Life, Risk, Motorcycles

I've started this blog to document my six-week motorcycle trip, scheduled to begin April 1.  The plan in brief: Ride from Portland down Nevada, cross it via Highway 50.  Stop in Torrey, UT, then on to southern New Mexico where I'll meet up with George Faust and possibly Dale Weisman then ride down into the Big Bend area.  I'll cross into Mexico at Presidio then travel to Parral, Durango, Zacatecas, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Patzcuaro, Veracruz, Monterrey and back into Texas at McAllen.  I'll stop in San Antonio and Austin for a couple of days before making my way back through Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.  It will be about 9000 miles.

I have been daydreaming about this ride for years and over the New Year holiday decided that if I kept on daydreaming, I would never actually do it.  I would continue taking one and two week trips around the West but never the big one.  Thoughts not just about mortality but the inevitable decline in health and mobility pushed me to make this happen.


Most of those I've told about my plans have expressed concern about my riding alone to Mexico.  I've just started a wonderful book, God's Middle finger, by Richard Grant.  It chronicles his travels around the remote areas of Mexico's Sierra Madre.  The book was published in 2008, but the narco-violence was already in full swing in that part of the country.  I take heart by what he says about acceptable levels of risk: 
Statistically, one of the most dangerous things we do is drive.  The United States averages fifty thousand traffic fatalities a year--sixteen times the death toll from the September 11 attacks--but to be afraid of driving is considered a pathology.

My intention is to document my planning and eventually the trip itself.  I hope that those of you who decide to follow this find it in some way enjoyable.