers as they passed through, many at the Horizons Unlimited Mini Meeting in January.

I made several difficult decisions last year about my circle of motorcycle friends, based on who was using who and some basic motorcycling principles I respected or was opinionated about. Spending time in a largely expat community while roaming around the world brought me into contact with numerous motorcycle owners who passed through the same stopovers or lived there, calling where they stayed their home. Some were good, others I learned were not so good, and likely why they were where they were.

Some of these owners of motorcycle keys had me looking at who was around me, who I was motorcycle bonding and traveling with, and who was in my personal circle of motorcycling friends, acquaintances and travelers. It seemed there were too many living a random existence without a care or love for truth, or a personal code of honor, and some were obvious miscreants, as I was sure others would say of me. As a Westerner I was best off well away from a lifestyle where my learned rules regarding to ethics and honor among men and women did not apply.

One of my major sponsors, along with several journalist colleagues, warned, "If you sleep with dogs, you’ll get fleas. Distance yourself." Their words of caution reminded me of one of the principles of life being "Spend your time around the successful and you will be successful."

I took heed. These were professional words of advice, based on wisdom, suggestions not to go unacknowledged, and a warning that to do so meant the complete overthrow of some of my principles however twisted, wrinkled or opinionated they were. I distanced myself; quit riding with some and swilling with them in their watering holes. I knew it was a small frog pond in which I had been croaking when I would stop but far smarter and wiser advisors showed me that the world was a much bigger pond.

It was fun, making a new circle of friends. Some of the old friendships I maintained, respecting their personal principles, codes of honor and intellect. A motorcyclist I maintained in my circle dubbed me The-Eccentric-Elitist. I was not a misanthrope, I was being particular. Some of the culled reprobates and alcoholics from the distanced circle knew he was referring to me when my new moniker was used and thus another description of me floated around the globe.

An older writing and riding friend said, "Look at you in the mirror Greg. You suffer poorly motorcycle owners who are fools, misfits, grifters, financial predators, alcoholics, poseurs, incompetents, druggies, cut rate parasites, scammers, leeches, liars, bullshitters and Internet wankers who are stupid. To those you suffer poorly, a fault of your own, you are an elitist and an eccentric, because you prefer to roam by motorcycle alone and have survived over a million miles and five loops around the globe doing so. Jeez, you even choose to call home a base at the end of a highway numbered 313 where all your local telephone prefixes start with the number 666, both numbers being very bad juju to some people."

He was one of those rare men with a talent for original insight. I bristled at first, and then laughed with him, both of us having fun at my expense and because he was correct; I was an eccentric and an elitist. At least I had not been dubbed The-Village-Idiot, or may have been, just did not know it.

Reflecting on my decisions of who to keep in my circle and who to exempt, I was reminded of a saying I learned while crossing Russia: "Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are." Looking at the remaining wide circle that was a reflection of me, my principles, opinions and my definition of motorcycling, I thought I finally understood The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: That even the act of looking changes the reality of what’s being observed.

What does adventure mean? In this case the advertised adventure was a guided floating raft trip down a slow moving river. I chose to stick with my solo motorcycle journey through Isan and the eastern part of Thailand.

Laos was my next destination. I had been to Laos before, but took a different approach this time. I bused into Vientiane with little more than my helmet, riding gear, tool kit, a visa-on-arrival at the border and some money. After three days I located a motorcycle I was comfortable with for a daily rental fee of $35.00. There were plenty of 250 cc dual-purpose rentals available and most would be easily maintained while riding around Laos.

Lao food was palatable and sleeping accommodations easily found. The cost of moving through Laos was slightly higher than Thailand. Laos was a poorer country than neighboring Thailand, with the per capita income estimated at one tenth of what it was in Thailand. What pushed the costs up was much had to be imported to Laos from Thailand, thus increasing the cost. Gas was plentiful and travel easy, with roads either paved or dirt, but dry dirt during this part of the year, December.

The motorcycle I rented in Laos was a Honda Transalp, 400 cc displacement. It was faster than 95% of all other vehicles on the roads and easily carried me and my travel gear on and off-road. I noticed an increase in the number of backpackers traveling through Laos over previous years, but met only one other motorcycle traveler.

I limited my motorcycle adventuring in Thailand through the period the Thai government called The Dangerous Days. I called them The Killing Days because during this Christmas and New Year Holiday period an average of four motorcyclists were killed each day. Being The Eccentric Elitist, I passed on joining the local rider group on their Christmas ride that was to end with swill at a bar several miles from town. My research found that most of the motorcycle deaths during The Dangerous Days were between 3:00 PM and 8:00 PM, usually on a straight section of road and involved alcohol. My risk avoidance calculator told me riding to a bar for afternoon drinking was not the smartest riding to do during these days, so I limited my motorcycle travel to mornings, and then quietly working in the afternoons and evenings on writing and research projects.

As soon as The Dangerous Days were over I joined a motorcycle-driver-expat in Cambodia for some joint research. We had traveled together before, knew each other’s likes and dislikes, both raced motorcycles in our earlier years and were comfortable riding together for short periods of time. I rented a Honda XR 250, in reasonable condition, for $13.00 per day. The rental company required payment in advance and my passport as a security deposit to insure I would return the motorcycle and make good on damages. For $1,500.00 I could have bought the motorcycle but that made little economic sense given the short time I was going to be in Cambodia.

Some motorcyclists ride with their motto being "Ride to Eat, Eat to Ride." Pictured here in the small village of Skun, about an hour north of Phnom Penh, the delicacy of the day was fried spider. I saw no "Ride to Eat, Eat to Ride" motorcyclists enjoying the proffered fare.

My last destination for riding during the winter was the island of Borneo, and specifically the Eastern Malaysia part and Brunei, chasing tales of the headhunters of Borneo and Proboscis Monkeys. Again, with riding gear, tools and cash, I opted to take my chances on what kind of motorcycle I could rent or buy on Borneo versus spending the time and money to ride my own Kawasaki the six to seven days to reach Borneo, just to say I rode my own motorcycle on Borneo. I wanted to explore Borneo by motorcycle, and the savings in time and money over piloting my own paid for most of the time on Borneo. The upside of traveling in Borneo was the rental motorcycles, once I found them, were reasonable in cost, but most were small. The downside was the island was a lush green jungle, because it rained almost daily while I was there. The motorcycle community in Eastern Malaysia and Brunei were extremely friendly and helpful. For a taste of what Borneo riding was like, you can find my pictures and words at http://tinyurl.com/aqpryp.

A rental Kawasaki Nomad was about $80.00 per day. The owner of the rental shop, pictured here on the right, imported "big bikes" from Japan and the United States. To purchase one once it was imported to Malaysia was over 100% of the original purchase price due to high import taxes and shipping costs. Renting for a short time made far more economic sense than purchasing.

My year ended with trying to meet writing deadlines while making plans for the next 12 months. I had ridden over 40,000 miles, on three continents, and used at least a dozen different motorcycles during the last year. I had also done some good writing and some very poor writing.

I remembered a treatment I was to submit to a magazine where I used phrases like: "I saddled up with my gear cinched down, threw my leg over my iron steed, glad to be back in the saddle and slamming the hammer down after bailing out of the hotel." Whew! I looked at those pitiful words and wondered from where they came. They were not mine, and I was not writing for a horse magazine. I suspected someone may have slipped a drug into me like scopolamine, a drug made from the roots of the Borracho tree, native to Colombia. There the locals boil the skin off the roots and dump it in the water to stun immature tarpon which are collected and sold in the markets. Individuals under the influence of scopolamine were known to be easily subjugated. There was also the possibility a cyber worm had implanted those childish words on my cranial hard drive to spew like a novice moto-journalist, doing a first article after having taken a community college 101 writing course. I deleted the worthless junk and started again writing about motorcycles, motorcycle seats, driving motorcycles with little or no iron in them, and remembering how I disliked horses unless they were in the form of measured horsepower.

Thankful to whoever pushed my work or rode on my shoulder during the last year, my writing and photography had survived a tightening economy. The magazine RoadRUNNER Motorcycle Touring and Travel signed me on as their Adventuring Editor-at Large (www.roadrunner.travel) and Kawasaki’s ROK magazine, ACCELERATE had taken several of my submissions, as did MOTORCYCLE CONSUMER NEWS, ROAD BIKE, ADVENTURE MOTORCYCLE and BACKROADS magazines.

Thank you to the motorcyclists who were readers.

When I was writing I was mentally riding, an AViD enthusiast, total fanatic, dummy, rarity, adventurer, eccentric elitist, hero, ill-defined icon, King of The Road, slacker, rarest of motorcyclists, and a Cher be-alike. Traveling through the jungles of Borneo to find headhunters, all I found were tourist attractions. However, allowing the freedom of the Internet, I had been threatened by a headhunter, albeit it a sociopath. In the meantime I met the requirements of the sticker below that I had been given to display on my motorcycles. Yes, it had been a long strange ride over the last year, being a professional motorcycle adventurer, feeding my disease of wanderlust by selling words and pictures, while remaining an AViD rider.

Pictured is the sticker I was given to proclaim my being asked to join in an elitist society, bringing to it my eccentricity.