My ride is over. While it was not my hardest ride around the world, it had significant degrees of difficulties, some recorded, some best left not.

Several friends around the world have written lately, asking for their next installment of ROAD NOTES. There are none. The gnome who pumps those out has quit. He complained about the pay scale.

ROAD NOTES enjoyed wide circulation, both in hard copy and on the Internet. I was often surprised, and still am, at where people read them, and who reads them. Actually, in this era of cell phones, digital TV, and electronic audio injections from cyberspace, I am pleased to find that people read. As a writer, it is often my only reward when someone tells me they enjoyed something I wrote, or that they even read it.

Before ROAD NOTES and the Internet, I would have to hunt down post cards, write long notes, then find stamps. The whole process could take days. Now I still search out a computer and write the notes, but I miss the stamps, like these motorcycle stamps.

Over the last several years ROAD NOTES went from simple "Hi Mom and Dad; I am still alive, out here on the road. More later" to 2,000-3,000 words and a much wider group (Mom and Dad are still in it). Most often, ROAD NOTES were composed in an Internet cafe under combat-like conditions: the person next to me smoking cigarettes, kids playing Star Wars video games, techno-music blasting, keyboards in a foreign script, someone lurking over my shoulder to see what I was writing or steal my password, and computers that often died midway through a missive.

I am not a "Gizmo Traveler," which means I carry no electronic devices when I travel, such as a laptop computer. To spend a day riding a motorcycle, then the night in my tent or cheap hotel room with a flashlight taped to my head, bent over a black box, pecking out words, seems to defeat the purpose of traveling. I have tried it, and junk is what I wrote. I would much rather spend the end of a riding day in reflection, watching a red sun set, or listening to stories of adventure by other travelers. So when on the road, about once a month, I hunt down a cyber cafe, or beg time on someone's personal computer, and the ROAD NOTES gnome bangs out a copyright free dispatch. At the same time I would compose and mail a similar number of words (less obtrusive, un-wrinkled or more politically correct) for my website, then some more words for a second website on technical matters, and finally a fourth treatment for a cyber newsletter.

Cyber or Internet cafes can be an adventure in themselves. Once, in Africa, I sent out a ROAD NOTES that had a virus attached from the computer in the cyber cafe. If I could have found the owner of the virus he/she would have learned the true meaning of the word "adventure."

Because of the number of words I was tapping out at each sitting, content sometimes suffered, as did format, spelling, and direction. (However, I have been told not too badly - only one person in six years asked to be removed from my list, versus the hundreds who asked to be added.)

Anyway, the ROAD NOTES gnome has at least gone on strike. Until a better carrot can be dangled, it will be a long work stoppage.

A good carrot to catch a gnome-scribe is the reward of wild fish for dinner, fresh from the Big Horn River into the frying pan.

None of my motorcycle rides around the world have done without the help of others. Whether people financially contributed so I could buy gasoline or take a sleeping room indoors when it was raining, bought me a meal, prayed for me or supplied a replacement part when needed, they all contributed. Had they not, I would have been unable to complete one ride, let alone four. Below I have listed some people and companies that helped on this last long ride. Surely I forgot to list twice as many, and for that I am regretful. As I look back on the last year, the preparation needed, time spent giving me advice, commitments from publications, and support from friends, it seems the list gets wider and wider.

For instance, how could I forget someone like Vladimir, one of my new Russian friends? On his way to work he rode his Honda motorcycle past a gas station I was stopped at, turned around, parked and asked me in Russian if all was OK? I answered in English that everything was fine, I was just checking the adjustment on my chain. He then asked if I needed anything. I told him I would like to find a cyber cafe to check my mail because I was trying to connect with another traveler on the same road who was riding from the opposite direction. Vladimir said I should follow him.

He led me through town to an office where the employer let me use a computer hooked up to the Internet. Afterwards he took me to his home where his mother cooked us a fresh garden meal and we drank some beer and vodka (the vodka to settle the meal). Next he fired-up the banya, we did a bath, then he saw that I got a good night sleep in a bed with fresh sheets. In the morning he vectored me east and gave me a gift "for the memories," I gave him a Kawasaki sticker and an Indian arrowhead. We promised to meet again.

Three days and 1,000 miles later a car driver was waiting for me. He nearly forced me (I did not know him and he spoke no English) to follow him to a local motorcycle club gathering, where 30-40 waiting motorcyclists befriended me. I enjoyed another good meal, made more new friends and had a good-time day and night. When I was finally able to identify someone in the group who spoke English I got an answer to my question of how they knew I was coming, "Vladimir sent us an Email describing you, your Kawasaki and when you would arrive." Vladimir, my Russian friend, spoke no English and I spoke no Russian, but we both spoke motorcycle traveler.

Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. invited me to attend their Annual Dealers Meeting in San Antonio, Texas last week. This is where the company displays their new product line, officials listen to dealers and whoopee swirls. It was a corporate sales fiesta. I have been to other motorcycle dealer shows, but the people at Kawasaki lead the pack when it comes to living up to their corporate motto of "Let the good times roll."

For me, the fun-mood was set on the morning of the first day when the Vice-President for Marketing and Product Management, Bob Moffit, told the 3,000-member audience, "Riding naked is fun." He was describing the 2003 Kawasaki Z1000 "Naked Bike" at 9:00 AM on Day 1 of a two-day business meeting. His statement pretty well grabbed the attention of 99.9% of those gathered. Several snoozers around me in the audience snapped awake at the metaphor of nude motorcycling, whereas before their heads had been dipping like an anteaters in an anthill over phrases like "lower price," "higher quality," and "extended terms." He'd slammed down fun on the table. The other .01 % were the Harley-Davidson spies in the audience, but they were already wide-awake. As the author of a book titled MOTORCYCLE SEX, I felt marketing guru Moffit and I could have an interesting conversation in the future, which we did.

Over the next two days I signed autographs (Kawasaki produced a nice multi-colored poster of my just finished ride around the world for me to sign), ate Texas BBQ, slept in a Marriott Hotel king size bed, kicked tires, answered questions about riding around the world, and talked with motorheads like Steve Rice, one of the fastest men in the world on a motorcycle. Even the "big guys" took time to share words with me, like Yousuke Fujii, "Mr. Motorcycle-God" for Kawasaki Heavy Industries, LTD. from Japan.

A surprising number of people knew me. Not my face, but from my global adventuring, motorcycle books and articles published in magazines. Even more interesting was the number who had followed my ride around the world with the Kawasaki on my Internet site, www.horizonsunlimited.com/gregfrazier. A couple even remembered me from my racing days when I was whipping on Kawasaki Mach III's and Honda 750's with a 1971 BMW R75/5. The biggest surprise was a fan that stood there and recounted for his buddy the day I finished in 6th place the Pikes Peak Race To The Clouds, on a 1936 Indian Scout. He could remember more about that day than I could, except for the snow and ice at the top. That recollection is reserved for those of us who raced through it.

The annual sales meetings are where dealers place their orders for the next year. The dealers look at product, evaluate potential sales, and then ink a deal for so many units in the next year, biting the bullet for heavy debt and often sleepless nights. It is a big time flow of money and sets the pace for the coming 12 months. At a BMW dealer meeting I attended some years ago the sales personnel seemed to be dragging their dealers off the floor and into the "closing booths," trying to get dealers to commit to product. Their meeting reminded me of the last time I bought a new car - the sales guy sweated me into the deal in one of those little cubicles after hammering me with his boss, his bosses' boss, then finally the "closer." Not so at the Kawasaki dealer meeting.

The Kawasaki dealers had a full line of product they could sell, not anchors they would have to stuff down customer's throats or give away as loss leaders. Whether it was a "Mule" (a Kawasaki small off-road work vehicle), 3-person jet ski/watercraft, ATV, or Super Naked Z1000 motorcycle, there was something for every potential customer. Add in the Team Green Race Team, two nights of supreme food, music, dancing, hospitality and smiling, happy people and I was easily caught up in the good-time flow. The atmosphere was so charged with 2003 sales I found myself being sucked into the sales area by some cosmic force, my pen came out and I was ready to ink a deal for a couple hundred Kawasaki products, when I realized I was not a Kawasaki dealer!

I later told Kawasaki's Executive Marketing Vice-President, Bob Shepard, how infectious working with his team was, the good time I'd had over the last days and months, and how different it was from working with other motorcycle companies. Like Yoda, he listened to my mumbles, nodded all-knowingly, offered some Buddha-like words of wisdom, and then thanked me for coming to the Dealer Show.

Now there was a twist in my life, a VIP thanking road trash (I was written up this month as "Indian Outlaw" in the German Kawasaki "Good Times" magazine) for coming to their party. A month earlier I had been barn-sleeping in Siberia, eating cold cabbage and drinking ten-cent beer out of a plastic bottle, wondering which Russian Mafia guy was going to lift more money out of my nearly empty billfold, and here was one of America's motorcycle corporate heavy hitters thanking me for quaffing some fun at their private party.

It was a nice twist to the end of a long motorcycle ride. Usually after one of my long global rides I slink into the solitude of the mountains of Montana, reflect on my good luck to be alive and thank Old Man Coyote for his never having ridden or crashed a motorcycle. This time I am thanking not only him, but also the great many people around the world that helped and showed me a good time along my trail.

I suspect I am done with the global loops. Four is a nice even number, like the four directions of the wind. However, there might be another long ride or two left within me. I did not think so a couple of weeks ago, but while I was wandering through the Kawasaki display area, I thought I heard one of their new Vulcan models whisper, "You are a Crow and I am a Vulcan. Together we could fly to the Land of the Midnight Sun."

TRIP STATISTICS - 4th Round The World Ride - 2002

CONTINENTS: North America, Europe, Africa and Asia

TIME ZONES CROSSED: 24

MILES RIDDEN: 19,631 miles

DURATION: Road time = 5 months

MOTORCYCLE: Kawasaki KLR 650

SPONSORS: Corporate:

MOTORCYCLE CONSUMER NEWS (www.mcnews.com)

Kawasaki Motors Corp., USA (www.kawasaki.com)

Dual Star (www.dual-star.com)

Riderwearhouse/Aerostitch (www.aerostitch.com)

GAMA/BIG DOG RIDE (www.horizonsunlimited.com/bigdog/)

Cooper-Avon Tyres, LTD. (www.avontyres.com)

Adventure Motorcycle Gear (http://www.adventuremotogear.com/)

Wolfman Colorado, USA (www.wolfmanluggage.com)

Action Stations (www.actionstation.com)

Bob's BMW Motorwerks (email)

Knopf Motorradreisen Germany (www.knopftours.com)

WEMC (email)

DUAL SPORT NEWS (www.dualsportnews.com)

BatteryWeb.com (www.BatteryWeb.com)

Electrex USA (www.electrexusa.com)

San Diego House of Motorcycles (www.houseofmotorcycles.com)

Reiters Kawasaki, Billings, Montana (email)

Precision Concepts (www.precisionconceptsracing.com)

Progressive Suspension (www.progressivesuspension.com)

Sagebrush Machine Shop (www.sagebrushmachine.com)

D.H Gibbs and Company (www.utahsportcycle.com)

Fayette Motorcycles/Top Gun (www.fayettemotorcycles.com)

Happy Trails Products (www.happy-trail.com)

Roadgear (www.roadgear.com)

Clearview Shields (www.clearviewshields.com)

Kawasaki Motors Europe, N.V. (www.kawasaki.de)

Holy Kawasaki (www.hoely.de)

MOTO.RU (email)

HorizonsUnlimited.com (www.horizonsunlimited.com)

Individual Contributors:

Elden Carl

Werner Eberhardt

Ana Lucia Farias

Dr. Ray Rossi

Tribe of Frazier

Tim Moffitt

Doris Wiedemann

Mel Moore

Bob Higdon

Grant Johnson

Susan Johnson

Mike Kneebone

F.J. Schermer

Eric Demant

Donna-Rae Polk

Kerstin Hassmann

Lisa Cykowski

Arthur Zawodny

Christensen/Winterman

My "International Attack Team" who hammered Vladivostok Air Cargo to get my bike freed

The many friendly unmentioned "helpers' around the world.