World Record Rides

Preparations

For an endurance ride like this, planning is everything! We go by the old cliché,

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance!

Preparing for an event such as this takes many months (sometimes years) of planning. Unlike just packing up with your bike for exotic travel for a year or so, a specific event needs considerably more planning up front to ensure no problems en route. We don't have the luxury of being able to sit in a small Bolivian town for two weeks, waiting for a starter motor to turn up – that happened to us back in 1999 to our old R80GS!

In order for us to make our rigorous schedule, we have to ensure that any potential problems or things that we have to tackle during the journey already have a contingency plan in place, and that anything that can feasibly be done before we set off is also in place. Our previous Guinness Round the World and other overland rides give us plenty of experience to draw on. Good sources of information for research are the international motorcycle website, Horizons Unlimited, Embassies, the British FCO, Lonely Planet and the RAC.

Route Planning

We have to start in Prudhoe Bay and finish in Ushuaia. In between, we have to fly from Panama to South America. Other than that, what happens as far as where and when we ride is up to us. Planning the route is an important factor for success in the record.

Bike Fit

You can't just get on a bike and ride 1,000 miles in a day without some training and planning (and if you can, you probably can't do it again the next day!) We have to get bike fit to spend 18 hours a day in the saddle. We do this by:

Documents

Ensuring that all the rights bits of paper are in place before you set off and all the information you need is at your fingertips is no mean feat. The following shows some of the items that have to be thought about and prepared in advance.