2003 Trans Americas

With the taste of adventure being well and truly addictive, before we even arrived back at Dover from the 2002 Guinness Record Motorbike Ride, the plan for the next venture had already taken shape. After East to West "Around the World", a perfect follow up is to go North to South, through our favourite continent.

Our second World Record is officially called by Guinness, "The Trans-Americas by Motorcycle". It is the ultimate endurance motorbike ride through North, Central and South America. The journey must start at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, USA, deep in the Artic Circle, and finish in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, the southernmost city in the world. Due to the Darien Gap, the bike is air freighted from Panama City to Caracas, Venezuela.

The Trans Americas route covered almost 27,200 kilometres (17,000 miles) of tough riding, rugged terrains and extreme weather conditions. Our ride ran through Alaska, Canada, USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina down to its province of Tierra del Fuego.

Riding this continent was a ride of extremes; it holds such a wide variety of contrasts in culture, lifestyle, landscape and geography. From the richest and most powerful nation in the world to some of the poorest, the longest mountain chain, the driest desert, the deepest canyons, the tallest waterfall. From ice sheets to tropical rain forest, from towering glass skyscrapers to crumbling shanty towns, from four laned interstate to dirt potholed roads, we rode more than its full length in 35 days. The previous record had stood at 47½ days. We smashed the previous record by over 12 days.

Our rides have also raised money for SOS Children's Villages. With its UK base in Cambridge, our home town, this charity cares for abandoned and orphaned children in over 122 countries world wide. As part of our Trans Americas World Record, we managed to also visit the SOS Childrens Village in Panama, whilst the bike was being air freighted to Caracas.

Interesting facts!

• The cheapest petrol was in Venezuela where it was approximately 6 pence a litre.
• The longest section of riding without sleep was 28 hours, riding from Lethbridge, Canada to Tucson, Arizona, USA and covering around 1,500 miles.
• The most riders joining us for a section of the ride was in Colombia, from Caucasia to Popoyan, and they were mostly BMW GS riders, where we had up to ten bikes making sure we got through the mountain sections safely.
• Kevin did the ride with two pairs of boxers; Julia had three pairs of pants (space was scarce!). We shared deodorant, toothbrush and comb to keep the toilet bag small!
• The closest near miss was on the Mountain of Death, Costa Rica, where we avoided a head-on collision by inches.
• The wildest place was Alaska, with black bears, grizzlies, fox, musk ox, caribou all on the road.
• The longest border problems were in Venezuela where it took over 1½ days to get the bike out of Customs.
• The biggest bribe paid was $100.