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28 Sep 2021
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Join Date: Sep 2021
Location: Taupō, New Zealand
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Moto Gus
Great job, Steve. What a gem. I’ve read the first two pages and it looks like a solid read and no doubt fantastic story ahead. Well done taking the time to meet Ron properly and then share here and ARR. Callum from Auckland.
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Amazing the people experiences you collect when you travel on a motorbike right?! I don’t know how common it was back then, but he never met another motorcycle traveler until reaching Texas! Different world and he had no thought of recognition, tribute or profit: that makes it a great story to me. Reminds me of a time before the gap year & instagram crowds. Old school proper.
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28 Sep 2021
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveAfendoulis
Amazing the people experiences you collect when you travel on a motorbike right?! I don’t know how common it was back then, but he never met another motorcycle traveler until reaching Texas! Different world and he had no thought of recognition, tribute or profit: that makes it a great story to me. Reminds me of a time before the gap year & instagram crowds. Old school proper.
The fact he preserved everything may also he connected to how remote New Zealand was/is and therefore the “once in a lifetime” value placed on the experience
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Pretty much the same with us - nobody on the road doing the same thing. We were so unusual that this happened the previous year on the way back from Morocco.
I remember a lot more about that earlier trip than I do about the '71 trip and a few years ago wrote it up as a short book ('short' being about 25k words) when I was bored over the winter. I'm lucky in that I'm still in touch with the person I went with so I could mine his memories / photographs as well. We did many more trips together (+/- WAGs) afterwards - particularly through the '70 and early '80's but continuing right up to the present day. The last 'big' one was in 2017 around eastern Canada but Covid cancelled a planned trip to the US Deep South last year.
It is strange how some of the things you experience while travelling can have a lasting effect on you and often they're not the things you expect. For me the lasting consequence from that 1971 trip was not so much to do with the people I went with but something that came from a very brief stop in the Alps on the way back. It triggered a love of the mountains that led me to buy a second 'home' down there many years later.
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28 Sep 2021
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Excellent! Thanks for sharing.
Not even close however I'm recalling my travels in Southern Africa a couple of years later on an ex-Police bike... : )
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29 Sep 2021
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wow, thankyou for the link, I read a few pages and cant wait to deep dive through this.
Paulo
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30 Sep 2021
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I've read up to the point where he is in New York, and I am struck by a couple of things. One is how unbelievably many punctures he has; at this point in the trip he has had dozens, if not hundreds, of flats.
I realise that tire technology has improved greatly since 1971, but he is literally getting multiple flats per day, and doesn't seem to go more than a couple of hundred miles without having to fix his tire.
The other thing that strikes me is how often he is offered a free place to sleep for the night, or a free meal. It seems like every other town he rides into, the local police, firefighters, or just some friendly bloke offers him a place to stay for the night.
Every now and then I read something that really opens my eyes, such as this line: "At a roadside lunch stop, we meet a man on a Harley-Davidson Sportster with a tent. His name is Mark, and he’s heading for Florida, having a job lined up on the construction of a new Disneyland there." Which of course would be Disneyworld...
Or this sentence a few pages later: "We go there by ferry, past the Statue of Liberty in the haze, the Twin Towers full height but not completed." Wow!
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Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250
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12 Oct 2021
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A cracking read - thank you Ron and Steve.
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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.
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15 Oct 2021
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Just what i needed stuck at home atm.
thanks for the link.
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