End of the Road

Location:	Panama City
Mileage:	9,000

We leave San Isidro in Costa Rica very early as the aim is to get to Pamana by mid afternoon and then visit the SOS Village. It is dark when we leave.

The road seems good but it has pot holes to catch you out. In the dusky morning hours, we miss avoiding one big one and the bike takes a huge thud. A bang so big you can't belive that you can get away with it. Sure enough within a few miles and hearing a flapping sound, we get off the bike expecting to see the back tyre deflating.

In fact a closer inspection shows the tyres are fine but that we are missing six spokes in one section of the back wheel and have taken a small dent to the rim. We limp into a petrol station. As always it is a Sunday. It is ony 6.30am. The only thing we can do as dawn breaks is to make a temporary repair. We ave no spare spokes with us. We have to jiggle around the remaining spokes to evenly space out where the gaps are.

This is now going to be hairy. With me on the back and all the luggage, most of the weight rests over the back wheel. If it was Kev on his own, we would not worry. I don't want to get back on the bike but there is no choice. We edge slowly down the road and take is at an easy 40mph for the next 20 miles of so and inspect the wheel again. It appears to be holding but we know we have no contingency there. Every other pothole has to be avoided. Just how strong will it be when the bike is at maximum load capacity? How far can we push it?

It is 100 miles to the Panama border and in Panama the dealer is expecting us for a sevice the next day. We have to make it to cross the border.

The further we go the braver we get until, we are at the border. This final border is the cheapest, quickest and simplest yet. But we are now losing time because we have to go slow. Any hope of getting to Panama City to see SOS this afternoon is gone.

The norther section of the road is poor. Many cracks and potholes and we slalom around them. By Aguadulce, we are onto dual carriageway all the way in. But we are losing light again and within 10 miles of Panama City, it is dark. Traffic is heavy as everyone is coming back from the beach. They drive like maniacs when it is straight, inches behind the car in front but do not know how to drive through bends, and drift all over. Within less than one miles we see three accidents blocking the road, with police and ambulances there.

For us the City was easy to negotiate, even at night, and following signs for Ave Balbao, we find the InterContinental Hotel, recopmmended to us by the Food and Beverage Manager who we met at the Panama border. It looks out over the bay. It is sheer decadence. We have never stayed in such a luxury hotel like this, but we have two days before we hit South America.

Head On!

Location:

Nicargua to Costa Rica

The road when we cross to Nicaragua is unbelievably good and nothing like when we were here four years ago. Smooth clear tarmac leads the way. We leave Ocotal at 5am and arrive at the border at about 9.30am to leave Nicaragua and enter Costa Rica. We cannot belive how quick it has been done. We are now entering Costa Rica only a couple of hours behind plan.

Costa Rica had two major hurdles - another capital city to cross and the Cerro del Muerte (Mountain of Death). As we hit road works in San JOse and lost all signs, we reverted to the taxi trick again to get us through.

The road out of San Jose climbs upwards for the best part of 60 miles to over 3,500 metres. It is late afternoon. We start to lose light and it gets cold. The higher we get the more mist swirls around and the thicker it gets. In parts visibility is down to only twenty metres of so. Our danger here is the cars without lights and the very slow trucks. Go round a sharp bend too fast and a truck crawling along may as well be a brick wall.

The most scarey thing is the impatience of the cars coming the other way. As we reached night with still 40 miles to go before our stop point that day, we faced a head on around a blind bend. Kev swerved to the right, inches from the edge of the road, braking and with the thinest of margins we stayed up right and on the road.

The final hour riding saw me turn to a shaking wreck, as every glare of lights and bend posed real danger.

Arriving in San Isidro, we have one more day of riding ahead to make Panama by deadline.

Onward!

Location:

Nicaragua

I race over to the Nicargua side of the border and ask in my broken Spanish if they will process the bike this evening and the Aduana nods his head to me. Running back to Honduras, we sign us and the bike out. We are now in no mans land.

Kevin deals with the Nicarguan Aduana for the bike. I take our passports to Immigracion for stamping. The officer looks at his watch and waggles his finger "No - manana a las ocho". It is ten past five. My heart sinks and he sits there smugly and repeats his phrase.

You know what comes next. We pay double for our Nicaraguan tourist immigracion card, but he then lets us in. The bus arrives at the border five minutes later to take all the border staff away and in the time it takes us to get oursleves sorted the border is deserted. We have made a double border crossing on one day by the skin of our teeth.

We then realise we have no Nicarguan cordobas and what´s more we are losing light rapidlay. There is a small comedor over the border and a one eyed old man called Raphael, shuffles out with a wad of notes in his hand. We get another fleecing on our rate, but change enough money to get fuel and lodging for the night.

We end up in Ocotal, now knowing that we have really taken a big chunk nack out of the lost day.

Nicaragua or bust!

Location:

Esquipalas to Ocotal

We are at the border when it opens at 6am. Leaving Guatemala is held up because we need photocopies of our Guatemala bike permit and the photocopy man is not there. We should not have worried because by the time we clear here and get to the Hondura crossing a couple of kilometres down the road, the Aduana is not there. We do immigration and then wait. Our guide tells us that the Aduana will arrive at 8am. We sit around until 8.30am before he arrives.

Then it is a little bit of corruption. If we want the permit done quickly we have to pay big dollars for him to push it up the queue. Otherwise he has two other vehicles to do first. (Probably from last night!)

No amount of arguing gets us anywhere and we are caught. We hate paying over the odds - it makes it worse for the next traveller - but we cannot wait here for the best part of the morning.

We pay the extra dollars and feel angry at being fleeced, but leave the border by 9am. We have to try and make a double border crossing today into Nicaragua if we are to catch up.

The day is tedious. We only stop a couple of times for fuel and water. We miss any food breaks. Our only saving is that unlike Guatemala City, Teguicigalpa signs the road straight through for us. We weave in and out of the trucks as the clock counts down. LP says the border closes at 5.30pm.

We arrive at five to five with a sigh of releif only to be have a rising tide of panic when they say the border closes at five. They will process us out of Honduras but will Nicaragua let us in??

Claw Back time?

Location:

Acapulco to Tapachula

We still have not caught up our lost day. We leave Acapulco at 4.30am. Just to tread water we have to get to the Tapachula and the Guatemalan Border. It is a 700 mile day, all still on our favourite Highway 200. I don´t see that we are going to claw back today.

Our start is crap. We follow the Airport signs, which is to the south of the city and where we need to go, but end up at the Departure Terminal (is someone trying to tell us something?) We are not going mad, once again, Mexican signing leaves a lot to be desired.

The road continues to give us glimpses of spectacular coast line, endless stretches of beach with huge crashing surf or craggy cliff faces with swirling masses of foam. Little hippy surf towns lie just out of reach. We plough on through curve after curve, slowing to snails pace behind huge lorries, risking quick overtakes to get some speed up. It is hard hard work in the midday sun. Our faces and hands are burning and our arses are really beginning to feel the effects of nine days in the saddle.

We have little relief along this stretch of road. Even getting something to eat is turning into a nightmare. Having not eaten for over 24 hours, we finally stop at a well signed restaurant, only to find it a back room of a house, with plenty of flies. Mama cleans the toilet for us and cooks our food - a huge plate of camerones, complete with all bits. It takes us more energy to eat it than we take in. Let´s hope we feel no after effects!

As for the bike, he is holding up well. Plenty of punishment, lots of weight, but as expected from the BMW, has not let us down.

Central America

Location:	Tapachula
Mileage:	Approx 6,000 in total

Our status on the record is still one day behind plan. Mexico has been much tougher than expected. We now have four days to cover five countries and still make our BMW service which is planned for Monday 1 September at 8am in Panama City. Not only that we have SOS to visit in Panama too!

Luckily we planned Central America on a much more cautious basis and provide the borders are good to us, we are confident we can get back our precious day.

Entering Guatemala

Location:

Talisman to Esquipalas

We arrived at the border crossing early but only to find that they would not process the bike documentation. They sent us back to a point 10 miles earlier where late last night, tired and weary, we had passed without seeing it. It causes us a delay of 1 1/2 hours. It is a bad start to the day.

We get a guide to help us crossing into Guatemala. For a few dollars they take all the paperwork and run around for you. It is painless and the costs of getting into Guatemala are low - the permit for the bike is only about $4.

Guatemala is hot steamy and very tropical. We run the CA1 and then head into Guatemala City. This route will take us direct to Honduras and miss El Salvador, avoiding a border crossing here.

The city is hell. The road dumps you in a myriad of narrow streets with no signs and bumper to bumper traffic. In desperation, we have to hire a taxi to follow out of the city. It is all eating into time. As we finaly hit the road from Guatemala, it runs a series of steep ridges, clogged by old trucks doing 10 mph and belching out fumes. Our time is ticking away today. If we want to claw back our day we have to try and cross into Honduras today as well.

The border closes at 6pm. We miss it by half an hour. The Aduana office is closed. We have to go back to Esquipalas and hole up there for the night. We are still one day behind our plan.

Going loco down in Acapulco

Location:

Not the Mayan Palace

Today was a crucial point of the ride. We had to stop the slippage and claw back if we could. We need to get to Acapulco, minimum, to remain one day behind. Ideally we need more than that.

Highway 200 had its own ideas. Bend after bend, village after village (not marked on the maps!) and topes after topes (for the uninitiated, the Mexican equivalent of humps in the road to slow you down). Topes are evil, more like going up and down steep kerbs. The bike has grounded out too many times, even though going at minus 2mph to get over them. Not only that, they are too easy to miss, especially when riding at night.

Night riding is never recommended, but we have no choice here. The main advantage is that the villages suddenly look very quaint and pretty, all lit up with fairy lights, the muck seems to disappear. Unfortunately, the pigs, turkeys, chickens, dogs, cyclists, children, goats don´t, and nor do the topes.

We end up in Acapulco around 10pm, at a T-junction, with no signs on how to go through or where to go. We decide to follow the general flow of traffic and some taxis in particular, and end up in a dead up street with a huge fruit market around us.

As we can´t get our bearings, we turn around and decide to take any round that heads down (it has to reach the beach and from there we can orientate). It works!

The problem with Acapulco was finding somewhere to get a bed that was not a 5 * deluxe palace. When we do there is no food. With a Coke, we get to bed for a few hours, ready for the next day.

Highway 200 - the Pacific Coast Route

Location:

Culiacan to Barra de Navidad

It was an early start from our "love nest", with toll roads headin south.

From Tepic, we were on Highway 200 to Puerto Vallarta. Maybe we missed signs, but we got dumped in the middle of the old town, with cobbled streets and lots of tourists. It all took up too much time.

Having found our way out of the maze, the coastal route then brought us its own challenges. A beautiful road if you had days to ride it, it´s twists, clinging to the edge of the coasts, uneven road surface and evil bends lowered our average speed even lower.

By that evening we hit Barra de Navidad, a lovely little coastal town and our planned stop for the day before. Mexico is turning into a mightmare. We have now lost a whole day.

The Pacific coastal route of Highway 200 could be a big mistake.

Another slow day

Location:

Nogales to Culiacan

Today was a wake up call to Mexico. With 250 miles down, we knew we could not make it up today because it had already been planned as a 850 mile day. The best we could do was to hold ground and ensure we did not lose more miles.

Toll roads through to Guaymas and onto Los Mochis were fast but not fast enough. Despite being "toll", they still passed through villages, had slow speeds and plenty of creatures wondering back and forth.

After night riding till 11pm, we decide to stop at Culiacan. As with all stops we do not want to be in the city itself but on the outskirts. We spot the ideal Paradise Motel just off the toll road. We know what this is and hire our room for the night (not just by the hour!)

We always advocate the benefits of these premises (and I am not talking what they show on the TV channels). They are cheap (ours was $18 for the night), vary clean, 24 hour room service and 100% safe, being patrolled by armed guards. It is ideal for us as we lose no time trawling through city streets loking for somewhere.

And as Kev always says, "minutes are miles"!

But the bad news is that we have lost more time and are running behind on plan. We´ll see if we can catch up over the next few days.

Saddlesore 2000 cont´d

Location:

Tucson

From when we left Lethbridge at 5am, the next 28 hours were hellish riding. Over the border, we made good if not boring progress through the flat plains of Montana. Miles and miles of straight interstate through dead pan countryside (this was why we did not want to go this way again!).

We approached Salt Lake City in a thunder storm. Black skies, horizontal rain and winds virtually blew us off the bike. It is supposed to be 100 degrees here! The we hit peak rush hour. Road works and heavy traffic held us up for hours. Getting fuel is becoming an increasing headache too - three petrol stations so far have had "OUT OF GAS" signs on them. What is happening!

We hit Cedar City around midnight and discuss whether to carry on with the Interstate around Las Vagas or to cut across through the Bryce, Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks. Our mind is made up for us when we are told that Las Vegas has suffered from flash floods and the Interstate may be closed.

This means heading off the Interstate, through some of the most impressive areas of Utah in pitch black. We pass by Powell Lake without seeing a thing, other than deer. The road is littered with hundreds of deer, their eyses flashing off the headlight. Fresh kill on the road reminds us to take the speed down, but at 45mph, we are not getting anywhere fast.

Around 4am, we stop at Cameron, so small I don´t even think it is on the map, and Kev takes a nap. I stay awake so that we don´t just sleep in the car park until sunrise. The next few hours riding are mind over matter, fighting to keep alert, eyes stinging, bones aching.

As sun rises we are boosted, but we are not there yet. At 8am and in over 90 degree heat, we are blasting around Pheonix and just after 9am, we arrive at Iron Horse Motorcycles in Tucson.

Iron Horse Motorcycles

Location:

Tucson

Just a big thank you to Marty and everyone at Iron Horse Motorcycles, who looked after us and the bike so well. It was great to chat to all the customers who turned up and signed our witness book for Guinness.

Thanks to Heidi and Bob who rode with us to the Mexican border, in searing heat! You will be pleased to know that despite your advice of not crossing the border to Mexico "Downtown", somehow, we ended up doing exactly that. Not sure how!

Anyway, the Mexcan crossing was quick and easy. Nogales was busy, hot and dirty. It was a shock to the system after Tucson, even thought we know what to expect. The short ride out of Nogales reverted Kevin into Latino mode of riding - massive use of horn, taking his space and plenty of swerving in and out of traffic.

However, the fact that we both had not slept the night before and had covered over 1,400 miles in a little over 24 hours, meant that we cut our ride short today. It means we are about 250 miles behind schedule.

The Saddlesore 2000 Ride

Location:

Lethbridge

The Iron Butt Saddlesore 2000 Ride (riding 2,000 miles in less than 48 hours) got off to a very slow start. We did not leave Prince George until 11am. Psychologically this is very bad as it guarantees a lot of night riding.


We were riding with Jeff Anspach, our American friend whom we last saw in Rio de Janiero over three years ago. He joined us from Portland, Oregon. The three of us rode through to Jasper and then onto Banff. It was good to have the company of another rider to keep spirits up.

The Jasper National Park along Icefields Parkway is a must ride for any biker, provided you get their a little out of season so that the RV traffic has disappeared. Our original plan of then riding Highway 39 to Missoula had to be ditched when news of the forest wildfires reached us. Sure enough at the junction we would have taken, the Highway was signed closed to all traffic.

This meant an impromtu diversion over to Calgary and into the USA on Interstate 15. We are familiar with this because it was part of the World Record route last year - and we did not want to ride it again, but we did not plan for fires!

That night after Jeff had left we rode onto midnight, but holed up in Lethbridge just short of the USA border. With barely 600 miles under our belt that day, it was going to be a tough 36 hours to follow.

Fourth Day

Location:	Prince George to ??
Mileage:	2,200

This morning is Prince George, we are changing tyres and going back to raod tyres. The knobblies were vibrating quite a bit as high speed yesterday and we are hoping for a much smoother ride from now on. we don't know where we will stop tonight. We have to ride at least 1,000 miles today and we have also had to change the route because of wild forest fires in Montana. We were supposed to route through Missoula, but we don't want to run the risk of being held up.

This means we will take Interstate instead. We wanted to avoid Interstate simply coz it gets boring, but it is safe for esuring we get to where we need to be. Today we ride through Banff National Park and then divert through to Calgery, cross the US border at Coutts and Sweetgrass and then take the Interstate as far as we can get. We will ride past midnight tonight.

The Stewart Cassiar re-visited

Location:	Watson Lake to Prince George
Mileage:	1,500

We leave a small motel just outside Watson Lake, with about 1,550 miles under our belt. We now travel the length of the Stewart Cassiar Highway. It is very different riding it now compared to when we spent three days riding it.

I shout out to Kev that I see a bear - he just tells me to concentrate on the ride! We are slow to start, the light is grey and hazy in the early morning, but as the day goes on, we have an empty open road to ride and can make great timing.

We pace the ride well. This time we cover slightly shorter distances and take slightly longer breaks to make sure we don't burn out too soon. There is still 34 days to go!

As we turn onto Highway 16 to Prince George, we suddenly meet traffic again. It is clear we are out of the "wilderness" now and back onto the main roads. RVs and trucks slow down our progress and there are many more communities to pass through where we have to brake right down. We cannot get a traffic ticket!!

At our stop for the night, one of our American friends, Jeff Anspach, has met us to ride with us for the next day or so. We have not seen him for four years and the last time was Rio in Brasil. Now the Beast (our bike) has a bright shiny VFR to ride with too. We think the company will boost our moral and keep us going.

The Second Day

Location:	Delta Junction to Watson Lake
Mileage:	650

We leave Delta Junction before sun rise. It is even colder than yesterday. With the heated vests on, we just about survive, but still shake as we stop for our first fuel and coffee. Today is about 800 miles and we have covered the first 100 miles with wind chill taking it below freezing. As the sun rises, the moose gather on the side of the road. It is a bit of a juggling act as to how fast we can go. These things are huge, solid beasts and we don't want to meet one head on!

The bike holds up well, even though we have only been able to put in 87 octane fuel, but Kev feels that it is holding back. That night we find out part of the reason. We check the air filter and it is clogged with all the shit from the dirt we had travelled on. Kev cleans it out and we put in the spare that we carry.

We are now travelling the Alaska Highway. It is familiar road as we covered much of this bit on the world record last year. It is every bit as awesome as we remember, little traffic, wide swooping bends, tall magnifient mountains lining the way and we have the luck of sun to keep us going.

The Start

Location:	East Security Checkpoint, Deadhorse
Mileage:	0

We left the security checkpoint at 8.00am as planned. Our two witnesses for the start were the local policeman, Don Grimes and the lady who runs the Post Office in Deadhorse, Les Dunbar. Don wishes us luck - he told us that he signed off the previous guys who did the record and says that they got about 50 miles south before crashing and hopes we do better than that!

It is a couple of degress above freezing as we set off on the long stretch of gravel road before us. It is wetter than we would like. Wet means the dirt becomes slimey and sludgy. We hit a number of sections where we are crawling at 25 mph. We know that we have a long way to go and we take it steady. We have plugged in the heated vests - it is so cold and at the top of Atigun Pass, icy rain starts to fall.

Past here the weather takes a real change and by the time we get to the Artic Circle it is almost balmy. The wet sludge turns to dry compact road, with plenty of dust, but riding upto 80mph on these bits. The huge trucks that do the Haul Road regularly, blast along us and leave us covered in shit and crunching dirt in our mouths.

We reach our stop point for the night, Delta Junction just after ten. Two motels are already closed and we finally find one that we get to just as they are locking the door. The alarm is set giving us five hours sleep and then we are off again.

The pace of the ride is very different this time - we have 37 days of long slog ahead and we have to pace ourselves so that we don't frazzle too early!

Almost the start!

Location:

Deadhorse

We have arrived in Deadhorse. It took is 8 hours from Coldfoot to do the 240 miles here - not surprising there was so much dirt and mud. After the first 50 miles we look like dirt devils. The whole back of the bike is caked in mud, thick and dripping.

We have lots of caribou to contend with - there are plenty of babies about who don't know the dangers of the road and give us a hard time. Plenty of muskox too. We even got to see a grizzley with two cubs across the road!

The Atigun Pass was cold and dirty, but with amazing vies over the valley which is turning gold with the autumn.

Everything is still set with 18 August start date, provided those heavy skies do not dump any snow!

The next stage

Location:

Anchorage

We leave Anchorage today. We have a last tyre change at the BMW dealership, The Cycle Shop for a new set of Continental tyres.

There are high winds this morning, which will make for a difficult ride out. The ride to Fairbanks runs past Denali National Park and by Mount McKinley - although we don't hold out any hope of seeing it, with all the thick mists that encircle to tops of the lower mountains here from Anchorage.

From Fairbanks, we ride to Coldfoot, a small camp inside the Artic Circle about 270 miles north and then the final 230 miles to Deadhorse in Prudhoe Bay. Here we have three nights to focus before starting at the gates to the oil fields in Deadhorse. Communication will be limited in this section, as it is so remote and phone lines are often down.

Sweat Lodge

Location:

Anchorage

We arrived here in Anchorage two days ago on the day that Anchorage set a new record for their highest temperature here - coincidentally the weather was breaking records in the UK too!

It was not to last - as we made our way to meet David, who had offered to conduct an ancient Indian sweat lodge ceremony that evening, the weather became cold, rainy and very windy. David is a native American Indian and performed the traditional ceremony for us to help us and give us strength and focus, as we were about to embark on a big journey.

Enclosed within the tiny lodge made of willow and skins, ten of us sat in a circle around the fire pit, waiting for the cermemony to start, as large lava rocks heated on a open fire were pushed into the middle and started to give off great heat. Although traditionally it was done naked, were did wear minimal clothing.

As the heat increasing the door is closed and we began the four stages of sweating. It was an intensely spiritual experience, where we all offered prayers and traditional songs, and within the heat and the darkness, allowed us to prepare our thoughts and focus for the coming challenge.

It represented a new stage in our preparation for the world record, as it marked the last steps of the countdown and the start of new roads for us to travel up to the north.

The Stewart-Cassiar Highway

Location:

Bell 2

From Prince George it has been another 500 mile ride to push deep into British Colunbia on the Stewart-Cassiar Highway. It is an awesome road running through the ice fields and into the wilderness.

One of biggest dangers riding here is getting so mesmerised by the dramatic scenery, that you forget about the wildlife. Every so often, a deer, moose and even bears appear from nowhere and remind you that a small lapse of concentration could be the end of the ride. We have had two black bears cross the road in front of the bike so far, one moving bloody quick and only a couple of metres away fom Julia who was off the bike taking a photo (in the wrong direction!)

Whilst we are here, we treat ourselves to a side visit to Hyder in Alaska, something that is not possible once the clock is ticking, and visit Fish Creek to see the grizzlies feeding on the spawning salmon.

So far the weather has been good, albeit now 1,000 miles north of Vancouver, it is much cooler and very fresh. It means that the gravel that we encounter so far has been dry and compact and we can ride it at speed, albeit leaving a huge dust trail behind us! The other good thing is that the metal grid bridges are not ice rinks as you cross them, though they still leave the bike twitching.

500 miles north

Location:

Prince George

Kevin had woke at 3am, still adjusting to the time and spent the early hours pacing the room. We set off from Vancouver early morning around 7am, after a nightmare packing the bike. We had brought across with us a lot of kit which somehow no longer nicely found its place on the bike. I was forced to dump various items of clothing (from an already meagre supply), and other bits such as travel wash, extra stuff stacs.

Heading out of Vancouver. Kev was pleased to be on the bike and riding. On the race track, you get your warm-up lap; this next two weeks was ours - it's just that it is 2,500 miles long!

We were distracted from the fantastic scenic roads as we could not quite get straight on the bike. You get those days when things don't quite fall into place. I felt wedged into a space that makes economy airline seating look like a positive luxury and Kevin was shifting around on his seat pushing back into me to get more space, when I had no room to spare. We would have to sort this out soon, as a 500 mile day is one thing when you're not quite comfy, but double the mileage and it becomes untenable.

We arrive at Prince George late afternoon and drop straight into the Yamaha dealer to see Chris, who has sorted out a set of tyres for our return leg down. This is to be our first tyre change when we are on the record. He knows that it has to be turned around quick. We check the tyres which are already waiting for us. Chris and the guys will be Guinness witnesses and this spot will also be our start point for incorporateing an Iron Butt Saddlesore 2000 to Tucson.