Wrecking Crew Diaries

After the raw patches in the seat of our pants finally have stopped vibrating it’s time to look back on the 3.304 miles of the Motorcycle Cannonball Race of the Century that’s just come to a close.
It’s tough enough to go on long runs on rigid choppers, to spend freezing nights in clammy tents, or to go round dirt ovals on rigid trackers testing the limits of their knobby tires. But what our man Paul did on his 100 years old 1915 Harley-Davidson is in a class of its own.

Ideas can have strange effects, especially when conceived while under the influence of rum, Coca-Cola and lime juice. That‘s how the trip got started, helped by generous amounts of cigar smoke and some vintage Cuban records. We were dreaming along the lines of „What, if ...“

The world all of a sudden gets clear and translucent and clean at 40 below. Only your own eyes are foggy with the exhaust of two Harley-Davidsons on the ice road, that on milder days as the Mackenzie River flows peacefully into Beaufort Bay. Up there, in Tuktoyaktuk, North West Territories, Canada.
The following parts are a shot at trying to bring home some of the
feelingS of riding two Harley-Davidsons IN 2008 over ice roads to one of the most northern points on the American continent that can be reached with ROADGOING vehicles. Without getting into a well known situation round here: ”Don’t get stuck in Tuk!“

Doing it can be a lot of things, but it isn’t half as dangerous as some people would like you to believe, given a certain amount of planning and preparation. And it wasn’t the first time, that W&W Cycles went out of everyones way to ride roads no one usually CARES TO CALL ROADS.

The horizon fills with a monumental plume of dust, a flock of Alpacas unblinkingly stare into their impending fate, Armadillos frantically scramble for safety off the road, even the fierce winds that have been punishing the Ruta for days on end seem to hold their breath in awe for a moment. The spectre approaching with the sonorous rumble of big V-twins are of course the 4 Patagonian Riders, on a mission that demands everything from man and machine. The reward however that these four will reap in the end will be worth it. It's the stuff that legends get soldered together with. It's the southernmost beer of the world, Antarctica chilled and served by penguins. Can there be a better reason to hammer down to Ushuaia from Buenos Aires on two rigid framed Knuckleheads, one rigid Panhead and an Evo Sportster? There's nothing that can slow down those 4 tireless riders on their Milwaukee hardware: Even diabolical gravel, hellish crosswinds, devilish potholes, riven gearbox cases, vibrated off stem nuts and overwhelmed drive chains in the end are nothing against the majestical V-twins plowing through epic cinemascope landscapes, the chilled nights and endless asados from South American campfires and the resounding pop of that final, southernmost beer in the world. AAAAAAAAHHH!

What on earth can persuade four grown men to ride their V-twins to a place where for decades gazillions of mosquitos, free range guerilleros, sinister paramilitary, paranoid drug runners and desperate indigenous people have been doing their level best to prevent Panamericana’s last missing miles being built. Some call this white area on the map the ‘Darien Gap‘, to the Four who went there it is the mother of all roads, the Mud of no Return. What they did was to try and to close this last gap in the road connecting the two Americas. They were using Milwaukee machinery, mildly modified using stuff from the W&W Cycles shelves. The ride included police encounters, homicidal truckdrivers, lousy hotel beds, stampeding cockroaches, DIY river crossings, tropical downpours, Panama beer and forcibly removed distributors, and ended – in the mud. Mud beyond all imagination. Mud, so bottomless that only a four wheel driven Big Foot truck could rescue the intrepid riders. A specimen of this mud of muds is still sitting in a climatized W&W safe, a warning to the world that no road is as pitiless as the Mother of all Roads, the Panamericana.

Gasoline is for washing parts; Alcohol is for drinking; Nitro is for RACING!