The Trip (s)

Our next trip is going to be a trial run for an even longer trip in two years. Our long-term goal is a three-month (or longer) trip from Columbia to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America and back up to Buenos Aires. This won't be until 2010/2011 at the earliest though. In the mean time we'll need to get at least one good month-long trip under our belts to iron out the bugs and make sure we're up to the challenge a long two-up journey.

When I got back from the last trip Rosi was VERY impressed with how well Sheri did two-up on the back of Steve's KLR and pleasantly surprised to hear how much Sheri enjoyed riding. With this in mind she was willing to give it her best try. This was very brave on her part and I was really appreciative that she'd at least give it a try, because prior to this her only experience on the back of a bike was as a teenager and the only memories she has are bad ones. Back then she took a very nasty spill and she still has the scars to remind her that it's a potentially dangerous sport.

This time around though, there's no way I will even consider riding without proper protective gear. My new motto is ATGATT - All The Gear All The Time. So...long story short, she gave it a try and it turns out she loves it! We started with a couple of short rides around town so we could both get used to two on a bike and since then we've done two long day-trips. The last was 7 hours/350 klm, which is a very good indicator that we'll be fine on a long trip.

So far Rosi has been borrowing my second set of gear but now that we know she likes it we'll be making a trip to Spokane to get her all of her own gear.

For now we'll keep doing day trips while we both gain experience but our goal is to ship the bike to Phoenix sometime this fall for a month-long trip in Mexico; either this winter or late spring, early next year. We'll either head back into the Copper Canyon or make our way down the Gulf Coast to Veracruz.