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0:56

James Barkman is driven to enjoy life to the absolute fullest. He's

0:58

one of those rare people that seems to have already gotten

1:01

his head around the concept that life is short and every day

1:03

should be lived as your last. When

1:06

he was growing up, James had a friend that had always

1:08

talked about someday he would ride from Alaska to Ushuaia. So

1:13

when he finally decided he was going to do

1:14

the trip, he fired off a message to James and said, the

1:17

trip is about to become a reality. Are you

1:19

in or are you out? James jumped

1:22

at the opportunity. But

1:24

to add to the adventure, James then suggested that

1:26

he and two other friends that were going to

1:28

take this trip make this into a combined motorcycle trip slash mountain

1:30

climbing

1:31

expedition. So

1:35

they needed to pack everything for

1:37

riding their motorcycles, as well as everything they would need for

1:39

high altitude climbing. Packing

1:42

solutions were unique.

1:44

Schedules ranged from riding

1:47

against all odds through wet and cold, and terrible

1:50

weather, to hanging out for months at a time,

1:52

camping, climbing.

1:56

The adventure is peppered with excitement,

1:58

tension, and at least a little bit of fun.

1:59

least one near encounter with

2:02

death. I'm Jim Martin. This is

2:04

Adventure Rider Radio. Stay with us. We got

2:06

a good one for you.

2:18

All right. My name is James

2:20

Parkman. I was born and raised

2:23

in a small town in Pennsylvania.

2:26

And now I live in San Luis in

2:28

San Francisco, California, on the central coast. I'm

2:32

a photographer and multimedia journalist,

2:34

as well as alpinist,

2:38

surfer, motorcycle enthusiast.

2:40

I suppose I wear a few different hats, but

2:43

I am a photographer and journalist

2:46

by trade.

3:01

James, welcome to Adventure Rider Radio. Thank

3:05

you very much. I'm stoked to be here. Nice to

3:07

have you on. And you were just telling me you

3:09

just crawled out of the ocean this morning.

3:11

I guess

3:13

I did. You didn't exactly say it

3:16

that way, but that's what I pictured. Yeah,

3:19

I slipped out of the ocean just about 20

3:21

minutes ago. Right. Because you're

3:24

surfing, right? I

3:26

was surfing this morning. Yeah, I live right

3:28

here along the ocean, basically a stone's

3:30

throw. So when I'm not gone

3:32

or traveling for work or other things, I

3:35

just try to surf as much as possible

3:38

here. It sounds like quite an exciting

3:41

trade that you're in, quite an exciting job that you do.

3:43

But first, tell me, what do you know about ostriches?

3:49

Funny you ask. I was born

3:52

on this ostrich farm. We

3:55

had I mean, I couldn't

3:57

even tell you how many ostriches, but. For

4:00

a while in the 90s, it was kind of this industry

4:02

that blew up and ostriches

4:05

were going crazy. We were shipping them

4:07

to China. People were spending a lot of money

4:09

for good ostriches.

4:12

And I was just a kid. So my

4:14

job was to feed them

4:17

and water them. So most of the animals we

4:19

had, like ostriches, cows,

4:21

horses, sheep, goats, kind of the typical

4:24

farm animals. When

4:27

you're a kid, you don't really realize how special it is.

4:29

It's kind of annoying because it's

4:32

all the chores that you're supposed to do. So

4:35

I was always a little afraid of them because

4:37

the males get pretty territorial

4:39

and they can kill you really easily.

4:41

But I had one ostrich that I took care of

4:44

that I named Gabby and we

4:46

were great friends. I could go in the

4:49

pen with her. I could pet her velvet

4:51

neck. So that's

4:54

about all I know. No, but I can tell

4:56

there's a deep love there. I think the thing that did it was

4:59

the description of her velvet neck

5:01

that really says it right there.

5:04

So you do have a love for ostriches. I've never spoken to

5:06

anyone who's grown up, well, even dealt

5:08

with ostriches. As a matter of fact, when I said ostriches, I

5:10

wasn't even sure I was saying it correctly. I

5:12

wasn't sure if it was a different thing. For

5:15

plural, you say ostriches differently,

5:17

but that's really unique. Were

5:19

they buying the ostriches to eat

5:22

or is it the eggs?

5:24

Yeah, it's a little of both. So essentially

5:27

it's the meat, the trade

5:29

is the meat, the leather, and

5:30

then the eggs. So

5:33

the eggs are equivalent

5:35

to two dozen chicken eggs. So I grew

5:37

up with a pretty big family and

5:40

we just drill one of those eggs with the

5:42

drill bit and drain

5:44

it into a huge pan and feed the whole family

5:47

of eight of us with one ostrich

5:49

egg. Wow, that's- And

5:52

mostly we would sell the ostriches

5:55

and they'd get processed or butchered elsewhere,

5:58

but the- The leather was really

6:00

cool. It's like, I've got a few

6:03

things, few ostrich

6:05

leather items, but it's

6:07

got like the bumps where the feathers

6:10

are plucked.

6:11

So it's kind of a unique type of leather

6:13

for, you know, boots, whatever

6:15

else you make leather out of. So

6:18

was growing up on an ostrich farm, well,

6:21

I mean, for you it'd be normal, right? Because I know

6:23

what that thing is like. However you grow up, you

6:25

think that that is normal. We all do this. But

6:28

do you think that had anything to do with sending off the trajectory

6:30

that you're on now in life?

6:34

That's a good question. I don't know.

6:36

I think there's a lot of things for my upbringing

6:38

that probably

6:39

led me to make the decisions

6:42

I have.

6:44

I think I grew up

6:46

pretty rural. So

6:49

there's just a lot of freedom to do whatever

6:51

you want. Like me and my friends

6:53

would saddle horses and gout for miles

6:56

whenever we felt like it, or we'd shoot guns

6:58

or go hunting,

6:59

rip around in the fields,

7:01

like drive the four wheelers around. There's

7:03

just a lot of freedom. So I think that gives

7:06

you or raises you with

7:08

a sense of independence. And then I was actually

7:11

homeschooled as well. So I think that

7:14

helped me develop more of

7:16

a confidence to

7:18

be independent and just to carve my own

7:20

path and figure it out. So

7:23

I think in my career, I've

7:25

been freelance almost the entirety

7:28

of it. And I

7:30

think a lot of those things

7:33

for my upbringing probably helped me or helped

7:35

establish me where I am now. It's

7:38

hard to put a finger on that stuff, but it's a good question.

7:40

And I recognize some of those things as being helpful,

7:42

I'm sure. Being a photographer has

7:44

to be tough, particularly nowadays

7:47

because photography, I mean, everybody's

7:49

out shooting photographs now. And it seems like, I

7:51

mean, when digital, do you remember film?

7:54

I mean, is it being used on a daily

7:56

basis?

7:57

No, absolutely. I mean... My

8:00

family or my dad shot with

8:03

the 35 millimeter SLR, you know, all the

8:05

family photos, you'd always forget to wind it.

8:07

It was classic. And

8:10

he would have these slideshow nights where

8:12

he'd share all the photos from, you

8:15

know, his early twenties.

8:17

And he did a lot of cool stuff

8:20

back in the day. So I just remember

8:22

like having all these slideshow nights, we gather

8:25

all our friends and you

8:27

just go through like three or four carousels,

8:29

right? You probably remember those things or maybe

8:31

don't, you

8:34

know, yeah. So we'd go through those

8:37

and

8:38

every photo, you know, he'd kind of stop

8:40

and talk about it for 10,

8:43

15 minutes. And then other people would share their carousels

8:46

and share stories from their

8:48

photos. And I think that's the first

8:50

time that I was like, man,

8:53

I just want

8:55

to take photos and I want

8:57

to share them with people and

8:59

tell stories, you know? So I think a

9:02

lot of

9:03

my work is kind of

9:05

documentary style editorial.

9:07

I just, I

9:08

mean, I do a lot of commercial

9:10

work for my bread and butter, but

9:13

what I'm always trying to do is more of

9:15

the documentary style stuff where there's

9:17

just stories behind everything, right?

9:19

Whether it's photo

9:20

or video or writing.

9:23

My goal is to

9:25

tell stories that captivate

9:27

people. So I think growing

9:29

up

9:30

and having those memories and

9:32

experiences with my dad and his friend sharing all

9:34

their photos

9:35

kind of lit a fire in me

9:37

to do the same thing

9:40

in my own way, I suppose.

9:42

That what you're describing there, sitting there

9:44

watching the slides being projected,

9:46

I had the same experience with my uncle and

9:49

it was really powerful for me as well. There's

9:51

just something so magical about it. And that's

9:53

kind of what I was leading to when I was saying about how it

9:55

must be a little difficult

9:57

nowadays to make a living because back

9:59

then. and photography was kind of elitist

10:02

in a way. It's certainly that way. I mean, your dad was shooting

10:04

transparencies obviously, but it's changed

10:07

it to the fact that, or to the point that everyone

10:09

has a camera on their smartphone and I mean, look

10:12

at these smartphones, what they can do now. The, you know,

10:14

the cameras on them are just incredible. So it

10:16

must be kind of tough and a bit of a leap for you

10:19

to look at photography

10:22

and say, hey, I'm going to make a living at this. How

10:24

did you, how did you do that?

10:28

Well,

10:30

it's, there was a lot that happened. I'll

10:33

do my best to articulate

10:36

how I feel like I started, but

10:38

I know I had these dreams of, you know,

10:41

doing traveling and pursuing

10:45

the passions that I had and telling

10:48

stories about all of them. And it

10:50

seemed a little far fetched coming from my

10:53

small Pennsylvania hometown where I

10:55

didn't know anybody that did that. I mean,

10:57

I think the only photographers I ever knew

11:00

were people that just did like

11:02

family photos and weddings and portraits,

11:05

right? In my mind, like I couldn't look to anyone

11:07

that I knew to model myself

11:10

after. So

11:14

it was a little intimidating and pretty

11:17

foreign in the area that I

11:19

was from. Like people kind of get

11:22

into the trades and are more blue

11:24

collar. And it was

11:26

just, yeah, I didn't really know. I

11:29

had these dreams, but I didn't know what to do about it. So

11:31

I worked, I was working a job for a number

11:34

of years. I was managing a

11:36

shop, like a manufacturing

11:38

shop and

11:42

just had these dreams. I'm like, well, either

11:44

I'm going to take a stab at this stuff

11:46

or I'm going to

11:48

dream about it. So I quit my job.

11:50

I moved into my van,

11:52

which was a 1976 VW bus. And

11:54

I kind of just hit the road for a

11:57

month or so with a friend.

11:59

and just started shooting photos

12:02

and trying to,

12:04

you know, like

12:06

invest in the stream that I had. And

12:08

I was like, maybe

12:10

it'll only happen for a year and then I'll go

12:12

to college and get a real job. My

12:14

dad wanted me to be a doctor, you know? That's

12:17

a good choice. I was kind

12:18

of like, yeah, yeah. Now's the time to take a stab

12:20

at this thing. So I did

12:22

that, I hit the road for a while, like

12:25

moved out of my apartment within the VW

12:28

bus and it was pretty magical. And

12:30

then I, right around

12:33

that time, I landed this internship

12:35

with a photographer here in

12:37

San Luis Obispo,

12:39

California, which is why I came out here

12:41

in the first place. His name was Chris Burcard

12:43

and he's kind of a surf lifestyle, commercial,

12:47

a lot of other things. Photographer, pretty

12:49

successful. And I

12:52

just drove out here and started

12:55

working with him, which was kind

12:57

of a, maybe a lucky break, you

12:59

could say. So for the summer

13:01

or for a half a year, I

13:03

worked with him, I got to do a lot of cool projects.

13:06

Went to Alaska,

13:07

went around the US, assisting

13:10

and second shooting and

13:12

just kind of learning the ropes and figuring

13:14

out how

13:15

it even works, you know,

13:17

like how this photo business and

13:19

the industry works. So I learned a

13:21

lot from Chris, he's a good friend and

13:24

he taught me a lot, helped me a lot

13:26

and kind of figured out,

13:29

you know, how

13:30

to navigate this crazy industry.

13:33

So that's kind of where I got a foothold, I'd say.

13:36

And then just been doing freelance all this time,

13:38

I think there's always a gap

13:41

between what you wanna do and what you have to

13:43

do in freelance, in

13:45

the freelance world, especially with photo, at least for

13:47

me, not with everyone, but there's

13:50

kind of a lot of projects that I'm

13:52

like, well,

13:53

I gotta pay the bills, so I'm gonna take this

13:55

project, even though it's like some weird

13:57

commercial, you know, something that I'm not really proud

13:59

of, I wouldn't. and

14:00

want to share. And then there's stuff that

14:02

I am really proud of. In fact,

14:05

most of this year I've been working in

14:07

Myanmar or Burma,

14:10

filming a documentary series

14:13

of this

14:13

organization that works there in the frontline,

14:16

the war zones. And

14:18

it was kind of a dream. It's exactly the

14:20

type of work I want to do. You know, it's

14:23

in a war zone you're getting shot at. It's awesome.

14:26

So that's something I am really

14:28

proud of. And sometimes, you know, the perfect storm

14:30

kind of works out. You're like,

14:32

you kind of take a step back and think

14:34

about how I'm

14:36

doing exactly what I want to do. And then

14:38

there's other projects that are a

14:40

little more of a drag, perhaps. You

14:44

said your hobbies are surfing and

14:46

climbing. What else is in there? Well,

14:50

I love motorcycles a lot. I

14:53

spent a lot

14:55

of miles on the saddle

14:57

of a motorcycle. Yeah,

15:00

I love surfing, love climbing. I love

15:04

hunting. I

15:06

mean, I grew up skateboarding. I grew up

15:09

kind of just cliff jumping, doing parkour,

15:11

just a lot of back to

15:13

the stuff. So yeah,

15:16

I guess I have a few interests,

15:18

but I think my greatest passion is probably

15:20

surfing and like alpine climbing. You've

15:25

done a big trip. You just mentioned there that you did

15:28

a big trip on your bike. When did you start riding bikes,

15:31

motorcycles?

15:34

I was a bit of a late bloomer. I think

15:36

when I was maybe 17 or 18, I got my first bike,

15:43

Kawasaki street

15:46

bike. Man, I forget what it was.

15:48

It's kind of embarrassing that I forget what it was. But

15:51

I didn't grow up racing or

15:55

riding MX or anything. I always

15:57

begged my parents to let me get

15:59

a dirt bike. and race

16:01

or ride, but we just had a four

16:03

wheeler, which is four wheelers don't count.

16:06

So I think when I was 17,

16:08

I started riding and then started

16:11

getting more dual sports. And I'm just really

16:13

intrigued by like longer

16:16

dual sport trips. And it's

16:19

just the perfect marriage of covering distance,

16:23

but also still getting to ride technical

16:25

stuff. And that's definitely

16:28

more of the riding that I do. Right

16:30

now I have a DRZ 400. So

16:33

it's kind of a bit of

16:35

a, you know, it's like the

16:37

street and dirt enduro,

16:40

it doesn't does everything well,

16:43

I guess, depending who you ask, but

16:45

yeah, I love dual sports kind of more

16:48

than anything else. And that's what

16:51

I get stoked on as far as riding goes. How

16:53

do you find yourself riding from Alaska

16:56

to Swaya? How

16:59

did I find myself? Well,

17:02

I grew up with these two guys

17:04

and we all grew up in Pennsylvania.

17:07

And we always talked about this trip. My

17:10

friend Allen

17:11

was in college and he's like, man,

17:13

when I graduate college, I'm going to get my diploma

17:16

and hop on my dirt bike and ride

17:19

to Alaska and down to Argentina. And

17:21

he always said that as a teenager and as

17:23

we got older and you

17:24

know, you talk about a lot of stuff as a kid.

17:27

So we're like, cool, man, whatever. Then

17:30

one day I had moved to California by this point

17:32

and was actually living in Oregon and Washington

17:35

in my van, cruising around surfing,

17:37

climbing.

17:38

He calls me and says, hey, I'm doing this

17:40

trip with or without you, do

17:42

you want to come or not?

17:43

So of course I wanted to come. Initially

17:46

it was going to be like, you

17:48

know, just the classic Pan Am trip ride from

17:50

Dead Horse to Swaya. And

17:53

then I sort of helped or sort

17:55

of convinced everyone to

17:58

turn it into a climate. trip as

18:00

well because we're going to be going

18:02

by all these mountain ranges, Alaska

18:05

range, British Columbia, the

18:07

US, Mexico,

18:10

Andes, the Patagonia. So

18:15

we sort of decided to turn it into

18:17

like an alpine motorcycle trip.

18:19

So we made our own peneers to

18:22

fit all our climbing stuff. It

18:24

was a little out of control, loading

18:27

all the mountain stuff as well as everything

18:30

else we needed on DR650s,

18:33

late 90s DR650s that we got from

18:35

Craigslist

18:36

for 1500 bucks apiece. Was

18:39

that part of it? Did you try to find cheap

18:41

bikes or something? Yeah,

18:44

I mean, we were all super broke. I

18:46

was 23. My

18:48

friends were 22. My other

18:50

friend was 22. I think Jeremy

18:53

was 24 and we're

18:55

just basically kids. And

18:58

my friend just got out of college, so he was definitely

19:00

broke. He actually got his diploma

19:02

and literally hopped on the

19:04

DR and rode to Alaska. So he kind of,

19:07

he wasn't lying when he said that. But

19:10

yeah, I mean, we were pretty broke and we chose DR650s

19:13

because they're

19:15

the same from 96 to

19:17

current year in South

19:19

America. The cops are still riding

19:22

them for their, they're like

19:24

the cop bike. You see them everywhere. So it's easier

19:26

to get parts and it's

19:28

air cold, single thumper. I mean,

19:31

it's kind of, I love that

19:33

bike. It's pretty bare bones, but

19:35

it was a great bike. And I went, I

19:38

rode 40,000 miles on a $1,500 DR650 and never had any major issues,

19:40

which

19:42

is

19:44

kind of wild. Yeah. So great

19:47

bikes. Yeah. That's how

19:49

it started. So why, why is, was

19:51

your friend enamored with the Pan American?

19:53

Like what, did he see something on it or what

19:56

caught his eye?

19:58

He always told me. me that

20:01

he wanted to do the hardest thing he could

20:03

think of after college because he was

20:06

working pretty hard, like paying his way through

20:08

school. So he's working while he's going to school, um,

20:11

getting a mechanical engineering degree. And

20:13

he

20:14

was just a little pent up and it was like, I got

20:16

to do something hard. And he,

20:18

he said that riding a dirt bike,

20:21

riding a dual sport from

20:23

dead horse to his twice seemed like most challenging

20:25

thing he could

20:26

think of, like the most realistic challenging

20:28

thing he could think of, you know, that he could actually pull

20:30

off. And so that's how that started.

20:32

He's a like endurance athlete,

20:35

long distance runner, incredible skier.

20:37

Um, everything that I climb

20:40

with, everything challenging I climb with, we

20:42

climb together. So, um, I

20:44

mean, we've skied 7,000 meters

20:47

stuff together in the middle of Pakistan and we've

20:50

nearly died together in the mountains. So he's

20:52

just kind of that type of personality. And,

20:55

um, yeah, that

20:57

was his dream. Wow.

20:59

And then you turn it into a climbing trip, which

21:01

sort of ups the ante again, but, um, what

21:03

about all the stuff? Like you're talking about like

21:06

custom panniers that you're building. I've seen photographs

21:08

of your, of your panniers, which are really kind

21:10

of cool looking. Actually, I like them, but they're

21:12

really long.

21:13

They were 40 liters on each side. So

21:16

it's like 40 liter kind of rectangle

21:18

leather sort of set up. So 80,

21:22

80 layers on the back. We had a hundred liter duffel

21:25

with

21:25

most of it just climbing gear, um, on,

21:29

you know, on the rack. And then we had

21:31

about 40 liters on tank bags that

21:34

were kind of just like these leather satchel

21:36

type things we made as well. So

21:39

it was a lot of gear. I think the challenge, the

21:41

most challenging thing was when you're that loaded, you

21:44

know, you're

21:44

limited as far as like the technical

21:47

writing goes, because you're not

21:48

writing that light. And then when it comes

21:50

to the Alpine stuff, we

21:52

had, you know, as minimal of

21:55

an Alpine kit in

21:57

terms of gear as stuff as we

21:59

could. For

22:01

your limited in the mountains and you're kind of limited

22:03

on the bike but i think we did pretty well we

22:05

did a lot of really challenging stuff

22:07

and i think

22:08

one reason that we.

22:10

When i wrote so much is because these

22:13

peneers just didn't break

22:15

i remember

22:16

high siding in bolivia sixty five

22:18

seventy miles an hour.

22:20

Add fourteen thousand feet and just getting

22:22

absolutely ragdoll and the peneers

22:25

ripped off everything got yard sale bike

22:27

when and over and i thought i broke

22:29

every bone in my body somehow didn't.

22:32

And i just put the peneers back on and they

22:34

were fine you know indestructible

22:36

and i can't even remember how many times we

22:38

wrecked on them pretty significant rex.

22:42

So i've done other trips and other

22:44

types of motorcycle luggage

22:46

and peneers and stuff just starts breaking

22:48

pretty quick so those things were

22:51

ideal for. Pulling something like

22:53

this often just being able to ride and wreck

22:55

and play the bike town and

22:57

their leather and they're not

22:59

ostrich leather are they. I

23:03

wish that they were probably

23:06

extra expensive i think that was the case so so

23:09

you make these.

23:12

Yeah so allen design

23:14

them he's kind of that

23:16

he's like the engineer of the group right so

23:19

he's like we need

23:20

we kind of built.

23:21

or assembled all the gear that we had

23:23

and like what we need we're like all right, we need something this

23:26

big because we couldn't really afford to get

23:28

luggage or peneers and then

23:30

fit everything in. So we

23:33

had everything we needed he kind of like built stuff

23:36

like prototypes. Based

23:39

off like what we felt like we needed

23:41

and we actually had like Moscow.

23:44

Mounting plates that we fit

23:46

into Iraq

23:48

so that was so they like mounted to Moscow

23:50

plates which was pretty convenient

23:53

but otherwise we build everything ourselves and then

23:55

at the time I

23:56

had just started like this leather

23:59

startup with.

23:59

friends

24:01

and we were making leather goods like

24:03

backpacks and laptops. They're

24:05

just, you know, your classic leather goods

24:07

stuff.

24:08

So we had access to this leather shop and

24:10

a really skilled craftsman,

24:13

my business partner.

24:14

So we brought in these prototypes and then

24:17

they just whipped them up. So

24:20

it was kind of a joint effort.

24:24

But yeah, we built the prototypes and

24:26

were involved with the design and process and then

24:29

pulled into

24:30

my, into the resources of

24:32

my startup to actually

24:34

make them. Yeah. You'd think you'd have to know

24:36

somebody to get something like that made because I'd end up

24:39

being more expensive than I imagine like

24:41

leather panniers, that they'd be more expensive than a regular

24:43

pannier, no doubt if you had to buy them

24:45

commercially. Absolutely.

24:48

Yeah. And we use really thick leather.

24:50

So buying sheets of that stuff

24:52

is not cheap for sure, much less the time put

24:54

into,

24:55

you know, assembling and sewing everything

24:57

up. Yeah. That makes sense. Are you still doing the leather

25:00

thing now? I

25:03

actually sold out a few years back, but they're

25:05

still going strong. So

25:07

it was a great experience and like a cool resume

25:10

piece, you know, not something that

25:12

I want to do forever, but it was awesome to

25:15

be involved with that, learn a lot with some friends

25:17

and

25:18

yeah, they're, they're doing great.

25:20

And are they making leather panniers for motorcycles

25:23

now?

25:23

They are not,

25:26

but I hope that they do. And

25:28

if you really want some, you could probably

25:31

reach out and they,

25:32

I mean, they have the design sitting there

25:34

somewhere. Something's that tough.

25:37

I mean, it does get you, get you

25:39

thinking, but let's talk about that trip

25:41

you did. So you met your

25:43

friends. I think you guys all sort of came from

25:45

different places, didn't you?

25:48

We actually grew up in the same hometown.

25:50

So as teenagers, did you guys all ride

25:52

up to, to meet somewhere? Oh, you're right.

25:55

Yeah. So

25:56

life was a little crazy for me leading up to

25:58

this trip. I was actually in. Afghanistan

26:01

on an assignment for a

26:03

while, like

26:04

right before we left. So I barely

26:07

found my bike on Craigslist.

26:09

Um, flew down

26:11

to Santa Barbara to, I mean, we were looking

26:13

all over the country. I'm like, I had a plane

26:15

ticket book for Phoenix, Arizona, because

26:17

I found the DR six 50 there that

26:20

was in my price range and seemed,

26:23

you know, low enough miles, whatever, and

26:25

then I found a bike in Santa Barbara.

26:27

The

26:28

trip is only a month out and we

26:30

still didn't have our bikes. I think, you know,

26:32

part of it was just,

26:33

we had this dream and we were all pretty broken, like

26:36

we didn't have time to wait and,

26:38

you know, spend years building out

26:41

the

26:42

route and the bikes were kind of like, we

26:44

got to do this now or never. So it was

26:47

a little scrappy, but

26:48

I went to Afghanistan on this assignment. I came

26:51

back.

26:52

Um, I left from Oregon where

26:54

I had some close friends. Um, I was

26:56

living in my VW bus at the time. So

26:58

I dropped the bus off there.

27:01

Left from Oregon.

27:02

My friends left from Pennsylvania. The

27:04

second he grabbed his diploma

27:06

from Penn state, um, college,

27:09

they actually drove to Pittsburgh and

27:11

ran a marathon that same day, got

27:13

back on the bikes, kept riding

27:16

across the U S got to Canada,

27:18

getting nuked by rain and like,

27:20

you know, the planes and, uh,

27:23

Canadian planes. It was pretty tough

27:25

from what they tell me. And

27:27

then we all met up at the start of the

27:29

Alaskan highway

27:31

and, um, somehow

27:33

met up at like, I think five

27:35

minutes apart. We left a different days coming

27:38

from thousands of miles away and ended up at

27:40

the same cafe where we had planned days

27:43

and days before, and you

27:44

know, five minutes apart, we didn't really

27:46

have a service up there.

27:48

It was kind of serendipitous. And

27:50

then we rode, uh, from, from

27:52

there, we all rode together.

27:54

Uh, we had a deadline

27:57

to climb Denali and

27:59

we. had like, you know, the meetings book

28:02

and the flight books on the way

28:04

to

28:05

Talkeetna, where we would stay

28:07

and fly out of

28:09

Alan's bike fried his CDI

28:11

on the highway, right across the border

28:14

in Alaska.

28:15

So basically, of course, just lost spark. And

28:18

generally like a CDI is kind of the last thing you're

28:20

going to check. When does that

28:21

ever fry?

28:23

So we got picked up by a kind

28:26

passerby, of course, stressing about

28:28

this climb that we had trained for and had

28:31

a deadline to get there. So

28:33

we ended up get hitchhiking Alan's

28:35

bike. And then Jeremy

28:38

and I, the other guy wrote ahead, bought

28:41

all the food and all the supplies we've

28:43

met up in Talkeetna,

28:44

and we pretty much flew out the next day to

28:46

Denali

28:47

and climb that as the first mountain

28:50

of the trip. So it was, it was pretty fast

28:56

made in voyage, I suppose. So

28:58

does the climbing add a like

29:00

I was thinking with stress about making a

29:03

climbing trip is that you've got to take all your gear with you. But you

29:05

just mentioned like meeting a reservation.

29:07

So does each climb have to be reserved

29:10

and then they're all times and dates you're heading for?

29:13

Not necessarily, but with Denali, there's

29:16

a permit process to go

29:18

through. You got to meet with

29:20

the Rangers so they can assess

29:23

your skill level and

29:24

grant you the permit to climb.

29:27

There's, you know, like

29:30

you need to get the supplies together. You need to figure

29:32

out your pack and

29:35

all these things. So there's a few things

29:37

to go over.

29:38

Other mountains, it's

29:40

I think all the rest of the

29:42

climbs that we did, it wasn't necessarily

29:44

that

29:45

there wasn't that much red tape.

29:47

There's just small windows of

29:49

weather that you have to be there for.

29:52

So in that sense, like after

29:55

Dead Horse, actually, we just rode straight

29:58

to Mount Robson. in

30:00

British Columbia because we saw a weather window

30:02

coming up that was going to close. It was

30:04

like a three, four day weather window

30:06

and

30:07

it just

30:08

was the end of the season and I think it would just

30:10

be, or we figured just be snowing every

30:13

day for the rest of the season. So we would either

30:15

climb then or never, right? So

30:17

in that sense, we just hauled ass down

30:19

to British Columbia and climbed Mount Robson after

30:22

Dead Horse kind of

30:23

still fried from that trip. So

30:27

there was stuff like that,

30:30

but Robson actually doesn't, there

30:32

wasn't any red tape really. You can kind of just go climb

30:34

it and check in at their ranger

30:36

station with a simple permit.

30:38

Right. And what sort of risk level

30:40

are these climbs you're doing?

30:43

I would say Denali,

30:47

Mount Denali in Alaska, it's the highest

30:49

mountain in North America.

30:51

It's pretty cold because of its proximity

30:54

to the Arctic Circle and just

30:57

being in Alaska in the middle

31:00

of nowhere, it kind of creates its own weather

31:02

system because of its prominence. So

31:06

yeah, I mean, people die on Denali

31:08

a lot. I think it's

31:10

always something unfortunate, like a slip. You

31:13

might be in a place where

31:16

it's not that dangerous, but

31:18

if you slipped, you're just going to fall and never

31:20

stop.

31:21

Or if you slip in the wrong place, you're going to fall and they'll never

31:23

find you. Or maybe you get hit

31:25

with really bad weather and frostbite

31:28

and

31:29

something happened and you're stuck somewhere

31:31

cold. I mean, there's

31:32

a million ways that

31:35

people get hurt or lose their lives up there,

31:37

but I'd say it's pretty significant. I mean,

31:40

as in terms of risks, there's a lot of big crevasses,

31:42

big objective hazards. Yeah,

31:46

I don't know. I think some of the other climbs we did

31:50

had a considerable amount, considerable

31:52

more

31:54

risk than Denali. Like

31:56

Mount Robson was pretty scary.

31:58

There's just a lot of.

32:00

kind of running the gauntlet type

32:03

of situations where you're,

32:05

you know, there's avalanches ripping

32:08

here and there and you're kind of just going through

32:10

it because there's no other way down.

32:12

So stuff like that, I think

32:14

it's always hard to decide like how

32:16

much risk is too much. Obviously,

32:19

if you get killed or really hurt,

32:21

then it wasn't worth it. But up

32:23

until that point, if you can toe the line and

32:25

get right up underneath it,

32:27

underneath that threshold, then

32:29

of course, it's worth it and you made the right call. So

32:31

I think

32:32

growing as a climber and as an alpinist,

32:35

that's just

32:37

sort of a different type of experience

32:39

for everyone to figure out how they're going to navigate

32:42

that, you know, like how much risk they're willing

32:44

to accept when you're with a group of people,

32:47

you know, how much risk are you all willing to accept.

32:50

So there was other

32:52

times on the trip

32:54

where we definitely ran into some sketchy

32:56

stuff. In Peru, we

32:59

actually got stuck in an avalanche.

33:01

And fortunately,

33:04

I wasn't buried. My

33:07

friend that was climbing above me was buried.

33:18

Well,

33:19

that's a bit of a cliffhanger, isn't it? Stopping right there.

33:21

Stay with us. We've got a

33:23

lot more coming up and I've got two things that I want to tell

33:25

you about that I know you're going to be interested in. So

33:27

have a listen

33:28

and we'll be right back with more

33:31

features.

33:48

Well a number of years back, actually

33:51

before Charlie and Ewan even

33:53

decided to do Long Way Round, a

33:55

fellow named René Cormier decided

33:58

to ride his motorcycle around the world.

33:59

world. His budget was $25

34:02

a day. And he figured if he stuck to that budget, he

34:05

could last about three years while

34:07

Renee fell in love with motorcycle

34:09

travel.

34:11

It wasn't his first travel. Like he'd been out

34:13

on a bicycle before he'd done other

34:15

travel, but the motorcycle travel really

34:18

did it for him. And what began as sort of this

34:20

extended vacation

34:21

soon became a lifestyle as Renee

34:24

ended up spending four and a half years on

34:26

the road.

34:27

When he returned, he wrote a great book called

34:29

the University of gravel roads. Now

34:32

with all that experience from traveling the world, et

34:34

cetera, when Renee returned, he decided

34:36

that rather than get a real job,

34:39

so to speak, that he was set up a tour company

34:42

and show other riders what makes him

34:44

so passionate about motorcycle travel

34:46

in the places that he's been. So

34:49

Renadian adventures was born from

34:51

that. Renadian, which I think

34:53

is a melding of Renee's

34:56

name and the fact that he's Canadian, Renee,

34:58

and then Canadian. Don't quote

35:00

me on that. Anyway, that was 13 years

35:02

ago. Renadian adventures has grown

35:04

into a mature adventure company.

35:07

They offer trips in Africa, Mongolia,

35:10

South America, Scotland, New

35:12

Zealand, and in Canada as well.

35:15

He shares his favorite places, his

35:17

favorite routes, his favorite rides, the

35:20

people that he meets all unique to

35:22

Renee in particular. And somebody

35:25

of course, with that extensive experience

35:27

traveling. Now you have to realize that there's

35:29

much more to Renee's travel

35:31

story. He flew to Mexico when he was 17

35:34

years old alone with no place to stay,

35:36

no plan, nothing. He just showed up at

35:38

the airport. I think he arrived at night, he said,

35:40

and he had to figure everything out afterwards. And

35:42

I think that's part of what makes Renee

35:45

such a great guide is that

35:47

he started at ground zero and

35:50

built firsthand knowledge,

35:52

figuring out every little detail on

35:54

his own as he went along. Renee

35:57

now has long-term guides and crew that have been with

35:59

them for years.

35:59

Group sizes that he runs are under 10

36:02

bikes. They do incredible routes, personally

36:05

selected upscale boutique accommodations.

36:08

They've got a chase vehicle. With Renadian,

36:10

you benefit from that extensive experience that Rene

36:13

has, but as well, his crew

36:15

has. And some of his crew are local to the

36:17

areas that you'll actually ride in. And

36:19

being a guide-owned company, Renadian

36:21

Adventures is all about creating amazing

36:24

adventures, lifelong memories. His

36:27

website is renadian.com.

36:31

Renadian, just like Rene, and then D-I-A-N,

36:33

just like it, Canadian, Renadian, Canadian,

36:36

Rene, Canadian, anyway, renadian.com.

36:39

Anytime you're dealing with them, throw in there that you heard them here on Adventure

36:41

Rider Radio, renadian.com.

36:46

You know, I appreciate a quality build in

36:48

anything. And you know what I'm talking about. A quality

36:51

build is when you come across something that looks so

36:53

well-built that it almost looks perfect.

36:55

Oh, it does look perfect. The machining is

36:57

done right. You can tell it's solid,

37:00

it's purpose-orientated. That's

37:02

what I see when I look at my Atlas

37:04

throttle lock. But taking that to the

37:06

next level is the fact that the Atlas

37:09

throttle lock actually works even

37:11

better than it looks. It's a marvel

37:13

of engineering, there's no doubt. It's an ultra-thin

37:15

design that clamps onto your handlebar in minutes,

37:18

allowing you the ability to swap it from one bike to another,

37:20

which is another great feature I might add.

37:23

But the Atlas throttle lock really shines when

37:25

you aren't even looking at it, when you're

37:27

riding.

37:28

And that's important. There's two buttons on it,

37:31

one for engage, the other for disengage.

37:33

Those two buttons deliver a tactile

37:36

feel to your thumb when you press it that not only

37:38

feels like quality, but they let you know

37:40

exactly what you're doing without having to

37:42

look down. You don't need to glimpse down, nothing. You

37:45

engage it, it holds your throttle position. You

37:47

can relax your fingers, your thumb, your wrist,

37:49

even your shoulder. I find it relieves a lot

37:51

of stress that builds up in my throttle hand

37:54

and it just makes riding even more fun.

37:56

It's one of the few accessories that

37:58

I would instantly add.

37:59

bike that I buy, the Atlas throttle

38:02

lock. The website is atlasthrottlelock.com.

38:05

Anytime you're dealing with them, throw in there that you heard them

38:07

here on Adventure Rider Radio, atlasthrottlelock.com.

38:15

In Peru, we actually got stuck in an avalanche.

38:18

And fortunately, I wasn't

38:20

buried. My friend that was climbing

38:23

above me was buried.

38:24

I was able to dig him out. He's about five

38:26

or six feet down.

38:28

You know, he was unconscious,

38:30

not breathing, all blue, had been quite

38:33

a few minutes.

38:34

And I just slapped him as hard as

38:36

I could yell that screamed at him at 19,000

38:39

feet at 4am. It's all dark,

38:41

ominous and cold, right? Gave

38:43

him mouth to mouth for a long time. And

38:46

right when I was about to give up, because he

38:48

wasn't waking up, he kind of came to

38:50

and started breathing and woke up. So

38:53

that was one of those experiences

38:55

where it's, you know, we made a

38:57

bad call and fortunately we lived

39:00

to tell about it and survived it.

39:02

But there's, it could have just as easily

39:04

been fatal. And

39:06

then of course it wasn't worth it. Like we pushed the

39:09

envelope a little too much. So

39:12

through

39:12

that trip, whether it's riding, you

39:14

know, we all had close calls on the bike

39:16

where we

39:17

almost got smoked, you know, by a semi

39:19

or I can't even remember how many times

39:22

it was. It's almost every day sometimes, especially

39:24

in Latin America. And then with the climbing,

39:26

there's a lot of risk of course, like

39:29

avalanche is stuff whizzing by your head, you know,

39:31

climbing something where if you fall, you'll die.

39:33

So yeah, I

39:35

think that's, we all were

39:38

pretty synchronized with

39:40

our skill levels in

39:42

the mountains and with our

39:44

perspective on risk, which is rare

39:46

and

39:47

special to like find someone

39:49

that you can, or find a team that you can work well

39:51

together with.

39:52

And then with riding, I think,

39:54

and the whole trip in general, we're like, well, now's

39:56

the time we're in our twenties, you know, we're about

39:59

to get real jobs.

39:59

So let's do it. Well, life

40:02

certainly changes, doesn't it? I mean, as you get older, I'm already

40:04

finding that now, I'm sure. It changes the way

40:06

you look at things. And there's something magical

40:08

about that era in one's life, I

40:11

think, where you're able to go off and do that. But to find

40:13

people that you can go with and everybody's

40:16

in sync, like you're saying for that sort of

40:18

thing, for the amount of risk in particular,

40:20

that's unusual. And it

40:22

had to be pretty good. So your trip, you

40:24

left Alaska. What was the riding like when you're heading

40:26

down from Alaska?

40:29

It was definitely pretty cold. I remember

40:31

getting frostbite and dead horse on

40:34

that ride up and down. We kind of

40:37

got up there the last, or the tail

40:39

end of summer, it started snowing and

40:42

it was really miserable. And

40:43

as you know, when you're riding,

40:46

the wind chill factor is much lower than

40:48

the actual temperature. And

40:51

we didn't have like heated grips

40:53

or anything because we were too poor. So

40:56

we just put on big gloves

40:59

and stuck it out. And

41:01

I just remember like pretty much

41:03

that whole trip up there, it's

41:05

either raining or snowing or sleeting

41:08

or super cold and muddy, so you're covered

41:10

in mud. And I just remembered never feeling my hands.

41:13

Like when he stopped,

41:14

I'd have to take my two palms and try

41:16

to turn the key off.

41:18

And just, I'd beat my

41:20

hands as hard as I could to get them to warm up.

41:22

And it's just, it's kind

41:25

of a new level of misery

41:27

that I haven't experienced much

41:29

since. Cause there's other times

41:31

when you're cold in the mountains, but you're moving

41:34

and

41:34

you're not just sitting there stationary, I

41:37

swear that riding in cold

41:39

places on a motorcycle is the coldest that

41:42

a man can ever be. No,

41:45

I think I know what you're saying because it's true

41:47

though, because you can't do anything to warm up.

41:49

You just get colder and colder and colder. Of course,

41:51

you know the dangers of that, being a climber for sure,

41:54

especially, I mean, if you can't move your fingers, you're

41:56

too cold.

41:58

I mean, to be riding, right?

42:01

Yeah. And the thing is,

42:03

sometimes you don't have an option on that trip.

42:06

We just realized like we need to get

42:08

here by this time and we can't wait this

42:11

thing out. So you just keep going. And that was

42:13

a lot of the trip was like, we can't

42:15

just stay here. We have to get out of

42:17

here. There's no water, there's no gas, there's no

42:19

food.

42:20

You don't have an option. So you just keep riding. And

42:23

that was pretty miserable. Yeah.

42:25

And I think that's why so many of us have

42:27

experienced what you've experienced with

42:29

getting, allowing yourself to get that cold.

42:32

It's like you have no option. Whether it's time, whether

42:34

it's darkness coming in, whether it

42:36

doesn't matter that there's all kinds of different scenarios that you

42:38

run into where you find yourself having to push

42:40

that limit. And then you realize, often

42:43

in hindsight, isn't it? And I'm wondering

42:45

if that didn't really hit

42:47

you after that section there in hindsight,

42:49

just how

42:50

bad that really is for

42:52

riding conditions. Absolutely.

42:56

Yeah, it was really bad. I mean,

42:59

definitely worthwhile and I'm glad we did it, but

43:01

that was probably the most miserable I've ever

43:03

been

43:04

on a motorcycle. It's just

43:07

something about the Arctic cold. I've

43:08

been up there again,

43:11

since that trip. I

43:13

actually hunted Caribou

43:15

up just below Dead Horse

43:17

the other year. And

43:19

even in a truck, we're like, Oh man, it's pretty

43:21

cold and gnarly. I'm like, yeah,

43:23

it was pretty bad. But it was pretty cold up there

43:27

all

43:30

the way through Canada and the Alaskan

43:32

highways.

43:33

As you know, it's just

43:34

damp and rainy and a

43:37

little miserable at least that time of year.

43:40

You rode through the States. Obviously that

43:42

was a non-issue, correct?

43:46

Yeah.

43:48

We kind of rode through to the Sierras,

43:51

climbed a volcano in Oregon,

43:55

spent time with friends as we're

43:58

riding south, ride staying in people's houses. houses,

44:00

kind

44:02

of meeting up along the way,

44:04

climbed in

44:05

Oregon, we climbed in the East Sierras,

44:08

we climbed

44:10

in Joshua Tree. We actually spent like a

44:13

month and a half or two months in Joshua

44:15

Tree just climbing rock because

44:18

we were a little ahead of the

44:21

season. So our, our plan

44:24

was to move

44:25

with the climbing seasons, right? So like we started

44:27

early season Denali,

44:29

we, we got like all these

44:32

major like points of interest

44:34

and climbs that we wanted to hit, which

44:37

we just had the time, right? So like Denali, Dead

44:39

Horse,

44:39

British Columbia, like

44:42

the US ranges. And

44:47

then we were a little ahead of the

44:49

season for Mexico.

44:51

So we decided to just spend time climbing

44:53

in Joshua Tree and just lived in the BLM

44:55

land, go in and climb rock all day, every

44:57

day, come out, live in, you know,

45:00

sleep camp in the BLM, go

45:02

back in. So

45:05

crossing into Mexico, we sort

45:07

of went straight down to Pico de Orzaba. It's

45:10

the highest mountain in Mexico and actually

45:13

the third highest in North America.

45:15

So

45:17

kind of just, it was all

45:18

a lot of the decisions we made were just a matter

45:20

of like, how, when do we need to be at this

45:23

mountain or in this mountain range? And

45:25

like,

45:27

what's our plan? You know, do it, how much time

45:29

do we have in between? So sometimes like going

45:31

from Dead Horse to Mount Robson in

45:33

British Columbia, we just had to

45:35

ride, you know, five, 600, 700 mile

45:38

days through rain to get there in time for the weather

45:40

window. Other times we had a month to kill

45:43

because it was too early and the mountain

45:45

would just be stuck in a cloud, you know.

45:48

So you really weren't

45:51

like bypassing any climbing opportunities. In

45:53

other words, that was the major goal.

45:57

Yeah, I think there was

45:59

times where But like Alan

46:00

found

46:02

some routes through Nevada

46:05

and we kind of just, you've

46:08

loaded some GPX coordinates into

46:10

our phones and followed

46:13

this route for hundreds of miles

46:15

through the middle of nowhere. And so we do stuff

46:17

like that. That was pretty technical. You know, it's

46:20

a lot of rock, steep stuff,

46:22

really deep sand

46:23

through Baja. We did a

46:25

lot of cool stuff.

46:27

So kind of in between, it was sort

46:29

of a matter of like how much time do we have between

46:31

these different climbs? And if we had

46:33

time, then we would just try to get as technical

46:37

in terms of the riding as we could if we

46:39

had time. So it was a bit of that.

46:41

Yeah.

46:42

And are you bumping into other riders that are

46:44

sort of traveling the same route? I mean, everybody comes together

46:47

down at the Darien. Are you bumping

46:49

into other riders as you go?

46:51

Yeah, we met a lot of cool people. I

46:54

think when we would do really

46:56

obscure routes, you just don't see anyone,

46:58

of course.

47:00

But once we started getting south, like

47:02

in Mexico and Central

47:04

America, you start meeting a lot more people.

47:07

And of course in Alaska, like everyone's

47:09

finishing, you know, going up the Dalton Highway

47:11

to

47:12

Prudhoe Bay. So you're running into the people

47:14

there.

47:15

But yeah, you meet a lot

47:17

of incredible people.

47:19

As you know, I mean, people riding two

47:21

up on a little 250 from Argentina,

47:24

like meet people that just,

47:27

you know, had this dream to get on a bike or

47:30

get on some rig and

47:33

drive up and down. Like we met this one guy

47:35

that helps us a lot in Central America,

47:37

like

47:38

with a lot of the border stuff and importing

47:41

bikes.

47:42

He didn't know a single English word

47:44

and just somehow gotten to the US

47:46

on his bike on his Pan Am trip and learn

47:48

English on the street. And now he's fluent and

47:51

has crazy stories of

47:53

the years that he spent doing this. So

47:56

there's just a lot of incredible characters

47:58

that it almost becomes so.

47:59

So commonplace that,

48:02

you know, it's like everyone that you're rubbing

48:04

shoulders with is just kind of these wild

48:06

types of people. Everybody doing

48:09

their own crazy adventure. Yeah.

48:11

What do the riders think of your setup

48:13

when they see it? Because you guys all had the same panniers,

48:16

correct? Mm-hmm. Yeah,

48:19

people were, especially guys on, you

48:21

know, big GS's or bigger dual

48:23

sports were pretty

48:26

amused, I think. We looked

48:29

pretty motley. I mean, we were all carrying

48:32

big knives. My buddies had big beards.

48:35

I had a terrible mustache that I

48:37

tried to grow. That was the best I could

48:39

see. But

48:42

from Alaska to the Mexico border,

48:45

I had a rifle on my bike.

48:47

And just because we're in a lot

48:49

of bear country and I don't know,

48:51

I had this dream of hunting stuff and eating

48:53

it along the way, which didn't happen.

48:57

I traded the rifle for

49:00

a recurve bow, like a traditional bow, and

49:03

just had a bunch of arrows with broad heads because

49:05

I was like,

49:06

oh, in Latin America,

49:08

we'll for sure run into stuff in the jungle

49:10

that we can kill and eat, which didn't really happen either.

49:13

But I just had the bow nonetheless. So

49:16

we kind of just had this Mad Max

49:18

set up, you know, these homemade panniers

49:21

and like

49:22

crappy clothes

49:25

and machetes hanging off of us and

49:27

ice axes hanging off, you know. So people

49:30

were kind of amused, I think, is the

49:32

best way to play. Right. Where

49:34

did they have to see where you've been and, you know, give you

49:36

some sort of credibility for that?

49:39

Yeah, I think that there's a

49:41

lot of street cred that we developed,

49:44

like riding the panam is tough enough,

49:46

of course. And then when people would hear what we climbed

49:48

or what routes we took,

49:50

we definitely got

49:53

some core points, some brownie points

49:56

with the rest

49:58

of the panam travelers.

49:59

Where

50:02

do you think the, where did it feel like at the

50:04

time that the adventure really started?

50:06

Did it start right at the very beginning or, or is it when

50:08

you get into Central America or where?

50:11

Yeah, I just, I feel like it started right

50:14

away. I mean, like, because

50:17

I was in Afghanistan

50:19

right up until I left, I didn't have

50:22

as much time as I wanted to get my bike dialed.

50:24

And since my buddy was in college, just, you

50:27

know, he's going through finals training

50:29

for this marathon. He's trying to run,

50:30

trying to, you know,

50:32

get good grades on his finals

50:34

in college

50:35

while getting his bike together.

50:37

You know what I mean? There's just a lot going on.

50:41

And when I, when I started going north, I

50:43

just had carb issues every day. I actually

50:45

didn't even have my motorcycle license. Most

50:47

of my,

50:48

my whole life I just rode dirty, which

50:50

I probably maybe you should edit this out. Well,

50:54

I think, I think you're safe at this point. Yeah,

50:57

right. So I went up

51:00

to like Bellingham,

51:02

I think, and got my permit because I'm like, man,

51:04

can I get into Canada without a motorcycle license?

51:06

I don't know how strict they are.

51:08

Right. So I got my permit at least and

51:11

they didn't check. I wouldn't have even had to do that,

51:14

but it was, that was kind of

51:16

crazy. And then like every

51:18

day I'm ripping into my carburetor, like I was

51:20

just kind of blogging and the bike wasn't

51:22

running good. And of course, your brain's

51:24

going to worst case scenario. You're like,

51:27

like, I'm going to have to quit. Like I called Alan,

51:29

like my bike won't make it. Like I'm

51:32

out and he just convinced

51:34

me to keep

51:35

going. So it's dumping

51:37

rain, you know, you're in Canada by yourself

51:40

trying to all meet up at the same time,

51:42

having bike issues that, you

51:44

know, unless you have the

51:46

time to rip into it, you're like, is this a

51:49

lower end issue? Is this a carb issue?

51:51

Like sometimes it's hard to diagnose that

51:53

stuff. Right. So I was kind of panicking.

51:55

Then when we all met up together, we still

51:57

had carb issues. And then Alan CDI

51:59

for ride. And then Denali was crazy. I

52:02

mean,

52:02

we had some

52:04

like Alan almost that we, he almost killed all

52:06

of us on Denali. We were on the summit ridge line

52:08

and he tripped and fell

52:11

and like pulled me off, like we're

52:13

all on a rope length, right? And there's 10,000 feet

52:16

drop on one foot drop

52:18

on one side, 3000 foot drop on this side. Hang

52:20

on. 10,000 feet. Like, are you

52:22

talking like straight down?

52:25

It's pretty, it's crazy. Yeah. Like you're

52:27

not stopping. It's wild. Now,

52:30

if you fall off the north side of Denali, you

52:32

won't stop. It's pretty scary. You'll

52:34

know they'll never find you.

52:36

So he's on that ridge line that likes, it's like

52:38

a knife edge that splits the two, right?

52:40

Drops. Yeah. I mean, someone's probably

52:43

going to roast me about 10,000 feet, but it's close

52:45

to it. The north side of Denali is pretty

52:47

sheer. So

52:48

you start sliding, falling,

52:51

tumbling. He rips me off the wall and

52:53

I'm, we're all just yelling and I'm taking my ice axe

52:55

and trying to stop us. Hang on. Hang

52:57

on. Go a little slower on this because, you know, if

52:59

I'm not a, you're not a climber, you're not going to follow this. So

53:02

he trips and falls. He starts

53:04

going down the slope. The rope

53:06

then is going to pull tight on the next person

53:08

and then the next person. So who's

53:10

the, who's the first person to feel

53:13

his line or feel his weight?

53:16

I was next to him on the rope line.

53:18

So basically like,

53:20

you know, when he falls, he's above me because

53:22

we're climbing this pretty

53:24

steep face, getting to the

53:26

summit ridge line. And we're at, you know, 20,000 feet.

53:29

Your brain doesn't work that well. In fact, there's

53:31

a quarter of the oxygen available

53:34

up there than

53:35

at sea level. So your brain is actually firing

53:37

at 25% of its mental capacity.

53:40

It's a weird thing to explain,

53:42

but you just feel sluggish. Like you're

53:44

like, what's two plus two? And you're like, uh,

53:47

you know, it's weird. So

53:50

he's, so all that to say that, you

53:52

know, not, I don't want to knock on him for

53:54

tripping. We all make mistakes, but, um,

53:57

he, I think got hung up in the rope.

54:00

We were all pretty tired. I see him start

54:02

falling. And of course the rope is

54:04

going to go past me and

54:06

he's picking up speed the whole time. And by

54:08

the time he,

54:09

it gets taught,

54:10

like he's been flying down this

54:13

thing, right?

54:14

So to paint a picture, like

54:16

the rope is slack. He's flying by

54:18

me. It

54:19

all of a sudden gets tight, rips me off

54:21

the wall.

54:22

And we had two other guys

54:24

behind us on the rope blank. And the problem

54:27

is like,

54:28

when you fall, you self-arrest

54:30

with your ice axe is what you call it. So

54:32

you're trying to stop your momentum. Because the second you start... You're

54:34

rolling over on your stomach and striking the

54:36

ice axe into the surface. Exactly.

54:39

And if you don't stop yourself pretty

54:41

quick, you're gaining a lot of speed and you'll

54:45

never be able to stop yourself. So there's kind of this

54:48

critical timeframe to slow

54:50

yourself down. And if you pull

54:53

someone else off, someone

54:55

else off, like three people off, then you're

54:57

all tumbling and people,

54:59

a lot of people have died on Denali

55:01

doing this very thing. So

55:04

fortunately I was able to stop him after we

55:07

started tumbling and sliding.

55:09

And I found like my ice axe held

55:11

and

55:12

I was able to find some ice as I'm sliding

55:15

down this face before we ripped all the

55:17

other guys off as well, which I think we wouldn't

55:19

have been able to stop at that point.

55:22

So all that to say, the adventure started right

55:25

away actually.

55:26

And actually after Denali,

55:28

we were still pretty broke. We had kind of started

55:31

this trip

55:34

just after college and we didn't have a lot

55:36

of money. So we took a break.

55:38

My one friend, Alan,

55:40

got a fishing job in the

55:42

Kenan Peninsula and fished for salmon.

55:44

The other friend got

55:45

like a dog sledding job

55:48

in Gerdwood

55:50

or Gearwood, I believe, close

55:52

to, I think

55:54

close

55:56

to, I'm going to butcher

55:58

it. I'm not sure, but up there in the long run. Alaska.

56:00

And I actually got a photo assignment

56:02

in the US. So I flew back down

56:05

just for the summer and we all worked

56:07

and then met up again and went to Dead Horse. So

56:10

it was kind of like

56:11

one thing after another. I feel

56:13

like we never had

56:14

much of a moment to breathe. We're

56:17

either riding to

56:19

go to another climb or trying to get

56:21

somewhere in

56:22

between a weather window or

56:25

trying to coordinate our next leg

56:27

of the trip and

56:28

figure out how to make it all work. So

56:30

it

56:31

was a pretty

56:32

fast paced year and a half. And I think every

56:35

leg of it had its own set of challenges

56:37

and adventures and crazy memories.

56:40

So it

56:40

kind of just started right out of the gate. It

56:43

sounds amazing. It sounds almost unbelievable. You know, one

56:46

of those adventures is just too much,

56:48

you know, too much going on. So what did you do with the

56:50

Daring Gap?

56:53

So we really

56:55

wanted to put our bikes

56:57

on sailboats and sail down, but

57:00

we just realized that it was

57:02

too much money. And then the guy that

57:05

we kind of heard of that would do this had

57:07

let some guys out

57:09

to dry before and the Visa stuff

57:12

didn't really come through. So they ended up being

57:15

in Columbia illegally. We

57:16

didn't want to risk it. So we just loaded our

57:19

bikes into a container. We met some

57:21

other guys in a

57:24

VW van again that were traveling.

57:26

And like you said, down

57:28

around that area, you know, everyone's kind of colliding

57:31

and either coming north or going south like

57:33

the Pan Am travelers. Kind

57:35

of filters everyone down.

57:38

Exactly. Yeah, it's like a bottleneck. So

57:41

we got in on a container with them, saved

57:43

some money, flew to

57:46

Cartagena.

57:48

And then for the next two

57:50

and a half weeks, we just waited

57:52

in Cartagena. They told us that the

57:54

boat would arrive in two days, but

57:57

every day for two weeks or two and a half weeks. We

58:00

go to the office and they're like, oh, the

58:02

boat is lost. We don't know where it is. It's

58:04

lost at sea. Like, what does that even

58:07

mean?

58:10

We're going to have a fast break. I'm going to tell you about something

58:12

and then we're going to be back with more. Stay with us.

58:26

Well, I think most of us understand the importance

58:29

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58:31

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58:34

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58:34

The fact is, almost every rider has

58:36

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58:39

And many times that's after what appeared

58:41

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58:43

the car driver looking directly at the rider. And

58:45

what do car drivers say? They say they

58:48

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58:50

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We don't know where it is.

1:01:56

It lost at sea. Like what? What

1:02:00

does that even mean? How does it, how do

1:02:02

you lose like a huge shipping container boat?

1:02:04

Right. And then the next day

1:02:06

lost, lost, lost, lost. And then one

1:02:08

day it showed up. It

1:02:12

was kind of renegade.

1:02:13

Yeah. I mean, that's how, that's the end of your

1:02:15

trip at that point. If you don't, if it doesn't come

1:02:18

back, you're done then really, I would say.

1:02:20

Like all our bikes and everything

1:02:22

we own is lost. They're telling us, you know,

1:02:25

it was a little stressful.

1:02:26

But it eventually shows

1:02:29

up. You get on your bikes and you're heading off, I

1:02:31

assume for the next mountain peak.

1:02:34

Yeah. We were trying to get to like

1:02:36

the Peruvian Andes. We

1:02:39

there's the Andes go all the way to Columbia,

1:02:42

but we were pretty

1:02:44

hard set on like some of the bigger, higher

1:02:47

elevation stuff. And,

1:02:49

um, we were tossing around

1:02:51

the idea of climbing in Columbia,

1:02:53

but our first night on the bikes,

1:02:56

we got robbed,

1:02:57

um, pretty good.

1:02:59

My Jeremy's

1:03:02

bags got like cut into,

1:03:05

and

1:03:05

they stole, you know, like I

1:03:07

think a shell jacket or tent, like

1:03:10

ice axes. And well, hang on, set

1:03:12

that up. So, so what's the theme?

1:03:15

So up until this point, like

1:03:17

we had, we hadn't paid for, or

1:03:20

we hadn't stayed in a hostel or hotel

1:03:22

except once after Mount Robson,

1:03:25

uh, the whole trip. So we were kind of committed.

1:03:27

Like we're camping every night under the stars,

1:03:29

the whole trip. No exceptions. After

1:03:31

Mount Robson, it was really tough. I could,

1:03:34

you know, it was a hard climb.

1:03:36

I could barely walk for five days. So

1:03:38

we got a hotel and sat in a hot tub. It was

1:03:40

great. We kind of caved, but

1:03:43

up until Columbia, we had never stayed

1:03:45

in a hostel or a hotel or anything.

1:03:47

So our first night

1:03:50

we get robbed

1:03:51

and, uh, we, I guess

1:03:53

we were just like too, um, naive

1:03:58

in assuming that being in this time. tiny

1:04:00

jungle town that

1:04:03

it would be okay. But I think there was

1:04:06

just some local guy that

1:04:07

other villagers or other locals

1:04:09

said was kind of like a

1:04:11

track head type of guy. And

1:04:13

we were staying in

1:04:17

like little

1:04:19

tiny hotel room thing and

1:04:21

had the bikes all chained together.

1:04:23

Like the bags are locked up, but of course

1:04:25

it's leather so

1:04:27

someone can cut into it. It's pretty hard

1:04:29

to get everything into the room

1:04:31

we were staying in. So we just hit the bikes behind

1:04:34

this stuff, but it wasn't enough obviously.

1:04:37

So his bag gets cut into

1:04:39

a bunch of stuff gets stolen.

1:04:42

And of course, when you're

1:04:44

on a trip like this, you'd need everything that

1:04:46

you have. Everything is carefully

1:04:48

curated, all of your gear, everything

1:04:51

you have. So we

1:04:56

kind of just

1:04:57

went on like a war path and

1:05:00

we convinced these local kids to help

1:05:02

us find this guy or like

1:05:05

try to figure out what happened.

1:05:08

So I guard the bikes,

1:05:10

Jeremy and Alan go like take out their machetes,

1:05:13

go running into the jungle and actually

1:05:16

found a hut

1:05:19

where this guy had stashed everything.

1:05:21

So he took a lot of stuff. He probably stole about $3,000 worth

1:05:24

of our gear,

1:05:25

but we found things like our ice axes

1:05:27

or ice screws,

1:05:29

our picket stuff that he didn't whoever

1:05:31

stole the stuff, he didn't know

1:05:33

what it was. So we

1:05:35

got a lot of critical stuff back. But

1:05:38

then because we had all these things stolen

1:05:40

that we needed, a

1:05:42

friend was flying down

1:05:44

to South America and we bought

1:05:46

a

1:05:47

bunch of the stuff, you know, replace the stuff

1:05:49

and had him bring it down as

1:05:52

his check bag.

1:05:54

And we met him at the airport and

1:05:56

kind of replaced everything because it's just impossible

1:05:59

to ship something. something down there, right? Like how

1:06:01

do you ship something from America to

1:06:03

Columbia or to Peru?

1:06:05

So he wasn't coming down to see you guys. He would

1:06:07

just happen to be coming down there?

1:06:10

Right. We just sort of did that anyway. Or

1:06:12

he was doing that anyway, so it worked out.

1:06:15

But a lot of times when stuff like this would happen, if we'd break

1:06:17

down or

1:06:18

like get in a

1:06:20

bind, whatever, people from ADV Rider

1:06:23

would reach out because Alan was

1:06:26

publishing, you know,

1:06:29

the trip as much as he could, as much as

1:06:31

he had service, like writing and posting some

1:06:33

photos. So we had this huge following

1:06:36

of people

1:06:37

that were tracking with us and would help us.

1:06:39

Like guys would ship, I mean, we got part shipped

1:06:41

to like

1:06:42

middle of nowhere all the time

1:06:44

from awesome

1:06:45

people that were following the thread.

1:06:47

It was so great. I

1:06:49

mean, it actually like made a lot of friends

1:06:52

from that. I mean, Alan,

1:06:53

I think Alan more than me because

1:06:55

he was sort of taking point on that.

1:06:58

And then just a lot of friends from social

1:07:00

media, like

1:07:01

I would share stuff on Instagram or when

1:07:04

stuff like this would happen, we'd be like, Hey,

1:07:06

like, is anybody coming here? We need parts.

1:07:08

Or like, does anyone know where we

1:07:10

can stay here? And we just wouldn't meet

1:07:13

awesome people and really helpful people

1:07:15

through those platforms. And

1:07:18

it was, it was awesome. I'm really grateful

1:07:20

for ADV Rider because

1:07:22

I mean, I don't know how we would have done it

1:07:25

without him. But

1:07:27

he helps us out a lot. And are you shooting photographs

1:07:29

the whole time?

1:07:32

Yeah, so I think like

1:07:35

we had some support

1:07:37

from different brands like

1:07:39

Mountain Hardware, Revit was

1:07:43

gave us, you know, anything we needed, which was

1:07:45

really awesome. Great gear, but

1:07:47

kind of just like a lot of gear support

1:07:50

there. I didn't want this to turn

1:07:52

into like a big project because

1:07:55

I didn't want to have my hands tied. I just wanted

1:07:57

to do this trip

1:07:58

at this time of my life.

1:08:00

While I could you know and not be

1:08:03

stressed about like oh I need that we need

1:08:05

to do this for the project right so I kind of just

1:08:07

took photos as we went and

1:08:10

a

1:08:11

Lot of stuff's been published

1:08:13

in magazines here and there, but it's it

1:08:15

never really turned into like a

1:08:17

huge project or exhibition or show

1:08:19

Maybe it still might at some point, but

1:08:21

I kind of just

1:08:22

shot photos because it'd be a shame not to you

1:08:24

know and

1:08:26

we're just trying to do the trip and

1:08:29

Be pure about it without

1:08:31

selling our souls for someone else's agenda.

1:08:33

You know that's the tough thing with sponsorship

1:08:35

Isn't it? You know you and Often

1:08:38

and we've talked about this on the show before but often you

1:08:40

have to really weigh up is it worth it most times It's not

1:08:43

you look you get it Maybe a discount on

1:08:45

a piece of equipment or something like that But then you

1:08:47

the obligation you have after that

1:08:50

especially for a trip like this I mean you guys got

1:08:52

so much going on the last thing you need to

1:08:54

be worrying about I've got to tag this person

1:08:56

in this photo, and you got to this company in that

1:08:58

photo

1:09:00

Yeah, yeah, and I mean

1:09:02

there is a little bit of that, but it was pretty

1:09:05

there's a lot of freedom for the most part so I'm really

1:09:07

grateful how it all turned out and grateful

1:09:09

to my friends that some of these brands and

1:09:13

Connections and contacts that supported us You

1:09:17

know Moscow Revit

1:09:19

mountain hardware like on all

1:09:21

the other people that Supported

1:09:24

in some way shape or form I mean if it

1:09:27

made it awesome You know it was it

1:09:29

made it possible. Yeah, yeah, just a little

1:09:31

side curiosity Why would they

1:09:33

sponsor you why how did you convince them to give

1:09:35

you anything at all just three guys

1:09:38

going on a trip?

1:09:39

Yeah, I think like

1:09:42

I wrote a lot about it throughout the trip.

1:09:44

I worked with thermorest pretty closely they're

1:09:47

part of cascade designs and

1:09:49

and

1:09:51

They gave us bait like we had the sleeping bags

1:09:53

which of course like there was a I mean

1:09:55

I could have a whole podcast On just the gear.

1:09:57

I feel like cuz we had to be really specific with

1:10:00

going from the jungle and then climbing

1:10:03

something, you know, going to 20,000 feet. Like

1:10:06

how do you, and we don't have space to have

1:10:08

a

1:10:09

big sleeping bag. You know, space

1:10:12

is so critical.

1:10:13

So Therm-a-rest really worked with us and

1:10:17

kind of supported and supplied

1:10:19

like some of these, like really technical

1:10:22

gear items, like sleeping bags and pads

1:10:24

and ultralight stuff.

1:10:25

And the

1:10:27

incentive for them was like, I delivered

1:10:30

photo assets, like wrote, you

1:10:33

know, a series of stories for

1:10:36

them. So kind of stuff like that,

1:10:38

like a lot of kind of editorial

1:10:40

type stuff. And then

1:10:42

I think they were, a lot of people

1:10:44

were just like, wow, that's crazy. Like we'd

1:10:46

love to support it, but

1:10:49

not really many strings attached.

1:10:51

Right. Well, it's different. I mean, there's no doubt

1:10:53

different, but it's mainly hinging

1:10:55

on your ability, I guess, to produce

1:10:58

images and stories.

1:11:00

Definitely. Yeah. And for Revit, you know,

1:11:02

there's a lot of images I delivered and

1:11:04

like some stuff I wrote for them.

1:11:06

But yeah, I

1:11:08

think that a

1:11:09

lot, like, I don't think they're,

1:11:12

I think that mostly the incentive

1:11:14

for brands was just to like test

1:11:17

out a lot of gear and then have like

1:11:20

some stuff show up in magazines

1:11:22

and online publications here and there, and

1:11:24

then get certain photo assets delivered

1:11:27

of,

1:11:27

you know, the product or gear,

1:11:29

whatever, that was always natural

1:11:32

because we're wearing this stuff every day, of course,

1:11:34

you know, like using everything we had there, there

1:11:36

wasn't really anything

1:11:37

like manipulated or staged,

1:11:40

I felt so it was all pretty natural

1:11:42

to

1:11:43

deliver on this stuff. But like you said,

1:11:45

I mean, having obligation is a tough

1:11:48

thing to navigate because you just

1:11:50

want to do your it's hard enough to do the trip, much

1:11:52

less like be thinking in terms

1:11:55

of how to deliver and like manage

1:11:57

these expectations.

1:11:58

Yeah. Especially when things get

1:11:59

stressful and then on top of that,

1:12:02

you've got to deal with these commercial aspects. One

1:12:05

thing that just came to me is you were talking about the thermorest

1:12:07

and you were talking about being in the jungle and then going

1:12:09

up to a peak. When you said about packing

1:12:12

gear, I like packing gear for climbing. I'm

1:12:14

thinking things like ice picks, I'm thinking rope

1:12:16

and carabiners and all those different little things that you

1:12:18

might carry. But what I forgot about was you got

1:12:20

a full set of winter,

1:12:23

like serious winter clothing and then

1:12:25

winter camping gear that you've got to take with you. That's

1:12:27

a ton of bulk.

1:12:29

Definitely.

1:12:33

That was part of what

1:12:35

made all of that challenging. But

1:12:38

I mean, thermorest has, I'm just convinced

1:12:41

the most

1:12:42

technical

1:12:45

sleeping gear on the market. They

1:12:47

have these really ultra

1:12:49

light bags. What we would do is we had

1:12:52

this ultra light quilt for the jungle.

1:12:54

Then we had hammocks, bug nets,

1:12:56

all this stuff

1:12:57

because you don't want to sleep on the ground in the jungle. These

1:13:00

tarps that we use, but when

1:13:03

we go to the mountains, we combine

1:13:05

the

1:13:06

quilt, which is a 20 degree quilt

1:13:08

with a 20 degree bag, both super

1:13:11

ultra light, like pack up to the size of the soda

1:13:13

can almost. It's incredible. I still use them

1:13:15

all the time. There's this

1:13:18

de facto zero degree rating

1:13:20

that we would use. Then we

1:13:22

would use a sleeping bag liner if we

1:13:25

were really high or if it was really cool, to

1:13:27

get a couple more degrees out of it.

1:13:29

Then sleep with all our puffy jackets

1:13:31

and parkas and things like that. But

1:13:33

yeah, it was a very specific kit. Like

1:13:36

I said, we were very minimal, like

1:13:38

as minimal as we could afford to be with the

1:13:40

Alpine kit.

1:13:42

But we were still able to

1:13:43

pretty much do everything we wanted,

1:13:46

which was awesome. But

1:13:49

yeah, there was a lot

1:13:51

that went into just deciding what to take

1:13:53

and what to leave, and

1:13:55

what we needed, what we didn't. It's

1:13:58

technical stuff is a whole. other world. Yeah.

1:14:02

And you're carrying everything with you. You're not getting

1:14:04

resupplied in the way, are you?

1:14:06

No, the only time we

1:14:08

resupplied was like

1:14:11

when we went to Denali, we had negative 20

1:14:13

degree bags because you need those up there.

1:14:16

You'll get frostbite if you don't.

1:14:19

And then we rode

1:14:21

back down to like mountain

1:14:23

hardware, shipped the bags up there for

1:14:25

us and we picked them up at a friend's house in Alaska.

1:14:28

So we used the negative 20 degree bags, then they shipped

1:14:30

us zero degree bags.

1:14:32

And then like, before we crossed into Mexico,

1:14:34

they shipped us these like really

1:14:37

ultra light stuff. So it was pretty awesome

1:14:39

working with them and, and

1:14:41

them helping us out in that way. Like, you

1:14:44

know, we'd be in the middle of nowhere and

1:14:46

they'd next day air us something.

1:14:49

And because they knew we needed it and we, you

1:14:51

know,

1:14:51

so it was, there's a lot of

1:14:53

great people that

1:14:56

were helping us out in that sense. But other

1:14:58

than that,

1:14:59

we didn't really resupply other than when

1:15:02

our stuff got stolen and we had

1:15:04

a friend bring a check bag down, you

1:15:06

know? So what's

1:15:08

the ride like? I mean, and this is a big area,

1:15:11

obviously, but what's the ride like through South

1:15:13

America? What, what can you talk about in that ride?

1:15:16

Oh man, it's incredible. There's

1:15:19

just so much diversity. I like,

1:15:21

take for example, Peru is just

1:15:24

an unbelievable country. You have every

1:15:26

type of ecosystem. You have jungle,

1:15:28

you have

1:15:29

desert, you have mountains,

1:15:32

you have ocean, like in

1:15:34

every combination in between the people

1:15:36

are

1:15:37

different and crazy.

1:15:38

What I loved about Ecuador and

1:15:41

Peru is that I felt like the countries

1:15:42

are really proud

1:15:45

of their indigenous heritage, whereas other

1:15:47

countries seem to be a little embarrassed by it and

1:15:49

therefore haven't preferred it as much. So

1:15:51

Ecuador and Peru, you just have these

1:15:54

like really Incan style people, like

1:15:56

traditional people living in the mountains.

1:15:59

And it's just incredible. incredible. They're

1:16:01

like beautiful people. They wear incredible

1:16:03

clothes. You know, they'll give you their last

1:16:05

chicken, you know, just

1:16:08

unbelievable hospitality and generosity.

1:16:11

And you just running. And you can't speak, you

1:16:13

know, we're not speaking the same language. We barely knew

1:16:15

Spanish. The part of the, one

1:16:18

big regret we have is that

1:16:20

when we cross into Latin America,

1:16:22

we're like, oh man, we'll learn Spanish so

1:16:24

fast. No worries. We don't even need to take lessons, but

1:16:28

that does not happen. You

1:16:30

need to invest in

1:16:32

language. If you're going to learn it, it doesn't come

1:16:35

automatically, at least not for us. I'm

1:16:37

sure there's plenty of people that it does

1:16:39

come naturally for. So all

1:16:41

that to say, you know, you're, you're

1:16:44

hanging out and, and staying with these people

1:16:46

that you can't even

1:16:48

communicate with barely, but

1:16:50

they're just willing to,

1:16:52

you know, give you the clothes off their back because

1:16:55

it's their culture and it's really, really beautiful.

1:16:57

So yeah, the landscape was really awesome in

1:17:00

Chile. I mean, Bolivia is just

1:17:02

unbelievable. You're,

1:17:03

it's a lot of high elevation just riding

1:17:05

through like mountains and hot

1:17:08

springs. And

1:17:10

there's, you know, just lakes

1:17:12

with thousands of flamingos in the middle

1:17:14

of nowhere. Everything is just

1:17:17

incredible. I mean, I don't even know where to start

1:17:19

with it all. It's, it's like a dream, you

1:17:21

know, and it's just, it's just truly

1:17:24

wild. Like if something goes wrong in a lot

1:17:26

of places, nobody's coming to help you. And

1:17:28

I love wild places like that where

1:17:31

it's real and raw. And

1:17:34

you know, it's, it's not like safe

1:17:36

or

1:17:38

really manicured, you know, you're just really

1:17:40

in the wild. And a lot of the trip

1:17:42

felt like that, like a lot of the routes that we would

1:17:44

take

1:17:45

felt that way. And we try to

1:17:48

get off road and be as wild

1:17:50

and

1:17:50

in, in as one of the places we could be.

1:17:53

And it was just incredible. It's like

1:17:56

you just have such a bigger appreciation

1:17:59

for.

1:18:00

You know all these different cultures that you experience

1:18:02

and like

1:18:03

man some days you know we're riding it

1:18:05

through

1:18:05

sixteen thousand foot passes

1:18:08

there snow it's freezing like you're kinda

1:18:10

with the mountain people like these you can sell people

1:18:12

you know like.

1:18:14

She perters just

1:18:16

kind of almost subsistence farmers and

1:18:18

then in a few hours.

1:18:20

You're at sea level in the middle of the

1:18:22

jungle just straight down and then you go

1:18:25

back up again it's not even know places

1:18:27

like that existed like sixteen

1:18:29

thousand feet to sea level you know

1:18:31

straight down is.

1:18:33

It's unbelievable so

1:18:35

it's not like it's just not every day

1:18:37

down there and it

1:18:40

was incredible it's an incredible comment.

1:18:44

What was the goal what

1:18:46

was the goal of the whole trip yeah. I

1:18:52

think it was you know

1:18:54

to kind of complete this

1:18:56

like crazy idea we had really can we

1:18:58

do this can we ride from.

1:19:01

Of last to the Argentina without blowing

1:19:03

up our bikes and like can we even afford it you

1:19:05

know like is this we talk about this forever

1:19:08

we kind of was almost like a challenge to ourselves.

1:19:11

Two it was like I

1:19:12

want we want to climb as much as possible I

1:19:14

mean. We are feel like

1:19:16

we packed a lifetime of expeditions

1:19:19

into this trip

1:19:22

you know generally like you have one season.

1:19:28

Like one season a year where

1:19:32

you can climb because you're

1:19:34

gonna miss it you know like you're good there's

1:19:36

not there's only like you know June to

1:19:38

July where the it's.

1:19:40

Climbing season

1:19:42

so because we're moving with these

1:19:44

seasons like we got to climb again

1:19:47

and again and again in these major mountain ranges

1:19:49

of the world. That was incredible

1:19:51

like it would take years and years and years

1:19:53

and years to pull that off otherwise right

1:19:56

so that was like a big goal of mine

1:19:58

and ours was to.

1:19:59

um, learn a lot

1:20:02

as alpinists and like gain a lot of experience,

1:20:04

stay alive. And then, yeah,

1:20:07

I think I've, man,

1:20:09

I guess that was kind of the goal and just, and just

1:20:12

like what I was saying earlier,

1:20:13

like I just recognized the

1:20:16

urgency of something like that. Like

1:20:19

either it's now or never, you know, it only

1:20:21

gets harder.

1:20:22

Like, yeah, we're all broken, like

1:20:24

young and don't really know a lot, but

1:20:27

it only gets harder the

1:20:28

older you get and the harder to pull that stuff

1:20:30

off. So I just felt like it was this opportunity

1:20:33

and

1:20:33

a special time to do this crazy

1:20:35

thing and

1:20:36

hopefully come out of it alive.

1:20:38

And, um,

1:20:40

yeah, I'm grateful for that. So

1:20:43

kind of a workaround answer to your question, but

1:20:46

those were the goals. So

1:20:48

you get to the end. What's the plan

1:20:50

at the end? Do you, do you fly the bikes back?

1:20:53

How do you do that? Yeah,

1:20:56

it was definitely challenging getting

1:20:58

towards the end. Um,

1:21:00

Alan, like after the Szilardé union

1:21:03

Bolivia, which is one of the highlights of the trip, just

1:21:05

riding through the salt flats, it

1:21:08

had rained or snowed

1:21:10

up in the mountains

1:21:12

prior to us getting there. So the, the

1:21:15

salt flats were flooded.

1:21:16

So for two or three days, we're

1:21:18

just riding through like three

1:21:20

to four inches of water. Terrible

1:21:23

for the bikes. And a huge mirror. Yeah.

1:21:25

I mean, you don't even know you're moving.

1:21:28

You have like no reference point. The sky blends

1:21:30

into the ground, you know, it all reflects.

1:21:33

And the

1:21:34

only like, it just feels like you're literally

1:21:36

standing there, but obviously there's water flying

1:21:38

up and blasting you in the face.

1:21:40

So that is just incredible.

1:21:42

So we started having a lot of issues after that,

1:21:45

understandably with the salt electrical,

1:21:47

you mean? Oh yeah. We, we

1:21:49

ripped our bikes apart completely cleaned

1:21:52

every prong and

1:21:54

tab and component, you know, as best

1:21:56

we could. And then Alan started having

1:21:58

like a pretty bad ride.

1:21:59

Rodknock. And

1:22:03

he, once we started getting the Patagonia,

1:22:06

it's just really miserable,

1:22:08

ripping winds. You know, you're

1:22:10

like for just days and days and days, you're

1:22:12

driving through deep, riding through deep gravel,

1:22:15

where you're just

1:22:17

sliding all day and all you can do is

1:22:19

try to power out of it. And it's terrifying.

1:22:22

So we had some crazy wrecks and

1:22:24

like, it's just stressful riding and

1:22:26

cold and windy. Like, there's

1:22:28

times where we're turned

1:22:30

into the wind, right? And our bikes

1:22:32

are skipping, like literally

1:22:35

getting pushed up by the wind and skipping on the

1:22:37

road. And downwind as you ride. Yeah.

1:22:41

Like leaning, the wind's coming from the right, we're

1:22:43

leaning into it and we're skipping, you know, trying

1:22:45

to stay on our side of the road while a

1:22:47

huge bus is coming and we're getting pushed into

1:22:49

it.

1:22:50

So it was really tough. And then Alan,

1:22:54

we're in Patagonia and

1:22:57

we hear this just to bike,

1:23:00

go ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, you know, like through

1:23:02

a rod or something. And

1:23:04

I remember that was

1:23:06

so depressing. We're like, this is

1:23:08

it. This is the end of the trip. I guess we're leaving him here.

1:23:10

So

1:23:11

we end up ripping into it a piece of

1:23:13

his carburetor

1:23:15

door, like slider

1:23:18

had broken off and gotten jammed in his valve.

1:23:21

So we've ripped everything apart, like

1:23:23

pretty much rebuilt

1:23:25

the top end on the side of the road, got

1:23:27

it back together.

1:23:28

Like happened

1:23:31

again after that.

1:23:35

So Jeremy

1:23:37

and I were like, well, like doesn't look like

1:23:39

you can fix this in time. So we're just going to keep going.

1:23:42

So

1:23:42

we just kept going and left him. He like

1:23:44

hitchhiked back to town. He's like, maybe I'll

1:23:46

fix it. Maybe I'll take a bus down and

1:23:48

meet you guys in the shwya. I don't know. We were kind

1:23:50

of like,

1:23:51

what else can you do? So he

1:23:53

was able to patch it back up together,

1:23:57

patch it up again and

1:23:58

meet us. But his

1:24:01

lower is

1:24:04

lower and was just about to fall

1:24:06

apart so

1:24:07

we ended up running like straight fifty

1:24:09

he caught up to us.

1:24:11

It's right straight fifty wait in

1:24:15

because it was just i

1:24:17

mean he ripped the top end off and you could

1:24:19

just move the

1:24:22

rod right like pink pink pink was pretty bad.

1:24:25

So we ran fifty wait we couldn't

1:24:28

he couldn't start it with his own battery because

1:24:30

it was so thick and my battery is

1:24:32

really bad so we had to start Jeremy's bike

1:24:35

first it's really cold at this point.

1:24:37

Jeremy had to tether my bike I had to

1:24:39

tether Alan's bike so we'd all get started

1:24:41

in the morning every day and then

1:24:44

finally I would start

1:24:46

and get warmed up because the oil is really thick

1:24:48

but then as he as we ride for a few hours

1:24:51

I could warm up and it start king really bad.

1:24:54

And it's kinda one of those things is like am I

1:24:56

just gonna grenade this thing and send

1:24:58

like. You know like

1:25:00

a brother the block at any point he's

1:25:02

riding with the clutch ready to just clutch

1:25:04

it and you know. Grenade

1:25:07

the thing so once it started

1:25:10

warm we stop let it get cold again tethered

1:25:12

back up to start yes the oil

1:25:14

was a little thicker it

1:25:16

was pretty chaotic but we all

1:25:18

made it to a shawlian and.

1:25:21

Just start talking to local guys like hey

1:25:23

you wanna buy a bike you wanna buy a bike there's

1:25:26

a weird tax down there like a hundred

1:25:28

percent import tax it's pretty dumb

1:25:31

so. To buy

1:25:33

something legally those guys are gonna be spending

1:25:35

you know two hundred percent. The

1:25:37

amount of

1:25:38

you know like they're gonna pay you what you want for the bike and they're

1:25:41

gonna pay that much in taxes for import

1:25:43

laws it's pretty dumb

1:25:45

so we just sold our bikes for I think

1:25:47

I sold mine for three hundred bucks to some

1:25:49

guy. Jeremy sold

1:25:51

his five hundred bucks maybe

1:25:54

allen spike was pretty

1:25:57

much toasted and. He

1:26:00

was we were all pretty broke So he just stripped everything

1:26:02

and like packed it in check bags and flew

1:26:05

back home with it and left the frame there and just

1:26:07

Gave it to some guy He

1:26:11

came back and like parted everything out, you know Just

1:26:13

sold all the like

1:26:14

what anything of value like the ignition

1:26:16

components and you know All

1:26:19

that stuff see like bars

1:26:22

basically just left the frame there. It's pretty hilarious

1:26:25

So

1:26:25

I think I think it's part out paid for his plane

1:26:27

ticket home. But yeah, that was that

1:26:31

So how long was it that the the entire trip?

1:26:33

It was 18 months.

1:26:36

I believe so a year and a half I

1:26:38

was 23 when I left and turned 25

1:26:42

like the day I got back basically What

1:26:45

happened to you? I mean as far as a person

1:26:47

what do you do you come back with a different outlook? Absolutely,

1:26:51

I think I gained a lifetime

1:26:54

of perspective in that

1:26:56

year and a half I mean there is really challenging

1:27:00

Relational stuff that came up that's

1:27:03

stories for another time but

1:27:05

really tough stuff when you're living

1:27:07

together like as a you

1:27:10

know, unless you're like

1:27:12

Married to someone you don't really spend time

1:27:14

like that together hardly ever for that

1:27:17

Consecutive amount of days, right? So there's

1:27:20

just a lot of conflict and conflict resolution

1:27:22

and especially doing things high-risk

1:27:25

There's a lot of tension right because

1:27:27

people have different ideas and like it's your life

1:27:29

you're talking about you really need to trust each other so

1:27:32

there is really challenging stuff and I feel like

1:27:34

I Just

1:27:37

learned a lot about how to confront

1:27:40

and and Navigate

1:27:43

like a relational situation. So I just feel wiser

1:27:45

and more mature about all of it

1:27:47

and also like I think what the what

1:27:49

I really walked away from is like

1:27:51

Life isn't about what you do. It's

1:27:53

about who you do it with and that

1:27:56

trip was amazing because there's really challenging

1:27:59

stuff with

1:28:00

with some

1:28:02

of us and then equally rewarding

1:28:05

and memorable

1:28:09

experiences at the same time. And

1:28:11

I think as crazy as that trip was,

1:28:15

what I remember isn't the

1:28:17

things we did as much as the memories that you share

1:28:19

with the people.

1:28:20

I don't know how

1:28:23

to articulate it, but it's

1:28:25

more about the people than about what you

1:28:27

do. I think that's something that's really

1:28:29

stuck with me and

1:28:31

moving forward in my life and still having

1:28:33

dreams and passions and goals to do crazy

1:28:36

stuff. I mean, hopefully,

1:28:37

I don't want to do something this long again, but I

1:28:40

think I'm just getting started in my life with

1:28:42

things like this. But

1:28:44

it's about the people more than it's about the

1:28:46

experience itself. You need

1:28:49

both and just one.

1:28:52

I'm coming from my hometown when

1:28:55

I moved to California, people didn't

1:28:58

really do stuff like this. And I was like,

1:29:00

I just want to be around people that do it.

1:29:03

And

1:29:04

I think finding the people that are crazy

1:29:06

enough to chase your dreams with you or have

1:29:09

similar dreams

1:29:10

is just what life's all about. And

1:29:12

in that sense, I'm grateful for

1:29:14

that trip and how it changed me to

1:29:17

see things from a different

1:29:20

perspective. And I don't

1:29:22

know. I felt 20 years older at

1:29:25

the end of that thing. Probably looked it too. Do

1:29:29

you find yourself now when you're going to do something then

1:29:31

because you're talking about people being

1:29:33

so important to you, do you find yourself picking

1:29:35

maybe a

1:29:37

little more carefully than what you would have before

1:29:39

someone to do something with?

1:29:42

Absolutely. Yeah. I

1:29:45

think that I'm more discerning

1:29:48

of people and more direct.

1:29:52

Life is just really short and we don't have time

1:29:54

to waste our time with.

1:29:59

with things and people that are

1:30:02

going to drag us down or like we don't

1:30:04

have time to beat around the bush and be passive

1:30:06

or passive aggressive like I feel like I'm just more direct

1:30:09

with people

1:30:10

more honest. Just

1:30:12

you

1:30:12

know value the people that

1:30:15

like

1:30:16

really hold common

1:30:18

ground with you more than ever and

1:30:20

yeah I mean I'm

1:30:23

kind of struggling to articulate this but definitely

1:30:26

like I I just. Yeah

1:30:30

I wanted I would say I pursue relationships

1:30:33

in a lot more intentional way

1:30:35

do in part because of that trip for

1:30:37

sure.

1:30:38

And how do you feel about solo tripping now?

1:30:41

I don't want

1:30:43

to do it. Is that right? Because there

1:30:45

is something with solo tripping you've obviously went to rides

1:30:47

and done things on your own and when you do it I

1:30:50

know for me it sort of makes me wonder

1:30:52

sometimes is what is the point

1:30:54

of enjoying something by yourself? You

1:30:56

know and it lends to what you're talking about.

1:30:59

What is the point of doing something by yourself? Is there a point

1:31:01

to it?

1:31:02

Yeah I think there absolutely

1:31:05

is it depends what's going on in your life with season

1:31:07

of life you know like I've done solo

1:31:09

stuff where I just need to clear

1:31:11

my head and be alone and think and write

1:31:14

and

1:31:15

you know just get away from stuff so I'll drive

1:31:17

down to Mexico and surf by myself

1:31:19

for a few weeks

1:31:20

and there's definitely a place for it but.

1:31:23

I think it depends on a

1:31:25

number of things like your personality like

1:31:27

what you need at that season of time

1:31:30

but I know for me personally like life is more

1:31:32

rewarding and fulfilling when you

1:31:34

do it alongside people that you

1:31:37

love and

1:31:38

you have common ground

1:31:40

and shared interest with I think

1:31:42

that there's just no.

1:31:44

There's

1:31:44

no substitute for that in my opinion

1:31:46

and maybe that's just me being really activated

1:31:49

but I do believe that like

1:31:52

memories are meant to be shared and life

1:31:55

really is about not what you do but

1:31:57

who you do it with. Mm hmm. You

1:31:59

just mentioned.

1:31:59

You said the word seasons and our

1:32:02

individual lives have a season

1:32:04

of its own that we go through. Your friends

1:32:07

to get together like that

1:32:09

trip that you did, the three of you,

1:32:12

the chance of that happening again is probably

1:32:14

slim to none.

1:32:16

So it's

1:32:19

like a one-off. What do you think of when

1:32:21

you feel that, when you realize

1:32:23

that that's gone and never

1:32:25

attainable again?

1:32:29

I think it

1:32:32

helps me be intentional

1:32:34

with my time. And now, with

1:32:36

the things that I want to do, I'm

1:32:38

like, man, now's the time. This

1:32:41

stuff is, life is so fleeting and

1:32:43

it happens so fast. And I

1:32:47

would look back on that trip and as hard

1:32:50

as it was and as miserable as it was, physically,

1:32:53

relationally, emotionally, I'm

1:32:55

so glad I did it because I can sit here and

1:32:58

talk about it and have no regret. I

1:33:00

did it, even if it was really

1:33:02

hard, more pain than fun. At least

1:33:04

I know

1:33:05

that

1:33:09

I did it and I don't have to sit here and think about

1:33:12

what if I had done that thing. And

1:33:15

with my approach to other things, like

1:33:17

other dreams I have, I don't want to be at the

1:33:19

end of my life or be a decade

1:33:21

from now looking back and think about, oh, what

1:33:23

if I had done that thing? Or what

1:33:26

if I had

1:33:27

taken that leap of faith?

1:33:29

So I think it helps me

1:33:31

be grateful that I

1:33:33

did take that leap

1:33:36

for that trip and then be really

1:33:39

intentional.

1:33:40

Life happens fast and

1:33:43

I want to pack as much as I can

1:33:45

into it. And I think I've had a lot of second

1:33:47

chances with close

1:33:52

calls like

1:33:53

avalanches and all the

1:33:56

things.

1:33:59

that I could have died.

1:34:02

So everything just feels,

1:34:04

I

1:34:06

just feel really grateful to be alive and it gives

1:34:08

me a fire to do as much as

1:34:10

I can while I'm still alive, right? I've had,

1:34:13

we've all lost friends and people we love

1:34:15

and, you know, like,

1:34:18

it's

1:34:18

pretty incredible that I get to be

1:34:20

alive, live in, you know, in a country where

1:34:22

you have opportunity to do things where

1:34:25

coming from war zones where I've been,

1:34:28

they don't have that opportunity. So I

1:34:30

just feel really grateful and really fired

1:34:32

up to

1:34:34

take advantage of the opportunities that I

1:34:36

have and not waste them.

1:34:40

So as far as motorcycle

1:34:42

travel though,

1:34:43

do you come out of that trip, you know, maybe

1:34:45

somewhat removed from the trip and

1:34:47

are sort of fired up about motorcycle travel or have you had

1:34:50

your fill?

1:34:52

Oh yeah. I mean, I did a big, I did like

1:34:54

a

1:34:55

week long trip on

1:34:57

Harleys right after I got back.

1:35:00

I've done more dual sports,

1:35:02

you know, several week long dual sport trips. I love riding.

1:35:04

I'll never do something that long again. It's just

1:35:07

too long. But

1:35:10

yeah, well, I love motorcycles and I

1:35:12

just wish I had more money to buy more of them

1:35:14

and keep the ones that I have running.

1:35:16

Right. Well, as long as you

1:35:18

love motorcycles that much, I doubt you're going to have

1:35:20

the money for anything. That's

1:35:24

what I'm realizing. Yeah, but hopefully you do.

1:35:26

I mean, hopefully life works

1:35:29

out for you in an incredible

1:35:31

way. James, it was so much fun

1:35:33

to sit and talk with you. Thanks so much for sharing a bit of your

1:35:35

story. I really appreciate it.

1:35:37

Absolutely. Thanks for having me on

1:35:39

and chatting. It was fun to reminisce

1:35:42

and

1:35:43

chat with you. Bye.

1:36:00

That was James Barkman just in out of

1:36:02

the surf. His website is

1:36:04

jamesbarkman.com. We've got that link

1:36:06

as well as some great photos that James sent

1:36:08

to us in the show notes for this episode at

1:36:10

our website, adventureriderradio.com.

1:36:26

Hey, I just want to remind you that this episode has been brought

1:36:28

to you by Green Chili Adventure Gear, greenchiliadv.com,

1:36:32

Motobreeze Chain Oiler at motobreeze.com

1:36:37

and Best Rest Products at cyclepump.com.

1:36:40

And we'd really appreciate it anytime you're dealing with these companies,

1:36:42

anytime, email or otherwise. Let them know you heard them

1:36:45

here on Adventure Rider Radio.

1:36:48

Well,

1:36:48

that about wraps up another episode of Adventure Rider

1:36:50

Radio, and we sure hope you enjoyed listening to it as much

1:36:52

as we did making it. Special thanks, of course, to our

1:36:55

producer, Elizabeth Martin, and to you for listening to

1:36:57

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1:37:48

Now it's time to get out there and ride your bike if you can. I

1:37:50

sure hope you can. My name is Jim Martin. Thank you very

1:37:53

much for listening and I will talk to you next week.

1:38:03

I'm Woody

1:38:03

from Woody's Wheel Works and you're listening

1:38:06

to Adventure Rider Radio.

1:38:29

You