Brian and Conchita's Adventures

You can imagine how giddy 40 grown men were when faced with a barn full of brand new bikes!

With our names and countries on them as well!!

Camping in the touratech compound just outside of Johannesburg - all tents supplied by BMW Motorrad. It was a very nice piece of property - too bad for the 8 foot fence topped with electrical wire.

All bags to be loaded by the specified time, otherwise you are riding all day with your 50lb duffle bag! Everyone made sure to have their bag to the shuttle on time!

I am soo excited - cant you tell?

Camping at the Country Trax Motorcycle Training Ranch. Pretty much all the land you see in the background is part of the ranch.

Country Trax as well - media, doctors and BMW organizers had use of the cabins. Poor buggers - they never got a chance to be one with nature....especially when packing up camp in the rain.

Team Canada with Hanz - the VP of BMW Worldwide. He is a Canadian !!

We have decided not to post while on route this time and instead wait until we get back home to do a ride report.

We have one week to check out the Alberta Rockies and then we are heading north with a couple of friends that we met on our trip to South America.........

Check out the slideshow of our trip - just click on the title.

KLR450R
These new 450's rip pretty good, but the manual says do an oil change every 1000 km and change the piston and rings every 1500 km!!!!! hahahahahah....ya right.

It feels really good to get back into dirtbiking. The quads are sold. We weren't really using them anymore, and the thrill was gone for me. Biking gets the heart pumping again. Let's me know how outta shape I really am!!

Ouch!!

"Is that you, Conchita?"

"Yes, it's me Brian." (sigh, eyes rolling)

Alllllrighty then.......here we are finally in the last week before the big send-off (won't be much fanfare actually).

All our documents have been scanned and photocopied. Conchita is still adding the final touches to our "Red Cross" medical cards that we will carry in/on our tank bag in a visible place (in case we crash and the medics need our vital info: blood type, allergies, etc).

I don't think the whole concept of where we are riding to has really set in yet. I don't feel super excited. That will all change after a couple of days on the road thinking about 70+ holidays left ahead of us. Wow, this will be a first - not only where we are going, but also how long we are going.

It sounds like C and I may be able to scoot off a little ahead of schedule on the 28th. Possibly 3 PM. That should give more than enough time to ride the 450 km to our first stop - friends Ken and Linda's place in Red Deer, Alberta.

Day two should get us into the US and down into Kalispell, Montana, where we have been invited to overnight at a fellow ADV rider's place. Life is good!!! Or rather.....GOING to be good!!!

Dan is also going to be able to get away a little earlier than he had planned. He is aiming to meet us in Las Vegas on Oct 4th. We offered to share our room at the Flamingo Hotel. He will have to sleep on the floor though. I am quite sure he won't mind. The floor at the Flamingo is probably way nicer than some of the places that we will be sleeping in over the next 2 1/2 months.

The idea is to make it as far as we can into the US on this tire, and get fresh ones just before we cross over into Mexico and down into the Copper Canyon. We are going to try and get about 3000 km out of it. The flatness of this tire is a testament to the crap biking roads here in eastern Alberta.

Dan leaves Hinton today!!

We have not heard anything from Dan yet. I hope he has a good ride, and misses all the snow.

Saturday we met up with GS Gal in Kalispell right on time....well, not really. We were an hour and a half late. It must have been Conchita's fault!!

Even though we were a little late, we still met up with some other fine folks for supper. It was really enjoyable and relaxing to hang out with them. It is too bad that we were not able to spend more time with Sylvia. She is a gracious host, whose enthusiasm for motorbiking is contagious. She ALMOST convinced Conchita to start riding her own bike! Thank you so much for the hospitality!! We look forward to meeting up with you again one day. Kalispell is not THAT far from Cold Lake.

Beware!!

I am not sure if the temp gauge goes below zero. Don't really want to find out either!

Today we rode 598 km from Missoula, Montana, to Hailey, Idaho. The twisties were perfect....until the snow hit.

Tomorrow we will have to make a short detour to the BMW dealer in Boise, Idaho. Seems the rear tire isn't going to last as long as I had hoped. Hopefully they have a tire in stock, and are able to change it for us.