Endurance RTW - Am I Crazy
 

Hello All,

I am thinking / planning a long distance endurance motorcycle ride around the world and I am seeking advice to see if I am crazy. I have a route that I am working on and want to see if I am missing something. My plan is to do this ride in 80 days or less. Below is my route. I have recently read that you can now ride through China with out a guide which really helps with my planning.

I am a long distance endurance / rally rider and ride over 50,000 miles a year and I have ridden over 700,000 miles in my lifetime. I compete in endurance rallies like the Iron Butt Rally and regularly ride 1500+ mile days in the USA where the roads are big and easy. I have ridden 3 12,000+ mile rides where the longest took 16 days and was 16,500 miles.

I am working on a RTW webpage and have some of my ideas and information there also. Greg Rice - Travel_Man - Round The World

Any and all comments are needed.

http://www.gregrice.com/images/route1.jpg

I think you might need to re-check some of your distances. I checked one I know well,, Paris to Gibralter is just under 950 miles,not 700, and on European congested roads inc motorways, is likely to take you longer than your estimated time.

I haven´t done China on my bike. And like you, I´ve seen this claim, that you could actually do it without a guide.

So, this is purely a guess. But to expect, that China has now opened up for foreign motorcyclists, and will be just about as easy to do, as any other country, would be an enormous mistake, I think. Much more likely, that you´re still dealing with a mountain of “red tape”, and your language barrier will be the size of the Great Wall of China. How to put all that on a tight schedule, I really don´t know. I also don´t know anybody, who have shipped a motorcycle out of Hong Kong. That could be interesting, to say the least.

Regarding shipping out of unusual places, maybe also check out this thread below:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...rplane-67087-4

(Note, that I don´t mean to put down your plans in any way, just pointing out a few things, and hoping that it will be helpful!)

Thank you for this information. I did not know the border was closed there. I will need to change my plans.

I know the Trans Siberian road is boring but it is one of the roads I want to ride.

Thanks for the catch. It was Barcelona that was 700 miles. I left out that stop and forgot to add back in Gibraltar. I am updating my route list.

You are right, it is going to be difficult to get into China and be a long ride. I am not thinking it is going to be easy. I do have a very small advantage as my daughter-in-law is Chinese ( came to America to study ) and her family has connections to the Chinese government. It is still going to be complex to ride in China.

ferry from UK to France-cunnel if that is considered a ride.

I have been working on my route thanks to everyone here. Here is the changes for now. I still want to ride to Casablanca so I will and then return back to Spain since I can not cross the border to Algeria. I also update the webpage with the changes.

Greg Rice - Travel_Man - Round The World

http://www.gregrice.com/images/route1.jpg

Hi Greg, when are you planning this ride? I intend on riding from Wales (Cardiff) to Casablanca Morocco, but probably not until 2016.