Trans Americas 2009 - The Blog

With another enforced rest-day ahead, as our bikes were in the garage being attended to, I took the opportunity to spend the morning resting before heading back to the dealership early in the afternoon to prepare for our fifteen seconds of fame...

When we got there, Nick's bike had replaced the brand-new R1200GS that stood proudly on display outside, and the showroom was in the process of being transformed. Several of the posh cars had been moved outside, and our dirty tatty-looking bikes had been given pride of place, lined up along the window and in front of the offices. There were people putting row upon row of chairs in lines in front of a big projector and screen, and a guy testing the microphone and sound system... they weren't going to do this by halves...








Whilst we were waiting for the show to begin, I went and collected the new gloves they'd found for me, then paid my bill. It was then I discovered that they'd not managed to change the drive shaft oil seal, as they needed a special tool that had been at another dealers. But they were shipping the tool to the dealer in Medellin where we were to have our tyres changed, and would do it there. With the bill settled we hung around, whilst the showroom went about the business of trying to sell cars to some very sophisticated looking Columbians, some of whom seemed more interested in looking at these muck-splattered motorcycles... then it was show-time...

Bernardo, the head-honcho of the dealership started proceedings by introducing Kevin and Julia, who then went on in part-Spanish, part-English, to explain their history and how they came to be running GlobeBusters. The presentation then moved on to the Trans-Am 2009 trip, and Kevin invited Max to talk a little about his experiences, which he did, in Spanish, the sod. Then it was Aaron's turn, our only American riding a BMW talking about how he chose the F800GS and how Columbia was special to him as he lives in Florida where he knows many Columbians who have been raving about their country. After a bit more chat from Kevin, during which he introduced Gerald explaining that he's the oldest guy on the trip (he's 65) and he was raising money for charity. He also warned the audience that they wouldn't understand him because none of us could, his Devon accent being quite thick... Then I got up to say a few words about how we'd got time to do this sort of trip, as most Columbians can't grasp how we can take time away from family and work to just swan about on bikes for 6 months. Finally, Kevin got Richard to say a few words before he showed a preview video for the forthcoming London-Bejing trip, which is adventure motorcycling at its most extreme, going all the way to Everest base camp in Tibet... The audience seemed to enjoy the talk, and afterwards a few of them came and asked us some questions, chatting quite happily to us in perfect English, so perhaps they had understood a little of what we were waffling on about...





With the show over, we rode our bikes out of the dealership and back to the hotel, finding our way in the dark night, the traffic thankfully much lighter than it had been when we rode there. With them safely parked in the underground car-park of the hotel, we headed off out to a local Brazilian restaurant for some food. This being a Brazilian barbecue place, the food consisted of 16 different cuts of meat – beef, pork, lamb, chicken, buffalo, chorizo sausage – all cooked over hot coals and brought to the table on big skewers, one lump after another until we were completely stuffed. We did have some healthy salad from the salad bar too, so it wasn't all a meat-fest... it was rather good, though...