In The Beginning...

During the summer of 2007, I visited the Glen Curtiss Museum in Hamondsport, New York, where they had a rare and very interesting display of antique motorcycles from the beginning of the last century.

Glen Curtiss is probably best known for his work in aviation, and I'd be willing to bet that not many people are aware of Glen's passion for the combination of motorcycles and speed. The pictures above give a glimpse into Curtiss' gift for designing and building motorcycles and engines.

I've put together an Album of a few of the motorcycles that were on display last year, and you can see them all right here: http://picasaweb.google.com/TheBMWrider/CURTISSMUSEUM?authkey=4uJ5vpkB8Lo# Click on the "Slide Show" tab just above and left of the pictures.

Enjoy!

.....Worth A Thousand Words

As I mentioned before, I just bought a new Nikon D300 digital camera to take on next years motorcycle trip to southern South America. This camera is like the Rolls Royce of cameras. Now that I've had a little time to play with it, I thought I'd let you see what it can do. You need a PHD to learn all its capabilities. This camera is a true professional digital SLR. That's my cats eye in the top picture and my house at the bottom. This camera has so many features and menus that I'm sure I will never use them all, but the camera can also be used in the "Auto" mode and it does a spectacular job of taking great pictures. This is truly a "Smart Camera". A new feature that has not been seen on this type of camera before is something they call "Live View". Up 'til now it has only been used on consumer cameras. This is where you look thru the screen on the rear of the camera to frame your live shot. This camera has a very large three inch, high definition screen on the back, with no less than 920 thousand pixels, and since the camera has 12.3 Mega Pixels, the large screen makes it easy to see if your picture is in perfect focus. I can't wait to take pictures with this camera in southern Chile and Argentina's Tierra Del Fuego next year.

Off To New Hampshire

Morning Fog
Vermont Covered Bridge

1930's Ford Model "A"s

At the moment I am in New London, New Hampshire, on my way to listen to a talk given by Glen Heggstad, AKA "The Stiking Viking". http://www.strikingviking.net/ Glen will be at MAX BMW in North Hampton, New Hampshire on Saturday Sept. 20, 2008 to talk about his adventures and misadventures while riding solo around the world.

In late 2001, Glen started out on a solo motorcycle trip from his home in California with the intention of reaching the southern tip of South America. After reaching Panama, Glen had his bike flown from Panama to Bogota, Colombia. (there is no road between Panama and Colombia) Four days later, Glen started out on a ride from Bogota to the city of Medellin. Six hours into the trip, he says, guerrillas wearing ski masks and carrying AK-47 rifles blocked his path, seized his motorcycle and motioned for him to accompany them into the mountains.

Heggstad says he tried to resist, shouting at the rebels in his limited Spanish, but complied after one guerrilla pulled out a pistol and fired a warning round.
The rebels led the American and several other hostages snared at the roadblock into the mountains of western Antioquia state.
While being led down a steep path from the road, Heggstad remembers seeing cars' lights fading in the distance and wondering whether he would ever come out. "It was a terrible feeling," he says.
Heggstad says that during his captivity, he befriended some rebels -- mostly teenage boys and girls -- debated politics with them, taught them judo flips and Thai boxing moves, and even hugged some goodbye when he was finally turned over to the Red Cross on Saturday.
But he also described terrifying experiences. One surly rebel would periodically lead him into the woods and click the safety off his gun, Heggstad said, leading him to fear he was going to be killed.
Heggstad estimates he hiked at least 100 miles through steep and slippery terrain. Constant rain left him cold and soggy at night. He slept in the open or in crude huts.
Why Heggstad was freed is unclear. He says no ransom was paid. The rebels, who are seeking international support for peace talks with the government, may have released him as a political gesture to strengthen their case.
After Heggstad was freed, FBI agents flew to Medellin and returned him to Bogota, where he was issued a new U.S. passport.

If I had to guess, Glen has quite a few stories to tell.

An Afternoon With "The Striking Viking"

Glen Heggstad "The Striking Viking"

Who Said "There's No Free Lunch"?

He Loves The Ladies

MAX BMW in New Hamshire

A Very Nice Turnout

Today turned out to be a very nice day to take a bike ride, and many did so, to MAX BMW in North Hampton, New Hamshire. MAX BMW invited all interested to come and listen to a very, very interesting talk and slide presentation by Glen Heggstad the self proclaimed "Striking Viking". MAX BMW also provided the free lunch. If you read the entry below, you'll learn that the event that put Glen on the map, so to speak, was his capture in 2001 by Colombian Rebels while Glen was on a solo trip thru South America. Well, that is only part of the story. Glen has been to just about every point on the planet on his motorcycle, and has had more experiences than anyone could expect to have in one lifetime. One thing that Glen said, in his talk,that stood out, was that everywhere he went he was greeted with open arms. OK, maybe not in Colombia! But everyone he met on his long journey was very interested in him and his trip, and would often invite him to have a meal or stay in their homes. Glen said something that I think is very true, "Allover the world, people are the same. They all want the same things, and it's not the people that can't get along, it's the governments" He was welcomed everywhere he went. Glen's presentation was eye opening look at the real world. If you are interested in finding out more about Glen's travels, you can go to his Web site: http://www.strikingviking.net/ where you can buy his latest book and DVD's.

Back From The Fingerlakes BMW Rally

Every year, on Labor Day weekend, the Fingerlakes BMW Riders Club, has it's annual rally, and this year was no exception. The weather started out a bit iffy on Friday, but improved as the weekend progressed. A bunch of us from the Western New York BMW Riders Club, went down and set up camp for the weekend in our usual location at Watkind Glen State Park, and proceeded to have a great time, as usual. There where all kinds of BMW's from all over.


On Saturday, a group of us headed to the Keuka Lake area to visit some of the local wineries and do a little wine tasting. The ride to Hamondsport was just beautiful, warm and sunny. We had a great time at the wineries, and most of us came back with a bottle of wine or two. More pictures here.

The S.P.O.T. Personal Emergency Locator

Test Track

S.P.O.T. Personal Locator

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I will be taking the S.P.O.T. Personal Emergency Locator with me to South America in January. I now have the unit, and have had a little time to try it out to see how it performs. I received the unit when I was in Oshkosh, Wisconsin at the EAA Airshow. On my return trip, I set the unit to the "Track" mode when I left Oshkosh, and headed to the Mississippi River. I left the unit running most of the time until I reached Cleveland, Ohio. As you can see from the composit picture above, the unit worked as advertised, saving my location every ten minutes, and if you look at the location of Oshkosh, you will note that the unit also sent an "I'm OK" message home, as well. (green OK logo)

The software to manage the messages is all Web Based, and it is not the most user friendly software around. There may be a learning curve here, if any of you want to use it to keep track of my progress on next years motorcycle trip to the southern end of South America. If you are interested in using it to follow me down, send me an email to rguzman@rochester.rr.com , in advance, and we will practice with the software together.

What A Beautiful Day For A Ride

Finally!!!! Mike gets his long awaited "Peach Shortcake"

The Whole Group: from left to right, Me and Sharon, Howard (AKA Harold) Joe, Rick, Paula, Mike, Penny and Don

Howie and Joe came over to the house early this afternoon and sat out on the deck until Mike and Paula and Rick arrived, we then rode over to Don and Penny's house in Medina. Leaving Don and Penny's, the whole group headed to a near by ice cream stand where Mike, after waiting seven years, finally got to taste the "Peach Short Cake" that he waited so long for. It seems Don had mentioned to mike how good the Peach Short Cake was at this place, but never invited Mike out to try it. Well, today it finally happened. Mike got his Peach Short Cake, and I must say, it was very good.

After the stop at the ice cream stand, we all mounted up and took a very nice ride down the back roads to Batavia to see the big muscle car show. Batavia closed down Main Street and lined it with some of the nicest cars around.

After a great afternoon at the car show, we all headed over to the Log Cabin Restaurant on Route 77 for a great meal. A fitting end to a great afternoon of riding.

Day 3: Off To The Mississippi River

Entering Minnesota

Entering Iowa

The Mississippi River

Lock and Dam on the Mississippi River


On Wednesday I decided to head west into Minnesota and Iowa, two states that I had not bin to by motorcycle. I packed up the camper an headed toward the Mississippi River. My plan was to cross the Mississippi at La Crosse, Wisconsin and then head south along the rivers west side. Well, just my luck, I stopped at the No. 7 Dam and Lock and was told that route 16 south along the west side of the River was closed due to a train derailment and a spill of Methanol. Now I had to re-route and got to see a lot more of Minnesota than I had planned. Then once I made my way into Iowa, I found that Route 76 South was closed due to resurfacing. Now I had to re-route and got to see a lot more of Iowa than I had planned. I finally made my way to Route 80 East and started for home.


On Thursday, I was about two miles from the New York State border when a tire on the trailer blew. It was about 4:30pm, and I had to hustle to find a replacement tire, which I did find. When I returned to the location where I had left the trailer, I called AAA to get someone to come and change the tire since I didn't have tools large enough to remove the lug nuts. I was shocked when the person from AAA told me they would not help me, because although I have the "Premium Plan", I did not have "RV" coverage. I was livid when I realised that AAA would be so petty, and had the nerve to leave me stranded far from home with a broken down vehicle. Needless to say, I gave AAA a piece of my mind and then hung up the phone. By a pure stroke of luck, just about the time I started to figure out how I was going to change the tire without tools, a gentleman in a pickup truck came by and asked if I could use a wrench to change the tire. Thanks to the gentleman in the pickup truck, I was able to change the tire in less than five minuter and get back on the road. I arrived home at about 9:00pm about three hours later than scheduled. I want to give a VERY BIG THANK YOU! to the gentleman that offered to help me.



More pictures of AirVenture can be seen at "My Picture Album", area on the right side of this page.

Day 2 at AirVenture

AirVenture opened to a first day attendance of over 200,000. The weather could not have been better, it was warm and sunny all day and not a cloud in the sky, perfect for an airshow. This guy tried all day to get this thing off the ground, but never succeeded. The craft below had better luck.

The huge converted Boeing 747 called the “Dream Lifter” arrived late Monday afternoon for a 24 hour appearance. The Dream Lifter is a converted Boeing 747-400 designed to transport major assemblies of the “Boeing 787 Dream Liner”, the next generation “Jumbo Jet”. The Dream Lifter can hold more cargo than any other plane in the world.

Mr. Jack Roush owner of Roush Racing as well as Roush Performance Products. A racing legend.

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Another happening today was the appearance of race car building legend Jack Roush owner of Roush Racing. Mr. Roush, a former Ford engineer, established Roush Performance Products in 1988 http://www.roushperformance.com/. The company produced after market performance products mainly for Ford Mustangs. Mr. Roush spent some time signing autographs and having pictures taken with many of the AirVenture goers. Like me :-)

Update From Oshkosh

Well, the start of the trip was delayed by one day due to the deluge last Thursday, but I got away early on Friday and headed up to Toronto and made it all the way to Sault Sainte Marie the first day. I crossed back into the USA late Friday evening and found a motel since it was raining quite steady. The ride up 'til then had been very nice. The weather all up thru Canada was sunny most of the time. I arrived at Oshkosh at 3:oopm on Saturday and got registered for AirVenture and then went and picked out my camping site. As you see from the picture, I am updating this blog from inside the camper trailer, thanks to the people at EAA for providing the FREE WiFi in all of the campground. That's a BIG area! But it works very well.
Things in the display area of AirVenture are proceeding at a feverish pace. All the vendors are working hard to get their displays up before the opening bell in the morning.
I understand that Harrison Ford and John Travolta will be here this year as masters of ceremonies at "Theatre In The Woods". Both Harrison Ford and John Travolta are very experienced pilots. I hope Captain Travolta flies in on his Boeing 707!
More later.

Volcanoes In Southern Chile

This astonishing picture shows the Chaiten volcano erupting in the middle of the night during an electrical storm. (May 2008)

The volcano triggered earth tremors, and shot an ash cloud two miles into the sky.

Here, the ash plume reaches all the way east to the Atlantic Ocean, crossing the entire continent of South America.

That is not snow behind these residents of the town of Chaiten, Chile. It is ash from the volcano that has blanketed everything in the region.

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In Chile, volcanoes are pretty much a fact of life, but this year they are making their presence felt in a big way. Chile has some 2000 volcanoes of which a large number of them are considered "active". Last year the Llaima volcano suddenly sprang to life and started to spew lava and ash into the sky, threatening nearby communities and generally disrupting normal life in the surrounding area. Llaima volcano is plainly visible from the front door of my Aunt's ranch in southern Chile's Lake Region. This year the volcano has again erupted threatening the area.

The pictures above are from the volcano near the southern town of Chaiten about a day's drive farther south from the Ranch. The Chaiten volcano suddenly erupted back on May 2, 2008. The last time this volcano erupted was back around 7400BC! It has since devastated the entire region and continues to do so keeping all the inhabitants of the town of Chaiten away from their homes for months since the Chilean government imposed a mandatory evacuation of the area. Some very good information on the Chaiten volcano and the surrounding area is available here: http://geology.com/events/chaiten-volcano/

I will be riding my motorcycle to the southern tip of South America this coming January and February (2009), and I will have to pass thru the area of the Chaiten volcano, or as close as the authorities will let me. I am very interested to see just how much impact the ash cloud has had on the area. This past February (2008) I was in the area surrounding the Llaima volcano and police and military had all roads leading to the base of the volcano blocked to all. I wanted to go to the Conguillio National Park, but was stopped about five miles from the area due to the activity of the Llaima volcano. We'll see what happens this year.

Dakar Rally 2009 To Be Held In Chile And Argentina

The Paris to Dakar Rally http://www.dakar.com/index_DAKus.html that has historically been held in Africa and Europe, will be held in the South American countries of Chile and Argentina. The reason for the change is due to security concerns after the death of four French tourists last year in Mauritius. Since I will be in Chile for the entire race, I will try to report on what I see, so keep watching this space.
Here is what Reuters had to report:

SANTIAGO, July 17 (Reuters) - Preparations for next year's Dakar rally in South America, staged for the first time outside Africa due to security concerns, are on schedule, deputy secretary of Chile Sports Jaime Pizarro said on Thursday..
"Preparations are progressing as planned," Pizarro told Reuters.
The 6,000 kms coast-to-coast race will begin and end in Buenos Aires with the Chilean port city of Valparaiso at the midpoint.
Organisers decided to move the event to South America after receiving what they believed to be terror threats and also the deaths of four French tourists in Mauritius in January.
Some 570 vehicles and 950 participants from 50 nations will drive along the route beginning on Jan. 3 and ending on Jan. 18. (Reporting by Claudio Cerda, writing by Lisa Yulkowski; Editing by John Mehaffey)

Annual Trip To EAA Airventue coming up

Time is getting short, and soon I will be pointing my K1200LT toward Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the largest Air Show in the USA. The week long event brings together thousands of people with thousands of aircraft of all kinds. From the smallest to the largest and everything in between.

The yearly event is held at the Whitman Regional Airport, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Whitman Regional Airport is the home of the Experimental Aircraft Association, and AirVenture is their largest yearly event. During the week long event, the control tower at Whitman Regional boasts "The Worlds Busiest Control Tower". If you go to AirVenture, don't forget to visit the excellent Aircraft Museum on the airport grounds as well as the Pioneer Airport. There is also a float plane base on nearby Lake Winnebago. If you enjoy camping, then the only place to stay is Camp Scholler, which is right on the airport grounds. The campground has just about every thing you could possibly need, from clean showers to a camp stores. This event is VERY well run! The event runs from July 28th to August 3rd. More info here: http://www.airventure.org/

This year I plan to take the same scenic route I took last year. Up to Toronto, Canada, then north toward Perry Sound, and probably find a campground there for the night. The following day, I will keep heading north toward the northern end of Georgian Bay. Last year I made it to Newberry, Michigan on the second day after crossing the border back into the United States at Sault Sainte Marie. The third day should find me going thru Green Bay, Wisconsin and finally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It's a beautiful ride.

A Great Excuse For A Bike Ride...as if I needed one

A great night for a ride! At the last moment I found out that there was a car show and chicken barbecue at the Orleans County Marine Park not far home. So, Sharon and I jumped on the bike and headed to the show. There was a very nice turn out and some beautiful cars to boot. It was a beautiful evening to take a ride along the shore of Lake Ontario.

See more pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/TheBMWrider/CARSHOW