The Bike
The main roads were much better than I thought they were going to be, therefore
I think that a 150cc bike was, quite probably, too slow. Ted Simon probably rode the whole way on ripio, back in the 1970´s. To be safe I think you need to cruise at 80kph, minimum, if you can do this you won´t get "bullied" by trucks, as I was, for a large part of the trip. I was only able to cruise at 50-60kph, much slower than I had assumed. In total I was run-off the road, completely, 4 or 5 times by inconsiderate truckers who could not be arsed to brake or pull over. Even at only 55kph, suddenly finding yourself riding along deep gravel, was no joke !! Because of this my attention was nearly always on my rear view mirror to the detriment of other things. If I could have cruised at 80kph the problem would have been massively reduced. No point trying to keep up with or overtake inter-city buses, they cruise at 110 to 140 kph (need a whole different sort of bike for that !!), I never had a problem with the bus drivers, much more curteous than some of the trucks.
The bike was too low geared, it desperately needed a 6th gear (I think it had the same gearing as it´s sister model, a 125cc). I toyed with the idea of putting a bigger front cog on BUT that would have made 1st gear too tall, sometimes deep sand or gravel or off-road riding really needed that 1st gear - exactly as it was.... It was great for climbing though, it lugged me and all my stuff up to 5000m ! it would climb happily in 4th gear all day at about 40kph.
A 200cc or 250cc enduro would have been a better bet. However much more difficult to strap a large backpack to the back of an enduro, with their narrow saddles. I´ve complained at various times that my bike was "made of cheese", some of the metal fittings were made of alloy metals that were too soft. I looked at the cheap Chinese enduros and most of them seemed a hell of a lot worse than mine ! some were made of Brie ! (with the exception of a "Kyngo" 200cc enduro I saw in Bolivia, and a "Euromot" 200cc enduro I saw in Chile). A Honda 250cc would have been ideal, but next to impossible to find second hand IN Columbia / Ecuador / Peru or Bolivia, and probitively expensive new, so what do you do ?
This bike was alergic to petrol ! One day I got 282km (175 miles) to one gallon !!, admitedly it was a flattish day, and the wind was behind me, but even so !! In normal conditions I got about 190 - 210 km per gallon. In adverse conditions, lots of climbing, headwinds, I got about 140km to the gallon. So the effective range of the bike was 400km. At the start I thought I had a 3 gallon tank, and worked with this figure for weeks until I happened to notice that the tank was 2 gallons !! which made my hair "stand on end" as it must have very close at times....400 - 500km is a lot better range than some big pricey bikes. In rural Bolivia the petrol was sometimes just 80 octane and it appeared to make no difference...some sophisticated fuel injected bikes would have been coughing and spluttering on that stuff.
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| "Tyre levers" (rebar) nicely tucked out of the way... |
Right: After the "hostel incident" in La Paz the luggage rack weld broke more than once. Surprisingly my "bodge" with cord worked out OK, all the way to the end.
Mistakes with the route
Ah ! the benefit of hindsight ! With an enduro I would have definitely travelled down the "Carretera Austral" in Chile !! Recommended by everyone !! However, it has a lot of ripio, so no good for my bike, especially when loaded up. Also I would have ridden from Southern Bolivia into North Argentina and onto Ruta 40, instead of going all the way down the Atacama in Chile. I enjoyed the Atacama, BUT, 2000km of it from Arica to Santiago was just too much, also, I missed out on Mendoza and Puno, in Argentina. I have the Potosi strikers to thank for this diversion, but I may have made it myself anyway, put off by the poor gravel roads in Bolivia, South of La Paz.
Clotheing
I never had proper motorcycle clotheing, I was too much of a "cheap skate" from the beginning. And at the beginning I got away with it, Peru / Bolivia were not too cold, except at altitude. South of Santiago I started to suffer ! As I got deeper into Patagonia in early October (equiv April N.Hemisphere) I really did suffer, even with 6 layers on under my ski jacket ! and 3 layers under my jeans. There is no substitute for waterproof, purpose made, motorcycle clotheing ! However, in Lima, I just could not find any ! No-one there uses it, no-one has a bike bigger than 200cc. I did find an Italian shop selling imported bike racing leathers, their leather suit was more than my bike cost, about $800 !! I could not bring myself to buy it, but I should have done.
Small Motorcycle Touring
Is just like yachting !! I found myself religiously following the wisdom of internet weather forcasts. A head wind would completely ruin my day !! a following wind seemed to be gift ! Everything has to be precisely packed and you have to know exactly where it is !! You have to leave things at the top of the pack that you are likely to need during the day, including drinks and food. You need to pack up according to whether it´s likely to rain or not, and so on......I would not have thought previously that they were remotely similar activities.
Timing
I wanted to be in Ushuaia for the last week in November as I´d been told that that was the best time for "last minute deals" on cruises to Antarctica. I´d given myself some leeway with time and I ended up getting into Ushuaia on the 3rd November, 2 weeks early. As I´d wanted to do 3 weeks trekking before getting to Ushuaia, I ended up arriving in Southern Patagonia in the first week of October. This was too soon !! It was just too cold and too windy !! Summer had not started yet. I should have planned to arrive a bit later. The temperature only started to go up and become "Summery" in the last week of November.
And so, I think, I´ve proved it is possible to be a Backpacker Biker. That is, backpack to a country, buy a motorbike with all the necessary accessories, undertake a substantial multi-country trip, and at the end, sell the lot ! Perhaps I was lucky, but going from a relatively poor country (Peru) to a relatively rich one (Argentina) ended up to my advantage. The bike was $672 brand new, I sold it later for $340, the trip did not cost me that much, I might have even saved money (on all those bus fares !!).
If you try a similar trip yourself, bien viaje !!
