March 9, 2016
Now that I am in Buenos Aires I have essentially completed the North, Central, and South America leg of my journey. In the future I will likely return to South America to continue to explore areas that I missed this time around. It’s a big continent, and I could easily spend a year here. Perhaps on Lap 2…
So here are some basic numbers:
- 235 days on the road (115 days on the bike; 120 days off the bike)
- 29,756 kilometers (18,490 miles)
- 278 gallons of gasoline
- 45 nights spent camping
- 14 countries
- 38 individual trips through immigration (and another 38 trips through Aduana or Customs)
- 7 oil changes
- 4 sets of tires
- 3 sets of brake pads
- 1 set of chain and sprockets
- 2 crashes
- 1 tip-over
- 1 bike “cannonball” off a worklift
- 1 broken pannier rack (re-welded)
- 0 flat tires
Aside from some dirty fuel in Argentina, and a leaking fork seal, I’ve had no problems with the bike.
66 miles per gallon–awesome! How’s your foot?
MPG is another positive side of the small bike concept. The Super Tenere gets around 40-42 mpg (45mpg if I leave it alone and ride sensibly). An extra 50% helps the budget in the long run.
Ankle is definitely getting better. Won’t be running any marathons any time soon, but I’m limping less and less and thinking about it less as well. Thanks for asking.
Is Yamaha sponsoring you? They should be.
I am thankful to them for allowing me to do this trip and providing me a discount on some parts as a long-time employee. In some odd way, I suppose they sponsored me by providing me a paycheck for a long time and then supporting my desire to do this trip rather than making it difficult when I decided to leave the company to pursue this dream.
Aside from that, I don’t believe they are much interested in sponsoring my trip as I am riding a bike that is seen by most as not suitable for this type of trip (at least that isn’t the intended market of the bike), even though I have had many responses from people who are either preparing to do what I am doing on the same model, or have already begun a long trip on an XT250.
Great summation – thank you. Amazed – no flat tires.
Like Madeleine is preparing on da xt250, where did u meet this amazing lady, and u know of her encounter with Ewan magregor ? So u goin to South Africa after all or Europe ?
Madeleine found my blog through a friend of hers, I think. Yes, she’s quite impressive. Not just an XT250 rider; she has a Triumph and a Ducati (and more). Very knowledgeable and lots of experience, having done North and Central America already. The Ewan MacGregor story is a good one…he told it well on the Tonight Show, if you saw that clip.
I am headed for South Africa Thursday; the bike goes to the airport tomorrow.
Pat, I have a question about riding comfort. Did you have a custom seat made for the trip, or are you using the stock seat. On a bike of that size, isn’t the seat pretty narrow?
You’re absolutely right Mike: the stock seat is very narrow and square-edged, and not very comfortable for any distance. I tried two different seats before I left: I had a custom seat made by a seat manufacturer that is one inch wider and one inch taller. I rode it to Mexico and back last year, and it was better, but still not perfect. Then I bought a Seat Concepts seat kit (foam and cover) which is one inch wider but actually flatter than the stock seat. It is amazingly comfortable. Hard to believe for a small motorcycle.
Interesting how the city appears consistently broken up into similar size “blocks” from the sat view. But those blocks look huge and a lot going in inside each one.
I think Yamaha ought to use you for a commercial. Right market or not. Show worldwide support and availability, reliability of the bike.
Buenos Aires is a beautiful, and huge city. I’ve been spending the last few days prepping the bike (more to come), but just finished up, so I’m planning to do some sight-seeing the next few days. The area where I’m staying — Palermo — is loaded with sidewalk cafes and tree-lined streets.
I agree with you: I think there’s a very positive message about Yamaha’s reliability to be made using my trip. Hopefully something like that will happen when it’s all over.