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WHY GO?
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The other thing everyone always wants to know is why I`m doing this trip, why now and especially why alone. There are a number of answers so I`ll keep updating this as I go along and at the end we`ll all know why I did it (including me!). But to begin with in no particular order, first reason -
ADVENTURE
Of course, everyone says that. It would be an adventure though of course but I am slightly critical of people going off to do dumb trips like this just in the name of adventure. Really the heading perhaps should say ESCAPEISM, all of us want to escape everyday life at some stage, but most of us like to be in a position where we can easily return to it when our little escape gets boring or too difficult. That idea doesn`t appeal to me, if you want to escape you should be prepared for the hard times as well as the good. The bottom line is that however you define adventure I wanted to go on another one, maybe I watched too much Indiana Jones as a kid...
Genetic?
I think as a kid I heard way too many travel stories from family and family friends and was told way too often that "You'll be able to do that when you grow up". So I almost felt obliged to go and see some of the world. As with most kids I loved motorbikes and always wanted to sit on bikes that I saw parked in the street, but when my big brother got his first roadbike and left it for me to start and warm up each day while he was away on a Navy exercise, I was hooked! I really thought I was Barry Sheene sitting up on my brothers VF400 while it balanced on the centre stand, he even told me I should put it into gear and let it run for a bit to warm everything up properly. I relise now that this wasn't really needed, I think he just told me too because he knew I'd love it!
Plus there does seem to be a bit of the wondering spirit in half of my family, the other half consider going out for dinner to be a big enough adventure. So this idea of riding a motorbike across the earth almost seemed normal, combine two things that you really like doing, easy!
To see if I could make it and live to tell the tale!
Why start with a small motorbike trip? You can do that when you're old. Start big I say, if you make it it's a spectacular story, if you don't it's still a spectacular story!
Because fortune does favor the brave.
Maybe it's because I'm the youngest in a fairly old family (sorry for calling you lot old!) I have always been told to do things now, while you're still young enough. It's lead to me thinking that I'm eternally young and made me nervous every time I miss an opportunity to do something!
So when I forced the opportunity to present itself to ride a motorbike half way across the earth, I took it! Doing this type of thing has to improve you in more than a few ways, so much is learnt in such a short time and some things cannot be learnt elsewhere. You really need to put yourself out there amongst it to find out if you are capable of coping under such conditions. I have never met anyone who has done such a thing and regretted it...maybe I'll be the first!
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