February 9, 10 and 11, 2020

The Start of My Motorcycle Journey

A few folks have asked if I ride a motorcycle…well…kinda of. Before this trip only twice in my life. The first time was in 1980. Kathy, my wife, and I rode from Notre Dame to Lake Michigan to watch the sunset on our first date and I borrowed Paul Duggan’s motorcycle. Paul taught me to drive it that afternoon and agreed to lend it to me with the knowledge that I had never driven a motorcycle before. What are good friends for? More importantly, what does that say about Kathy’s judgment???

The second time was in December of 2019. I attended a five-day motorcycle off road training camp run by RawHyde Adventures in Castaic, CA. You can learn more about RawHyde here: https://rawhyde-offroad.com/. This was baptism by fire for me. Riding a BMW f800GS in dirt, mud and sand with a group of about 25 others, all of whom were expert riders to start with. On the first night of the trip we were all in the bar together and were required to introduce ourselves, say a few words about our background and describe our riding experience and the motorcycle(s) we owned. Everyone of the people in the group had been riding for years and owned one or more bikes. My turn came up near the end of the introductions and I told the above story and then described my “motorcycle” which is pictured below.

The bar erupted in laughter at my expense… Anyways, it was an interesting five days and I learned a ton from Owen and the other coaches and had a great time. I was riding a BMW f800GS, which is the bike I am riding in South America. Unfortunately, for RawHyde, I put the bike down four or five times per day during the camp learning how to handle it in the dirt. We rode from Castaic into the Mohave Desert and back and spent a good deal of time off road in some beautiful terrain.

Getting ready for this adventure has taken a considerable amount of preparation. I’ve had to educate myself on the motorcycle and related gear, buy all the necessary “stuff”, rent a motorcycle in Chile, plan out a rough route and learn a bit of Spanish. It’s been fun and challenging to get ready, but I’m thankful I’ve had the time and the support of Kathy in embarking on this journey.

I picked my motorcycle up late on Sunday, Feb. 9th and rode it back to my hotel and started the process of packing it up and getting all the details in place. On Monday, I was ready to head out. Below is a picture of me getting ready to leave.

A bit up an upgrade from my Vespa!!! I’ve got with me about 100 lbs of gear in the two panniers and two top bags.

First stop is Valparaiso, Chile, which is about a two hour drive mostly west on the highway from Santiago. It took me about four hours because of traffic, and I decided to stay off the highways so that I could get comfortable with handling the bike with all the extra weight I’m carrying.

Rather uneventful trip except that about 45 minutes away from Valparaiso, I was stopping at a red light and I misjudged my balance and fell off the bike, luckily towards the curb. I must have been an interesting and funny sight rolling around on the pavement. Then came the challenging part, getting the bike back up on two wheels with the extra weight I’m carrying. Luckily a very nice woman on a motorcycle stopped and gave me a hand lifting the bike up. I love Chilean people!

I stayed in a unique hotel in Valparaiso. It is built entirely out of steel shipping containers. Below is a photo I took of the hotel.

The WineBox Hotel is perched up on hill in Santiago and as you can see, covered in street art. The rooms all have street art on the walls. The city of Valparaiso is teeming with street art, more than any other place I’ve been and the quality overall is high.

Valparaiso is the busiest seaport on the Pacific in South America with a population of about 800,000, is built on several hills and has a Mediterranean climate. Today, it is a center of education in Chile with four major universities here. It reminds me somewhat of Chilean version of San Francisco. Above was the view from the rooftop terrace of the hotel at Sunset.

I spent most of the morning of the 11th taking advantage of the first quality internet coverage available since the start of my trip and catching up on my blog. I was able to get on the road at about 1:00. By 1:15, I had a problem…my motorcycle wouldn’t shift out of first gear. I pulled off of the busy road I was on into a residential neighborhood and started attempting to fix the problem. After about 30-minutes of futile attempts, I resorted to calling the group I rented the bike from and the owner, Thomas, rode from Santiago to Valparaiso to see what he could do. We worked on it, but for some reason the gearbox was seizing up and refusing to shift smoothly. After about 30 minutes of essentially cranking the shifting pedal, it started to release more smoothly. So, after three hours of waiting for Thomas and then jerking around with the bike, it was 5:00. Thomas suggested I should ride to Pichidangui, about 2 hours and 160 k up the coast, which is where I am now.

I’ll be back touch soon. Hasta leuga!