Chasing America

It's all Ted Simon's fault.

Back in 1973, with nothing else better to do, Ted Simon hopped aboard his Triumph Tiger 100 motorbike and rode it around the world.

Four years he rode that bike, from England to Africa to South America, up through the U.S., over to Australia, Asia, and the Middle East, until he got back home and wrote a book about it. A very popular book. A book that inspired Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman to hop on their BMW motorbikes in 2004 and...

...ride them around the world.

McGregor and Boorman rode the Long Way Round heading east through Europe, to Mongolia, through Russia, across the U.S. to New York City, and then back home to London, only to head out again in 2007, this time going the Long Way Down from John O' Groats, Scotland, to Cape Town, South Africa. They were very popular TV shows. TV shows that inspired ME to hop on my 2005 Honda VLX and...

...ride off to work, because that's all I could do.

Well, that and dream about heading around the world on a motorbike.

And dream I did.

I imagined what bike I'd take, how long I'd be gone, the weather, the smells, the food, the cost, and which route I'd take.

Europe? No doubt! Russia? You bet! China?

China, maybe not so sure.

In all my "research" for the "big day" that would come sometime well "in the future," I read Buck Perley's blog The Great Ride of China that pert near gave me the impression that me riding through China would be pert near impossible.

(Sometimes I say pert near pert near too much.)

BUT, I did learn something from his blog that made me sit up and think, "Holy Cow! I could do that!"

In 2013, Perley and Amy Mathieson rode 34,000 kilometers across China to break the Guinness World Record for the Longest Journey on Motorcycle in a Single Country.

I still don't know how to measure kilometers, but I CAN sit on a motorbike for a long time, so again I thought to myself:

"Holy Cow! I could do that! Maybe not break any records, but sit, and enjoy Chasing America."

And that's where things stand at the moment. Me making plans to ride across America, meeting my neighbors in different states, and riding those iconic "bucket list" motorcycle roads that we bikers drool about.