Monday, September 12, 2011

Trip to Pouso Alegre, Minas Gerais Brasil

This last saturday I took my first motorcycle trip in Brasil outside the state of Sao Paulo and it was great. People constantly told me that the road in Sao Paulo State are good but in other states they aren't but let me tell you the road from SP to Pouso Alegre is awesome. Not only is it a good road but it has a lot of fast curves where you are leaning a lot but it is wide enough to see through it. I really practiced my cornering skills on it. Me and my riding buddy Robert took the following route.



Pouso Alegre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pouso_Alegre is a medium size city for Brasil standards. Not that much to do but the ride up there and back makes it totally worth it. Here are some pictures from sunday morning when we were leaving. It was forecasted to rain and I have my full rain gear on but thankfully it stopped immediately after we started riding back.






The ride back was uneventful except for a crazy guy in a Silver Citroen trying to run Robert off the road. Robert ended up flipping him off and I think even contemplated chasing him but in the end wisely decided against it. In a fight between car and motorcycle, car always wins! Anyway, thats it for now.

p.s. IMPORTANT UPDATE. V-Man got his Motorcycle license on friday. Guess the flight across the Atlantic paid off.  Game On! 

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

My Motorcycles (so far)


My first motorcycle was a Honda Shadow 600. I bought this in Houston in 2002 I think and my younger brother Fawad also bought a bike at the same time. His passion for bikes didn't last past a few months into his marriage (Thanks Arooj, Not!) Here's me and Amina.




I sold my this bike when I moved from LA to NYC in June 2005. There I took a temporary break from riding and having a bike until April 2008 when I bought Honda Shadow 750. A classic looking bike. Here Brent is riding it on our trip to Vermont.



However, once Vishal and I got serious about riding, it was time to get the big boy bikes and I got my first BMW and I ain't going back to any other make. Here is my first BMW that I had in NYC until I moved to Sao Paulo in 2010 when in early 2011 I bought my current bike.






Here is what I am riding and Loving right now.


Where are we Going ?

The idea for a trip across Europe started in 2010 with Vishal moving to London and me to Sao Paulo. I think that was the unfortunate part of our new jobs. Our riding days together were over. Atleast for a little while. We decided to plan a trip in Europe and initially thought about may but Vishal had a problem (a common recurring theme) His brother decided to get married. I don't understand two kinds of people, one who gets married during college football season and the other when someone is about to make a major trip. Anyway, our revised dates were in late Sept 2011. Then another complication arose, apparently V man didn't have an actual motorcycle license. His US license expired and he had still to get a UK license. No problems right ? Wrong!! He managed to flunk his exam twice!!! As of today he is getting ready to fly to USA to renew his license there. That's what I call a can do attitude or one expensive driving license. By the way here is me and Vishal on one our trips from NYC to Vermont.

Anyway our trip is planned as long as he gets his license and if he doesn't.. Let's not go there.  Here is our planned itenirary.

Sept 22nd - Leave Sao Paulo for London (by air in case you were wondering)
Sept 24th - Leave London for Calais France via Eurotunnel

http://www.eurotunnel.com/uk/home/

Sept 24th - Spend the night in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Châlons-en-Champagne
Sept 25th - Arrive in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andermatt
Sept 26-29th- Ride in the alpine roads
Sept 30th - Ride to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reims
Oct 1- Return to London

Here is our planned route to Switzerland and back from Calais France.


Getting Started

So I am not sure where to get started...my inspiration for this blog are the two doucumentaries by Ewan McGregor and his friend Charlie Boorman. The first one is called Long Way Round and the second one is called Long Way Down. Even if you are not a motorcycle rider these two documentaries are an amazing way to see and learn about parts of the world you will probably never go let alone go on a bike.

http://longwayround.com/

Anyway, I have been riding a motorcycle now for a little over 8 years. That may seem like a long time but infact it's nothing when I read about guys riding for 30/40 years traveling over 100,000 miles. Hopefully one day I will be one of those guys.

I started this blog because I am getting ready for my first major motorcycle trip. My friend Vishal and I are getting ready to ride across Europe from London to the Swiss Alps in two weeks. A lot of preparation and planning has gone into this trip and over the next few days I will be documenting that and then of course blog about our actual trip. I hope some of you will follow us along on our trip.

Next post will talk about our pre-trip planning and problems.