Canada - Panama May 2004

[StephenRivett]

Hi all,

I'm trying to put together enough coin to travel all of the countries south of the US. I'll be roaming around on a GS400 which is a street bike that can barely achieve 130km/h when it's not loaded so keep that in mind if you want to come. I will travel on dirt roads if they go somewhere but not just for fun.

Who am I? I'm a 24 year old student finishing up my last semester of Electrical Engineering. In total I've put about 20,000 km on my GS400 in the last two years so I'm not a super rider. In fact, riding beside me is inadvisable. I read about the Moon Riders about 6 years ago and have been hooked on long distance travel. Two years ago I took my van and 3 other people on a Mexico, Belize, Guatemala trip that covered 16,000km in 14 days during Christmas holidays. That trip was too fast paced to get everything in so I'm gonna try again. It turns out that Ottawa is 40 hours non-stop from Laredo and 70 hours from Acapulco. We only stayed in one hotel on that trip but we had a van... Two people slept outside, two inside.

I'm hoping to be gone for about 3 or 4 months starting mid May. The route will either start in Baja and follow the coast or Neuvo Laredo to MC to Vera Cruz and then follow the coast. I'll spend a few idle weeks in Guatemala learning Spanish. Nothing else is planned, actually, I don't like to plan so I could use somebody who does.

I won't ask much of anybody who wants to come with me. I'm not looking for a big group, maybe only 1 other bike. Other than that I require fellow riders to have health coverage and a credit card to get them home if something happens. As a heads up, I won't be getting vehicle insurance in Mexico but I will in Belize. Bringing a set of sprockets and a chain is necessary in my case as I'll be covering about 20,000km. I'll also be carrying a set of tires as my current pair won't make it much past the Mexican border.

I have started to prepare for the trip and am in the middle of hoarding equipment and saving money. My budget will be about 4000$CDN which includes hoarding and 600$ for insurance to get home as mine runs out in June. That being said, I will be camping a bit (budgeting about 20 nights to cover cost of tent) and staying in hostels whenever possible.

Anybody else want to meander the continent with me?

Cheers, Steve

[StephenRivett]

It's become apparent to me that there are probably hundreds of us on the road at the same time so I'll probably just start out alone and see who I meet.

Cheers, Steve