Just got back from a 13 month motorcycle trip from Canada to Bolivia

Just got back from a 13 month motorcycle trip from Canada to Bolivia.

Started a thread on /trv/, but figure some here would be interested in the vehicular aspects of overlanding.

I am monitoring this thread

Hang on, that doesn't look like some boring 2017 bike

IDEAL tool for the job.

how are you going to cross from panama to colombia?

I did cross.

I did it piecing together a bunch of smugglers boats (mostly carrying cigarettes north to south, I assume something stronger going the other way). Took about two weeks once I got underway (and most of a week waiting around at the dock to get going).

Not sure many at all do it that way (I and the guy I met and did it with might literally have been the first). Normally people either fly the bike, put it in a container, or have arranged some luxury sailboat.

how did you avoid the spic cartels?

/n/oggo you should have kept going south into argentina til you reached ushuaia (southernmost city in the world)

oh, i haven't read that you already did the jouney.
why you didn't go further south?

Massively more expensive to go further south (vs. the countries I went through), and in return I'd get increasingly shit weather.

Money can be better spent on a future trip somewhere more interesting.

Setting arbitrary goals for travel, particularly geographic ones, is stupid imo.

What was your toolkit and what spare parts did you bring? Ever run out of gas? Ever worry about it?

scariest thing that happened?

what he said

any big crashes?

near misses?

how about worst food?

best country?

worst road?

weirdest thing?

Have you ever met Neil Peart on the road?

I went down doing 100km/h in Baja, very luckily on one of the few flat straight stretches. The front tube UNZIPPED, so with no air in the front I went down. I have a nice scar on my knee for it, but the bike was totally fine.

In Guatemala some asshole hit me in the middle of nowhere. That guy was doing everything wrong simultaneously (no license, insurance, plate, hit me in front of a crowd of people who nearly lynched him), but because they couldn't let him go (on bail or whatever) the police decided it was 'only fair' to also hold me. Got out after a day when the embassy freaked out. Didn't get the bike fixed properly until I got to Nicaragua: only the steering stem was damaged in the crash, but the ebay replacement was ALSO damaged in the same way which confused the hell out of me for a while until I ordered a second.

...There are boats set up to take cars/bikes across you know....

Tools/spares: simple bike, so with a set of wrenches and some other hand tools I could take the bike totally apart and back together at the side of the road, although true side-of-the-road repairs never went beyond broken cables and leaking carb.

I brought a lot of spares and used most of them: multiples of every seal and gasket on the bike, carb parts, clutch plates/springs, bearings... filters/tires/chains I bought along the way (went though something like 6 or 7 rear tires).

Nah there's no longer a ferry between Panama and Colombia. You can put vehicles in a container and then onto a cargo ship though (while you fly).

>didn't go through the darien gap

Pussy

Lots of near-misses in Peru: people in that country are the worst drivers in the world hands down, on the world's most treacherous roads. But it's also by far the most rewarding country to ride a dirt bike in: back roads there put anywhere else in the world to shame for dual-sport fun.

Worst food is basically all food except in Mexico and Peru. Particularly Panama-Colombia-Ecuador have THE blandest food in the world (and I've been around).

Craziest "name" road was probably the "Trampoline of Death" in southern Colombia. Most punishing road period was Highway 25 in Bolivia between CBBA and Coroico (pic related, one of many water crossing right up to the intake, did it with an Argie on an XR400, had more flat tires on that road than the rest of the trip from Canada put together). "The death road" in Bolivia is babby-tier tourist shit: every single road in Peru is a "death road" by comparison.

...actually the argies bike was an NX400 I think, which is like an electric start XR400.

>didn't venture into the gap
>OP is still alive

these two things are not a coincidence

What do you do for a living?
About how much did this trip cost?
How were you able to commit 13 months to this?
How many tires have you gone through?

Because I did it on these little trading boats I visited a bunch of little settlements along the gap (on the mainland and the islands just off-shore). Most remote place I've ever been.

Also spent a week in Capurgana, Colombia (waiting for a boat to mainland Colombia) which is the epicentre for the smuggling and shit that goes through the gap. Lots of illegal immigrants from Africa, Venezuela, and other places passing through there (they can't just take a boat anymore because the Panamanians have cracked down, so they have to hike for a week or something right through the gap).

Wasn't *that* expensive. Didn't add it up (if I did I'd be put off doing trips like this), but I'd guess $15k USD all in at most. I woulda' saved that working in a year.

I had the time by not having a job! (need to fix that now)

Went through 6 or 7 rear tires, and three front.