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Reading material suggestions
A friend of mine asked if I had read Jupiter's Travels....I had not heard of it - so found this book and just finished reading....In my preparation for RTW, I've researched bikes, camp gear, paperwork, clothes, etc...etc...and watched hours of vids on folk doing this right now - but it never occurred to me to read a book about it - an error for sure.
Jupiter's Travels got deep into the psychology and emotions of being disconnected for long periods of time...and I NEEDED to read this. Seeking more. Any suggestions of other books of this nature that you've read, please let me know. I devoured Jupiter in a few days....MORE!!! I have not left yet (next year) - but the effects of dismantling my life, living and relationships in preparation is already making things weird...both good and unexpected. What a strange and wonderful trip this life be...... |
Many books
There are a lot of good books.
One of my favorite is Lone Rider by Elspeth Beard. https://www.elspethbeard.com Another trip done before internet, GPS, mobile phones.... And done on a low budget, without any sponsorship = Very different from trips with support vehicle, sponsorship, sattelite phones and a lot of things arranged, Another of my favoirites is The long way home. Sydney to London https://www.amazon.com/Long-Ride-Hom...4725943&sr=8-7 There are many more... depends on your taste |
Anything by Chris Scott and Tom Sheppard
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10 years on 2 wheels by Helge Pedersen
Started 1981 riding a BMW R80GS for 10 years across five continents and 77 countries ISBN-10: 0944958389 / ISBN-13: 978-0944958384 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvNwK5XZW48 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helge_Pedersen ................................. The Rugged Road by Theresa Wallach 2 women riding a 600 cc single-cylinder Panther with sidecar and hanger from London to Cape Town with sahara crossing in 1934 ISBN-10: 0956497527 / ISBN-13: 978-0956497529 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresa_Wallach Impressions of original footage(silent b/w): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aST1htAkJlo ........................... One Man Caravan by Robert Edison Fulton Riding a 2 cylinder Douglas around the world in 1932/33 ISBN-10 : 1884313051 / ISBN-13: 978-1884313059 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Edison_Fulton_Jr. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of2acQ4LQKI (check out his motorcycle gear fitting picture at 0:38) .......................... I am a travel books/travel report collector and checking antiquarian bookshops or resellers of used books like https://www.abebooks.com/books/used-books.shtml https://bookscouter.com/ https://www.booklooker.de/pages/translation.php https://www.eurobuch.de/ is a good way to find books in good conditions out of print for years. |
Thanks for the suggestions. I've decided to get a Kindle reader or Kobo to load books up on. And this will also become my main reading source while travelling. You can load PDFs into this - thus I can load up tons of manuals, including for the motorcycle - and have them with me.
Once I get this I will start a collection of all these books.....Can hardly wait to get reading. |
Another world. Each time you dive into something new in the digital world - there's a mess of stuff to figure out. So many formats.. where to buy, how to find free or cheap - and then find what you want...
I bought the Kobo Libra H2o. First use, I like it. Small, very portable, easy to read, flexible setup...But can't buy books directly on the Kobo - I don't use credit cards - so only buy on-line...paypal. Another account to manage. Then what do you do if the ebook you want is only on Kindle - well, either use another reading medium, or download a program that beats the DRM and converts the format - just so you can use just one device. At least digital music plays on just about anything. I've started reading One Man Caravan - and just got Elspeth Beard's book - its on kindle - say no more.... |
I usually use more on audiobooks during travelling, because we can use it anywhere:
- traffic jams - construction site, blocked roads - border waiting line(s) where nobody can talk your language - during driving in not so interesting surroundings - watching the waves, animals, humans But since I got an ebook reader (for last birthday) - i love that too. It let you go deeper into, because you cant do anything else at the same time. Even deeper than the experience of watching the audio book with cloesed eyes. It is funny, but I like to consume more "non travel related" topics. From thrillers, to fantasy or even soft horror audio books like from steven king. Audio/ebooks with travelling topics are "too near" to my experiences on my trip, what would bring me to compare or just "distract" my from my own travelling experience. If you like a good extended trip partner on audio/ebook, then give at example "The Riyria revelations" from Michael J. Sullivan a try. It opens a own beautiful world in the "lord of the ring" style over three books. If you go the Kindle/Audible ebook/audiobook path you can easily switch instantly from reading/hearing and back, without even need to know on which captitle, book or site you was (soon you get your devices synchronized Online with Hotspot or Hostel Wifi). The bikers will like, that they can use everything too on the Smartphone apps, without the need of carrying an additional ebook player and to maintain them too with electric joice. But an Ebook Reader with Inkpaper Feeling - is the better experience, will work under direct sunlight, or at dark with white letters it didnt get so much attraction for others nearby (from humans to mosquitos). Surfy |
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PDF use isn`t very comfortable and thats why i use my iphone/ipad mainly for this format. With IOS basic book app you can easily read epubs on Iphone/Ipad.(btw, you can use siri to read an ebook to you...) Ebook format I use on the kobo is mostly epub. Only a few are pdfs. As an addicted reader I started in 2012 with a free ebook manager called calibre. https://calibre-ebook.com/ Calibre is a cool tool because you build up your own libary from different formats like epub, epub3, pdf, kindle, rtf, etc and it is getting regulary updates. As a long time user I have no hesitation to recommend this software! Check this short video to get an overview about the features: https://calibre-ebook.com/demo Best are the add ons you can install to convert from any format to epub for example. Also I only use DRM free ebooks; means if I have e.g. an ebook from amazon in kindle format, I simply kill all DRM and convert into epub. I don`t like DRM and I do not accept the restrictions in use between an ebook and a paper book. It´s done in 3 minutes. So you can buy where you want whatever you want. Or you can download anything from the various sources you will find somewhere in the net if you go hunting for it. All my ebooks in calibre are tagged. I can find any book fast and easy by using the build in search option. This only works fine when you build it up your data base from start on! For traveling I take my reaserach data made with word or pages and I use calibre to convert into an ebook/epub. All informations incl. maps pics are hazzle free and fast accessible on an ebook reader and on an Iphone/Ipad. For my music and audio books libary I use Itunes because I didn`t find a better working solution yet. I have tried some audio books managers but with more than 500 of them none worked very well. A decade ago I ripped my complete cd music collection to lossless format. Converted all to MP3 and imported than into itunes. Same I did with my vinyl collection. (Heard that itunes maximum number of audio files is limited to 100.000) All my files of ebooks, audio books, music and my movie collection are stored on my private NAS which is connected to the internet and accessible for me from anywhere where I have an internet connection. |
"One Man Caravan by Robert Edison Fulton"
I was also going to suggest this book. I have read it through a couple of times over the last 25 years, and it's really an amazing adventure that he completed, especially considering when he did it. |
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The Last Hurrah by Des Molloy.
Two old blokes riding a Norton and a Panther from Beijing to Arnhem. The Land Beyond the Ridge by Roy K Battson. A motorcycle memoir going from 1911 to 1973. The Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon. Not a motorcycling travel book, but some interesting philosophy on travel and a world that is disappearing in our life-times. |
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Highways |
What is this madness of pricing on books lately???
https://www.amazon.com/One-Caravan-I.../dp/1884313051 |
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https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-sear...robert-edison/ Assume by your nick that you are from UK. Check out booktown Sedbergh: https://www.sedbergh.org.uk/book-town/ |
World Understanding on Two Wheels - An Introduction to Overland Travel by Paul R Pratt. ISBN 0 9507353 0 2.
12 1/2 years RTW on a 650 Bonneville between 1966 and 1979. Paul comes over as a pretty odd sort of a guy (he acted in Apocalypse Now, for instance...) but this is a great read, full of useful information, albeit slightly outdated, and some erudite observations. Sparring With Charlie - Motorbiking Down The Ho Chi Minh Trail, by Christopher Hunt. There are no good books about pleasant journeys. It is the job of the travel writer to have an awful time and Chris Hunt is an expert in his profession (PJ O'Rourke). One of Hunt's skills was to be able to say 'my bike is a piece of Soviet shit and the clutch has just melted' in Vietnamese. |
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I'll go back at this another day and see if there's a way to win....but for today - I've had it....its like being in digital hell where every step leads to more steps that never work.... |
I got angry at all this, but knew it was eating at me, so I had to try again to get somewhere. Calibre is actually doing its job....
Lets take this one at a time: Getting books downloaded from Kobo. I found the Adobe Digital Editions program and installed it. Had to create an Adobe account - but once all this was done, those weird files that looked like this: URLLink.ascm - worked...The Kobo books were converted to epub format and Calibre was able to import them onto my Kobo. It seems strange that I had to do this - but when I tried to get the books OFF of my Kobo - they were just virtual...I thought they were installed right on the unit - but they are NOT - meaning that without internet access, I could not read the books I had purchased...stupid! I was able to add books in PDF format as well and by using the feature in Calibre to edit the meta data got covers and proper info on each of these. What I cannot do yet, is import books from Kindle. The process outlined for beating the DRM using C Calibre failed....I do not want to steal books - I have paid for these - I just want all my books on one device....So now I have to find a way to beat the Kindle DRM and convert these into epub format. I will win! You know, with a printed book, I can share it as many times as I want with no law being broken...I understand that in digital format the ability to distribute free books around the world is a different matter.....but needing numerous devices to read your books suck...so tomorrow I will find a way. |
I would also like to suggest Sam Manicom.
Not only is he a good writer. He really has "Done it properly". He's also one of the nicest, helpful people you can meet. |
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see: How to Set Up Your Library |
‘Back by Seven’ by Steph Jeavons.
Relatively recent so appropriate. Not only a gripping adventure, brilliantly written but a genuine life story without over emotion. For me it’s second only to Jupiter’s travels for motorcycle travel books - and I’ve read a lot of them. For an alternative, I recommend’The Hungry Cyclist’. Again excellent writing. |
If riding the world was a religion, Jupiter's Travels would be its bible
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"These are the days that must happen to you" - Dan Walsh. A bit of a "marmite" book; but the guy is a very gifted writer. Probably the best overland biking book I have read. Not for everyone, but I found the honesty inspiring. chug beer
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The travel books I've been reading (and re reading ad infinitum to get through Amazon's seemingly endless submission process) have been my own but for fear of invoking Grant's ire over breaking 'Da Rules' I won't mention the titles. Hopefully coming to a HUBB meeting near you at some point in the future though. If anyone else has picked up their pen and committed their experiences to paper I'd be interested to hear how it went for you. Given the amount of effort that goes into it (2-3yrs per book for me) and the somewhat meagre income they generate the self enrichment you get from the process certainly seems to be more for your soul than your bank balance. That may just be a reflection of my talent as a writer but they're fun to do. |
Ted Simon
Don't forget that there is more from Ted than Jupiter's Travel
* Riding High: More from the same trip as Jupiter's Travel * Dreaming of Jupiter: from when he repeated the trip at the age of 69 |
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Sadly the project is Covid delayed but in an homage to Ted's title, the fact that I knew nothing about 'foreign' travel before I left the UK, my original trip was mainly in Europe and the astronomical observation that Europa is a satellite of Jupiter, ever circling the giant of the planetary firmament (a bit like my literary efforts vs his) I've called it Dreaming of Europa. All I need to do now is reride the route and see what 50yrs of cynicism brings to it. In the meantime this is what my Photoshop meanderings have come up with so far: https://i.postimg.cc/yNWPBd6g/DoE2-2.jpg |
Returning
If I remember correct,
much of Ted's second book is about the disappointment he felt that things had changed. So it might be hard to return to old places. I would not do that. I have memories. And I do not want them to be destroyed. Leave then as they are. Some examples. I was once in the Ecuadorian Amazonas. Travelling the last part of the roof of a bus. Together with the suit cases. And I slept in a hut of bamboo. Today I can see on internet that there is a tarmac road, airport and hotels. We did a trip up on Chimborazo. By local buses and paying a local to give us a ride. You could get to 4 800 m on the "road". At that time, there was nothing at the end of the road. You had to climb to 5 000m, to get to a refuge. Today there is a refuge where the road ends. I was with touring Europe on my MC. With my girlfriend. Happy times, that never will return. I have no wish to drive the same routes again. And stay at the same places. I would just make me sad. That our dreams never come true. This is me. I just write about myself. We are all different. And I have full respect for everyone that wants to do the opposite. I wish you a happy journey. = I compare to much, how it is today with how it cold have been. And that makes me sad. Better for me to focus on today and tomorrow. And there are so few places that I have visited, compared to what there are to discover. Where does the road go ? what is in the end of the road ? = Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. = A plus for you who recognize those words. = Sorry, this post is not recommending reading material, but... my reflections on Ted's "Dreaming of Jupiter" |
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I've never had a long enough discussion with Ted to find out whether Dreaming of Jupiter was more catharsis than adventure for him but usually books of this sort are one or the other. If my effort ever gets written it's going to need some careful structuring to make sure it's not just an exercise in introspective navel gazing. These things have to be interesting for someone else to read. And if nobody else reads it it has to be interesting to me to write. There's an old saying "I don't know what I think until I read what I wrote" and there is some truth in that. It's the literary version of quantum uncertainty where ideas and impressions that only exist in your head as formless impressions and feelings are forced to take concrete form by the act of writing them down. Whether what comes out is worth the effort is another matter but at least they then take on a separate existence. That act of writing it down crystallises what was important but it's always amazed me that two people doing the same trip will write down different things. We see things differently, we interpret things differently and we remember them differently. One of the ideas I've wanted to follow through on is to write a parallel lives travel book where those different perspectives are brought together in one volume but of course it needs at least one other person to commit to it. In the absence of that the best I can do is to use the same person separated by time. There are trips I've done where the interplay between the 'characters' became the essence of the trip but the emotional fallout that results makes them difficult source material. I tried to tackle one one of them about 10 or 12 yrs ago after something brought it all to the fore again but the resulting manuscript has never seen the light of day. It's not interesting and I keep it in a drawer along with a copy of Zen and the Art etc as an example of how not to do it. I'm sure there's a story in there somewhere but if there is it won't end up on the motorcycle travel section of a (secondhand) bookshop. |
I’ve just been reading a book called Zen and Now by Mark Richardson. Those of you who have read Zen and the Art etc will know that it starts with a bike trip across the US mid west heading for San Francisco before vanishing into the philosophical aether. Zen and Now is the author - a journalist - redoing the trip some decades later and relating his experience of what he found. What he did find were a number of people mentioned in the original book who were willing to talk and a number of instances where the story had been ‘embellished’ for literary effect.
It seems that there is (or was anyway - the book was written in 2008) a Zen trail across the northern states akin to Route 66, with guide books etc available to help you track down the most obscure original trip landmarks. It is well written - as you’d expect from a journalist I suppose - and he does have the confidence to push his nose in where many of us might fear to tread; the journalist again I suppose. With getting on for 15yrs having passed since he rode the route, his trip itself is fast becoming a route to re-ride and see if many of the characters remember him. Certainly quite a few of the places he stayed at are no longer around so anyone doing it would face the same problems he did. Re-riding a trip that in itself was a re-ride of an even older trip starts to raise some philosophical issues that it might need another trip to resolve. Quite what to call it might be the first one :rolleyes2: |
The books of Lois Pryce are all great reads - especially "Red Tape and White Knuckles", which must be read after "Lois on the Loose" to get the real sense.
Not directly relevant, but a must read for any motorcycle nomad. "The art of maintaining a motorcycle" - more really about Zen Buddhism than motorcycle travel - but it is very unlikely that it will not have an impact on how you think about motorcycles, bikers, and motorcycle travel. Emilio Scotto "The longest Ride" is a good read. Spending 10 years traversing every single country in the world on a gold wing - surely he must have something of value to convey? Chris Scott was mentioned - and I agree. There are of course lots of books which have nothing to do about motorcycles or travel directly, but which will give you cultural or geographical insights to be enjoyed massively when you get there, or after you have been there. If you plan to pass through Botswana for instance, then "The Women's Detective Agency" series will be very entertaining for sure! I also recommend Lonely Planet (or the likes of it), for every country you plan to visit. |
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