Mish and David

If you follow this blog then you'll get to know Mish and David, my traveling companions for the first leg of Chile and Argentina. Both are extraordinary men with extraordinary wives, familly, and friends. And both will have their most embarasing moments in South America exposed on this blog for our benefit.  

The three of us all have the same make and model motorcycle but with various age and appearance. My bike is the newest and best looking, and is therefore the most likely to be stolen. I'm sure Mish and David are happy about this but they don't know I'm planning to rub dirt and mud all over it after I get it through customs in Chile. A disturbing thought to Harley riders I'm sure.

Mish's shop/garage is in the video below. We used David's shop as well but I didn't get any photo's of work taking place. This is where dreams are transformed into reality.

The Bikes were taken to Interglobal Logistics on December 27th. We had them loaded in boxes ready to be loaded into a cargo container and shipped to Valaparaiso, a port town West of Santiago. Gabriel owns and runs the operation with his wife. They came from Chile and started with nothing. Now when they're not shipping motorcycles to Chile, it seems like they're shipping everything to every part of the world.

On one visit to his office in Hayward we met an American/German who earns a living by shipping old Porches back to Germany; apparantly the German tax structure makes this a better deal than buying in Europe. On another

 visit a group of boisterous Nigerians were shipping Cars and house hold goods to Africa. Apparently they where at risk of overloading the containers weigh limit.

Gabriel ships food, CNC machines, rolls royces, etc. A walk through his warehouse is impressive.

The Bike

The bike in the photos is a Kawasaki KLR. A simple dual sport bike with a single cylinder 650 cc engine. It weighs around 350 lbs. Quite a contrast vs. the 500 lb Honda I rode through Central America in 2001. The bike is currently without a name.

It was purchased used from the 2nd owner with 1,700 miles on the odometer and sexy decals on the fairing and tank. The logo is for a women's leather motorcycle clothing business named GoAnimoto that was owned by the seller. She put about 1,695 miles on the bike.

The original owner purchased the bike with his brother, thinking that they would get a great price if they purchased two of them at the same time. The only problem is that they were so drunk that they didn't remember making the purchase. The next morning a Kawasaki dealership truck with the KLR in the bed pulled up to the mans house for delivery. He was surprised to learn why the truck was there; his wife was even more surprised. He was instructed to return the bike ASAP without putting a single mile on the odometer. The technical term for this is a U-turn motorcycle.