Dramatis Personae

  Chicago, Illinois, United States
Wednesday, May 30, 2007

I am not walking to South America, oh no!  Like any good American, I require toys in order to have fun.  Expensive toys.  Expensive toys that make a lot of noise.  Just flying to South America isn't enough.  I require a steed.  In this case my steed is Oleg ('hi Oleg!).

Oleg

Oleg is a very unique motorcycle.  He started life as a 1996 Ural Sportsman.  Urals are sidecar rigs built in Russia and the Sportsman model, only made from 1995-1999, are the only full time 2WD bikes Ural ever made.  This makes this bike the ulitimate go-anywhere bike.  It's great on the highway and a lot of fun off road.  However, Oleg is not just any Ural Sportsman.  In 2005 the previous owner had the bike completely stripped and rebuilt and had a BMW R80/7 engine installed.  The BMW engine give Oleg a bit more power and a helluvalot more reliability.  But wait, that's not all!  This last winter I tore down both the final drive and the transmission, replaced all the crappy Russian bearings with good German ones and had all the gearing cryogenically frozen to toughen them up.  All of this was done to make Oleg one of the most rock-solid Urals out there (which should make him as reliable as a late 80s Harley . . .)

For the trip proper Oleg will be my expensive and loud toy.  However, he is not what I am starting this trip with.  Before I set out for Ushuaia from Austin, TX I first need to get to Oswego, NY for my Renassance Faire gig and then from there down to Austin.  I thought about doing all of this on Oleg but, instead, I will load Oleg onto Sancho Panza, my trusty little trailer

Sancho Panza

,

pile all of my earthly belongings into the back of Angus, my trusty little pickup (not pictured), and drive everything out to New York and on to Texas.

Once I'm on my way south into Central and South America, I will not be travelling alone.  My Dad

Dad in Repose

and I are travelling together.  While I tried to get him to see the wisdom of riding a dodgy and highly modified piece of Russian engineering he chose, instead, to ride a nice, practical Kawasaki KLR650

Dad's bike

. 

While his bike will probably fair far better than mine, I've found that you meet the nicest people when broken down on the side of the road, and I'm sure I'll meet a lot of nice people on this trip;)

So there you have it.  All of the players in the drama that will be my trip South.