Try Welcome to Trans-Atlantic BikeShare (www.bikeshareworld.com) or a post on Adventure Rider Motorcycle Forum There's many more Americans on that than on the HUBB.

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Brighty's website: TheBrightStuffDotCom

CURRENT RR WITH REGULAR UPDATES: The Wife Takes on Chlamydia: A South American Retrospective

How's your health John? If you're ok there's no reason why the US - or any other destination, should be that difficult to get to.

I'm not that far behind you - 64 next birthday, and I honestly have not given a second thought as to whether I'm too old to do any bike trip I want to do. I have too much baggage, family connections and economic roots here to go off on an open ended RTW trip but something lasting months is quite feasible. I still have a list of places I want to go to and fully intend to get to as many as possible. As it happens the next one on the list (for 2015) is the USA and I'm just about starting the planning for next Sept (probably about 7-8 weeks). I've been to the US a few times over the years and ridden there a couple of times before but despite the commonality of speaking English, as a European there's definately a culture shock when I arrive. Many of the things we take for granted in the UK and thanks to the EU, throughout Europe, are different in the US. It really is a foreign country (no offence to our US posters ).

Changes in technology etc have made bike travel a lot lot easier than it used to be in (say) the 60's. At a guess I'd say it's about as tricky to ride to South Africa or Mongolia now as it used to be to ride to Istanbul or the Black Sea fifty years ago even allowing that it's a lot further.

Wanting to go to places is the key to it. I still want to travel, to travel by bike, and to go to places that would be on your "worry list". Going back to your first post I wonder how many young people here (or anywhere come to that) leave the UK and head off RTW or into Africa as their first trip. Planning and doing can be miles apart. And even if you set off and it goes wrong, as long as you're not seriously hurt what does it matter? You may be out of pocket but 5 or 10yrs later I doubt if it makes any difference.

As for a "soft life" .... not yet!

I'll be 71 in less than a month, bought myself a Triumph Thunderbird this September to add to the Enfield. Sometimes difficult to choose which to ride . My next "bike" is likely to be one of these.

Car Reviews: Peugeot 307 CC HDi SE - The AA

Especially for going two up with the wife. Have open air, can carry more luggage on the back seat than on either bike. More comfy seating, longer range and cheaper per mile to run. Add to this the ability to push a button and be in the dry during rain, or for a nap or just to walk about and explore somewhere.

Makes sense to me

As for going to strange places.. People is people, they if left alone by their governments all want the same thing. To be allowed to get on with their lives, and for their children to have it a bit better. Simples. I have found that as a general rule the harder the life people have the more understanding and helpful they become.. or does it work the other way round?

Wow! ....... John you've excelled yourself with that comment !

I can only assume you have been having a bad day?

While you are of course, fully entitled to your view and thoughts on anything you choose, and indeed to express them in any shape and form you choose. There is a time and place for them.
To come to a forum website which is proliferated by people who travel in the very places you refer to, with such ridiculous preconceptions of doom and gloom........... is honestly quite laughable.

You give the impression of a clueless teenager ! You're clearly not, but with comments like that will only serve to make people have "ridiculous preconceptions of doom and gloom......" about John933. Which is no doubt completely ridiculous, ......right?

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Regards Tim

Learning my craft for the big stuff, it won't be long now and it's not that far anyway

If you are interested, I'm off to Portugal in May of next year. Ride down through France. Do the crossing at Dover. I have a flat booked for four week's just out side Faro. Have to be there on the 15 of May. As for getting there. You can do it in three day's, or you can take the long way round, taking any thing up to a week to get there. I'm looking at cheap hotel's there and back. If you would like to join me next year, let me know.
John933

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To buy petrol in Europe. Pull up at station. Wait. Get out a 20 Euro note, then ask someone to fill up the bike. Give person money. Ride away. Simple.

This is your first post on the subject. Not knowing what it was pertaining to. I'll give you a bit of back ground information to see if I can clear the muddy water's. There are two young lad's. Who both are caring injures of such a level that has seen them both come out of hospital. Then they post up saying about riding to Cape town South Africa. Then they tell us that it's there first time out on a bike, touring.


I was trying to point out that it could be a bridge too far. And a trip with in the EU could well get them blooded in to traveling. I then went on to give the reason's why. It was at that time the Mod's moved the post from that section to the pub. So what has been said before has all been lost.


With that lot in mind I still stand by what I have posted. I'm not no dumb azz poo shooter. Who douse not know what they are talking about. It's a case of learn to walk before you try to run.


Just to put the recorded straight. The place's I have been but not on a bike are. Aden, Worked up and down the Gulf, Two year's. Bangladesh, Singapore, and most of the Malaya. Crossing in to the Philippines, Then down on in to Darwin. British Solomon Island and Mombasa. And that's the place I can remember while I'm sitting here. Bet there is a few I've missed off.


My post to the two lad's. Was trying to be helpful, and informative.
John933

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To buy petrol in Europe. Pull up at station. Wait. Get out a 20 Euro note, then ask someone to fill up the bike. Give person money. Ride away. Simple.

I have no idea what you're talking about now! You started this thread in the sub-forum "Questions That Don't Fit Anywhere Else"

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...-fit-anywhere/

All I did was move the whole thing to the Pub which is where I thought your unique rantings in post #1 belonged. Nothing deleted/ nothing edited/ nothing disappeared or whatever!

Good luck!

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Brighty's website: TheBrightStuffDotCom

CURRENT RR WITH REGULAR UPDATES: The Wife Takes on Chlamydia: A South American Retrospective

Must be losing my mind. Where am I going to.
John933

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To buy petrol in Europe. Pull up at station. Wait. Get out a 20 Euro note, then ask someone to fill up the bike. Give person money. Ride away. Simple.

Nowhere out of Europe I'm guessing

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My memory is becoming that good, I should be able to organise my own surprise party soon

:confused1: Errr No. This thread was started by you. If you want to reply to them .. do it on their thread.. not start a new one and expect them to relate one to the other. There are a lot of conversations (threads) here ... I don't expect one to be directly related to another, so I don't read them all.


And the responders here did not have that information. And having now got it ... I say

Good on their adventurous spirit. They will have fun, learn heaps. They can learn lots here reading, asking questions .. but doing it is the real thing. Don't hold them back. Go for it guys.

If you read the Forwood's (sp?) blog here then you'll find their first description of Morocco as a third world country .. then a revision of their view of Morocco to a clean, well serviced country ... it all depends on your experience, and you don't get that experience by staying local.

It's not an adventure without at least SOME risk

I'm a bit sad to see some of the answers to John original post.

If you reread his post he is just asking a question and stating his frame of mind. I admit some generalities were thrown, but I don't think it is fair to ask for everybody to have the same open mind about the state of the world as a prerequisite to ask a question on this forum. I would not want to be a member of any site that require abiding to a predetermined set of values and ideology.

I think the only imperative is that we are respectful of one another.

That being said, I think John comment was very interesting because it raises a legitimate question about the perception versus the reality of developing countries.

While I think that it is true that in general people have exaggerated perception of the danger of these places, I also think that there is a tendency here on the HUBB to give an overly positive image of those places, bypassing the ugly and highlighting the beautiful, probably, I imagine, in an effort to counter the common negative perception. I think the reality lies in the middle (isn't it always the case?).

If you ask me to convey one primary impression of South America, it won't be a positive one. Sure I have incredible memories, it is a land of amazing adventures, the roads there, the possibilities for riding your bike are simply phenomenal and I'm quite certain that you could not live the same kind of adventure in Europe.

That being said the level of adventure and excitement that you can find there should not be confused with what would be an objective (as mush as objectivity is possible) impression of those countries on a human perspective. I've seen things there that have touched me, troubled me, saddened me so much that when you ask me how was latin america, it is those emotions that take the first spot. But after I told you about it , I'll tell you how amazing my trip was

So to answer John's original question, why go there? Because sometime going into places where you are out of you comfort zone and places that scares you is the best way to learn new things and to extend the experience you're going to have in this world. Somethings require a bit of suffering to be reached. Like crossing the altiplano desert, scared because you are in the middle of nowhere and your bike could break, but at the same time the beauty of the landscape mixed with the fear and the excitement makes for the most explosive cocktail of memories. I suspect there's a few people on that forum who are addicted to that cocktail

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Well said !

Guess who pressed the like button on your post?
John933

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To buy petrol in Europe. Pull up at station. Wait. Get out a 20 Euro note, then ask someone to fill up the bike. Give person money. Ride away. Simple.

Some apes leave the fertile valley and some stay behind. I think the latter will always be as unable to comprehend the former as much as the former are unable to the latter but neither are wrong or right. But why traverse Africa on a C90 or do a RTW on a 1200GS? For me the answer is simply because one can!