LRS - Myths Legends and Tales: Adventure Harley Riding

I was cruising the internet tonight reading stories about some of the more adventurous Harley riders out there and came across this story, it was motivational to some degree. Im allways impressed at the things people will do with a bike meant for just for asphalt.

Im posting this story I found on Horizons Unlimited, an awesome blog - Credit due to the author who wrote the piece, I just wanted to share it and pose the question ---- If you could or wanted to..... What exotic place would you take your bike?

Tell us where you would take your bike by posting it on our Facebook page

http://facebook.com/longrideshields

Dean Bordigioni, USA, to South America, Harley-Davidson,

"I've been riding my 2001 Harley-Davidson Dyna Police Special from San Francisco, California to Tierra del Fuego and home, on and off again, for the past two years. The only way I could run my business and scamper about South America on a bike was to ride for three or four weeks, store the bike with a dealer-friend, then fly home for six months, then back and forth yada yada. It didn't work out, aduanas and all not liking an expired bike visa, so I sold my business, Golden Gate Harley-Davidson, eight months ago and have pretty much been on the road since.

Since it is an unusual choice for this crowd, I feel I should also address the why in selecting a Harley. Obviously being a dealer advanced this position, but way before throwing my life and wallet into my passion, I was an enthusiast. I like and prefer the mechanics, even the mechanical tintinnabulation of a pushrod engine. Archaic, noisy (mechanically, I prefer stock pipes), heavy and relatively underpowered, it does, however, maintain that untenable quality of sitting in a '57 Bel Aire and closing the door. You know you closed that door. I've also ridden Harley's for almost 20 years, and even though being a poor natural mechanic, can keep them running under most circumstances. After 250,000 miles on everything from my '47 Knucklehead to my 'Bocito', ...my South American steed, I'm just used to riding a big fat Harley. So there.

My 'enduro' Harley, slightly modified with full undercarriage skid plate, dual-sport wheels and spare gas tank, has weathered a lifetime's riding of desert sand and rain forest mud and creek and river crossings and hotel staircases and on and on and is now safely with me in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. We've successfully endured 20,000 miles from San Francisco, California to Tierra del Fuego and the end of the road. We're now predominately pointed north towards the sunny Golden Gate and my sweet little fem Victorian high atop a hill in The City By the Bay.

Since this route has been well documented in literature and this web site by far more adventurous motorcyclists than myself, I'll keep to the somewhat anachronistic glory and tragedy associated with my particular steed and circumstances.

Lovely ride through the most remote of the Valley Elqui, then a long gravel road through surreal beautiful country. It was amazing. Somewhere in the very high altitude (the pass was about 15,000 feet) I acquired a bad case of altitude sickness and I guess the lack of oxygen to the brain makes you paranoid. Top that off with the most frightening road I've ever been on, sheer cliffs and gravel and falling rocks, all drugged with the sickness. It was the first time in too many years where I truly felt afraid, again the sickness?

Then I wrecked the bike, at slow speed at least. I went through what I thought was a muddy stretch of road between frozen ice fields and found out that under the mud was a sheet of ice. Hit that thing and flopped over like a dead fish, skidded off the road and hit an ice field, directly on the engine as I was falling down and flying over the handlebars. Amazing that I didn't get hurt, but the altitude had me exhausted and it took a good half hour to right the bike, all while freaked out and huffing and puffing. Another half hour down the road, still at high altitude and freaking, and the bike dies, completely. Apparently the impact broke the battery cells. I pushed it up the hill for a kilometre or more as I was on the downhill from the pass and I knew eventually I would descend. No cars on the road for 4 hours and no one to help. I was the only one at the border, earlier, who crossed that day.

An hour or so later, exhausted, and I rolled downhill without the engine for over ten miles to the military crossing for Argentina. We loaded the bike in a monster 4X4 transport van and the one hombre drove me to the first town, another 60 kilometres with me in the back of this rough riding troop transporter holding onto the friggin bike bouncing down the road. Nice huh? It was the longest, weirdest day I've had in years, but the bike is running again and I'm hitting it tomorrow for Mendoza, then direct to Santiago because I'm running on a dirt-bike battery and it barely starts my beast. Again, amazing, and grateful I wasn't hurt."

Here are some other pictures I found on the internet involving harleys sent to exotic places.