Bruce and Jean's 9 month ride out. The 3 Americas
Bruce and Jean have been customers for a long time , over the next 9 months we will follow the progress on their adventure.
Here is a few words from Bruce about why they are doing it:
Jean and I have been touring on motorbikes since 1996, once she had passed her test there was no holding her back. She has been to Europe on bikes ranging from a GS550 to a Ducati 750SS, I prefer my XJ900F and XJR1330.
We are both in our late 40s, but not too close to 50.
On many trips we have set some sort of target, such as
- Get to the Nordkapp
- Do all Cardinal points in the UK (without using motorways)
- Ssee how many times we can cross the Pyrenees in a day
- Cross America (and back).
In 2007, once our children had finished university we spent 3 months in the USA, crossing east-west and back again. For a large part of the trip we camped and couchsurfed (http://www.couchsurfing.com), at the end of the 3 months it felt strange living in a house again.
As we had both enjoyed mixing with people off the beaten track, we started planning to go away again. South America was the original plan, and as usual with us it got grander until it became the "3 Americas" , 2010 was chosen because that was when our mortgage was due to finish.
Even better, in September 2009 I was able to take redundancy.
I have been working in IT for 26 years, that is long enough.
Jean is taking a career break (unpaid leave) from her job in the NHS.
You could say we are finally having a gap year, before we are too old to enjoy it.
So, what is this trip about ?
It is not altruistic, although we may do some voluntary work if the opportunity arises, we are not doing it for charity and are funding it entirely ourselves.
We both want to see things and meet people with a different way of life to ourselves, we do not intend just doing "tourist" items (although standing on the equator will be cool). Seeing penguins in the wild, crossing the Andes, maybe eating guinea pig :-)
Bruce.
I will post more details as later along with pictures of their prepared bikes (a pair of Aprilia Pegasos)
I have just got to lock up my Guinea pig (Sidney) first.