As Ted says, people sometimes want to go quiet/missing etc. especially people who go on long distance tours. Some of them just move on, meet new people and can't (or don't want to) stay in touch with every person they have met along the way. I had a similar experience some years ago in Germany. A local guy I met in a bar in a small town called Montabaur when I was travelling by bike kept in touch by email for a couple of months afterwards then he stopped. The good news was that a few years later I was on another biking trip in Germany. I was passing through the same town and I called in to the same bar one afternoon. He was sitting there and we chatted and had a laugh. I didn't take it personally that he hadn't kept in touch.

When travelling, you meet THOUSANDS of people.

Even with the best intentions, it's almost impossible to keep in touch with everyone.

It's not disrespect. Just reality.

Before the world of email and facebook etc, it was just 'understood' !!!

__________________
Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Ok, these are nice stories and I understand that you might try to calm me down a little bit, but for me they do not make a lot of sense.
When we left we exchanged emails.
He wrote us, both, the same evening. He had misspelled my girlfriends email (bounced back), so he asked me for the correct one to send her a message too. I replied 5 minutes later, but we never heard of him again.
I tried a few times. The last time I asked if he is still alive.
Thats different to a "conversation" that just went out after a few weeks (that happend to me to and I understand it).
What concerned me was, that in his last message he wrote that his day was not so well. There was a lot of wind during that time, so he always had to drive extrem carefully. When he made a rest at a toilet his bike fell down from the wind and he had a lot of work to get it up back again (full packed)

One possibility could be that he is using a special spam filter and our emails are not on his whitelist. That chance is low, as he started a conversation and so my email should be automatically on that whitelist.

Other reason could be that he really wants to play death. Which does not make a lot of sense as it was not his kind of personality, he told us he keeps in contact with other riders over some "riders across the world" community.

Anyway, if someone ever finds Mike Newman, please just let us know where you have seen him - and tell us what make his bike is (I know) ;-)

Thanks a lot
Bodo

Bodo...first of all, we all hope your friend is safe and well.
But please accept that the guy may have moved on with his life in different places with different people. I'm sure he doesn't mean to offend you, perhaps he just has a fond memory of you and your girlfriend and nothing more than that.
Just because he didn't reply doesn't mean he's dead. Quite the opposite....it may mean he's very much alive and enjoying himself!

I just want to let you know that someone on the Advrider forum found a recent blog entry from last December, where an picture (made on that day) of Mike was posted. He is fine and we are happy with that. Thats all.

Excellent news Bodo