Mexican Border to Canada: Part II
For my retirement from university in 2019, I gifted myself a new BMW GS motorcycle and rode from Sacramento to the Mexico-US Border and back up again, along Highway 1 on the Pacific Coast Highway. Eventually, I rode all the way up to Oregon, Washington and Canada and back home to Sausalito and Stockton for a total of over 4,000 miles.
I've been riding motorcycles since I was eleven years old—mostly dirt bikes, the famous and very popular Honda 50s and Honda 90 as well as Honda 250. I rode them all over the many hills and backroads of southern Guam in the Pacific islands. Then, as an undergraduate, I rode a Kawasaki KZ 400 in Seattle, Washington. As a doctoral student at Berkeley, I rode another motorcycle, a Kawasaki GPz 550 with a beautiful three-quarter faring. One week after I bought the GPz550, I rode from San Francisco up Highway 1 and 101 to the Oregon Coast, up I-5 in Washington, all the way up to Seattle, and then I crossed into Canada. I had on a new Shoei full-face helmet, a used motorcycle leather jacket, and strapped to my passenger seat were a duffle bag that had a full rain suit (high viz yellow!), a sleeping bag for warmth, extra cold weather clothes and toiletries, and some food and water. My tank bag had a set of road maps (remember those?), and my backpack held more gear. On my first day of riding, I rode 500 miles continuously up the Pacific Coast.
Thirty years later, with a BMW GS, I am lucky to recreate a motorcycle journey that I took in my youth. I hope that there will be many more long-distance journeys on the BMW GS motorcycles in the future.
This time in 2019, I am on a BMW GS motorcycle that has GPS and waterproof luggage and top case. Also, with a cell phone, I am in constant communication with my wife and family. For extreme emergencies and where there is no cell phone signal, I carry a Garmin inReach 2-way satellite communicator (email for regular non-emergencies and SOS/SAR emergencies), which also has GPS. Although I am now older and my reflexes are slower, I am a much more skilled and knowledgeable rider. I am now more prepared than I was when I was younger, and I have more financial means.
These are the photos from Part 2 of my 2019 summer journey from the Mexican border town of Campo, California, to Canada.
*Update: The story of my Mexican-border to Canada motorcycle trip was published in POSITIVELY FILIPINO, an online magazine for global Filipinos in the diaspora:
http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/reflections-of-a-long-distance-motorcyclist
For my retirement from university in 2019, I gifted myself a new BMW GS motorcycle and rode from Sacramento to the Mexico-US Border and back up again, along Highway 1 on the Pacific Coast Highway. Eventually, I rode all the way up to Oregon, Washington and Canada and back home to Sausalito and Stockton for a total of over 4,000 miles.
I've been riding motorcycles since I was eleven years old—mostly dirt bikes, the famous and very popular Honda 50s and Honda 90 as well as Honda 250. I rode them all over the many hills and backroads of southern Guam in the Pacific islands. Then, as an undergraduate, I rode a Kawasaki KZ 400 in Seattle, Washington. As a doctoral student at Berkeley, I rode another motorcycle, a Kawasaki GPz 550 with a beautiful three-quarter faring. One week after I bought the GPz550, I rode from San Francisco up Highway 1 and 101 to the Oregon Coast, up I-5 in Washington, all the way up to Seattle, and then I crossed into Canada. I had on a new Shoei full-face helmet, a used motorcycle leather jacket, and strapped to my passenger seat were a duffle bag that had a full rain suit (high viz yellow!), a sleeping bag for warmth, extra cold weather clothes and toiletries, and some food and water. My tank bag had a set of road maps (remember those?), and my backpack held more gear. On my first day of riding, I rode 500 miles continuously up the Pacific Coast.
Thirty years later, with a BMW GS, I am lucky to recreate a motorcycle journey that I took in my youth. I hope that there will be many more long-distance journeys on the BMW GS motorcycles in the future.
This time in 2019, I am on a BMW GS motorcycle that has GPS and waterproof luggage and top case. Also, with a cell phone, I am in constant communication with my wife and family. For extreme emergencies and where there is no cell phone signal, I carry a Garmin inReach 2-way satellite communicator (email for regular non-emergencies and SOS/SAR emergencies), which also has GPS. Although I am now older and my reflexes are slower, I am a much more skilled and knowledgeable rider. I am now more prepared than I was when I was younger, and I have more financial means.
These are the photos from Part 2 of my 2019 summer journey from the Mexican border town of Campo, California, to Canada.
*Update: The story of my Mexican-border to Canada motorcycle trip was published in POSITIVELY FILIPINO, an online magazine for global Filipinos in the diaspora:
http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/reflections-of-a-long-distance-motorcyclist