From Chile to Alaska

[slojo]

After a few months of planning and preparation I will be departing these fair shores on the 19th of July for South America. The plan is to ship my bike (Yamaha XT660Z Tenere) to Valparaiso in Chile, then ride down to Tierra Del Fuego on the southern tip of the continent and then back up and eventually make it to Alaska, a distance of roughly 30,000kms.

I'm allowing myself roughly 12 months to complete the trip. Shipping the bike over from Sydney is estimated to take approximately 6-7 weeks so I'll be traveling without the bike with some friends beforehand until closer to the bike's ETA in Chile.

A bit about the beast of burden, it was bought new in 2010 and has done about 12,000kms to date. It's more or less stock but for the trip I've installed:
- Leo Vince mufflers
- Barkbuster hand-guards
- Touratech headlight protector
- Yamaha hard panniers and a top box,
- 12V outlet,
- alloy radiator guard
- steel bash plate that also comes up around to provide some protection to the engine casing as well.

It's not really off-road capable but will handle most unsealed roads fairly easily which is about all my limited riding skills are really capable of handling anyway.





So why am I doing this?

A number of reasons I suppose, I've always wanted to do a trip like this, like many of us I watched and enjoyed "Long Way Round" with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman, but I think it was after my ride around Tasmania (see http://cbr250.com/forum/thread-4625.html ) and a bit of further research that I realized how achievable such a trip was.

How did I get the time off work?

Easy, the company I worked for recently restructured their operation and I made redundant. In most cases this is not a pleasant situation to be in, however we'd seen this coming for awhile and when the announcement was finally made it was not unexpected, plenty of notice was given, and an attractive redundancy package was offered.

For me, being in a reasonably secure financial situation (for now) and without employment commitments was an opportunity too good to be missed.

Although I no longer use this forum much anymore, I still credit this forum with providing me with a lot of things that I value in life, riding and non-riding related, and I will endeavor to keep you all posted with updates of my trip whenever I can.

I do have a blog, and am on Twitter and FB (see sig.) and will try and use those tools to keep you all updated as well!

[Hessian]

Dang, you beat me to it. The panamerican highway should be great! I've stood at the end of it in argentina, got a photo at the sign, but want to do this trip in the near future.

All the best dude

[playwme]

Awesome! That's going to be fun.

[Matt]

sweet mang! its gunna be awesome. you gunna take video footage? like a go pro or something?

[Lane]

Sweet mate!

I wish you all the best on your travels!

Iw as just looking at a picture of these bikes in Cycletorque the other day and thought... man thats an ugly front end. Sorry.

[Haggis]

Holy crap man! So jealous! All the best for your journey!

[Quo Vadas]

All the best for your travels and it will surely be a lovely milestone in your life.
Updates and pic's would be most appreciated

Take care,

d

[King Kenny]

Yeah being made redundant certainly can change your life....

Best of luck mate - safe journey & happy trails

[Aduro]

12 month bike trip? Every real mans dream if you ask me. Gigabytes of photos please

[pOint_01]

u crazy Rod!