What Carries a Motorcycle Trip Isn't Just the Plan
Adventure Rider Radio
Canoe West Media
4.9 • 915 Ratings
🗓️ 11 September 2025
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When everything is perfectly organized—routes mapped, fuel stops planned, meals and beds guaranteed—it feels effortless. But the truth is, no matter how tidy the plan, the real world always gets a vote. On short rides, those small interruptions are easy to patch over. Stretch the miles across countries and weeks on the road, though, and the little things start to compound. That’s when the first casualty is usually the plan—and what comes next is called the adventure.
In this 2017 story, a dozen experienced riders set out to cross South America from Cartagena to Ushuaia, equipped with skills, support vehicles, and a clear plan. But tropical rain, border red tape, shock absorbers that cried uncle, and Patagonian winds forced them to adapt. The journey didn’t unfold the way they mapped it—but that’s the point. What carries a long trip isn’t a perfect plan; it’s the flexibility to rewrite it.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | While you're listening to this, I'm riding some incredible terrain in the mountains of British Columbia. |
| 0:06.0 | I'm on an event called ADVX. That's BMW Canada's five-day organized ride for a limited number of GS owners. |
| 0:14.9 | And it is dialed. I don't touch maps. I don't think about fuel, food, where I'm sleeping. |
| 0:22.8 | There are backups for the backups. It feels a bit like a movie star tour, actually. You arrive, you ride, and you smile. For me, |
| 0:29.0 | I'm here as media, but that level of structure is exactly why events like this work. But it got |
| 0:35.0 | me to thinking about control and distance. It doesn't matter how tidy |
| 0:39.3 | the plan is, you're still only in charge of an idea. What we often fail to acknowledge, or at least |
| 0:46.1 | fail to take into account, I guess, is that the real world has a vote in our plan as well. |
| 0:52.0 | On a short ride, those little votes don't swing the outcome. You patch a leak, |
| 0:57.3 | you reroute, you get home before dark. Stretch that plan across provinces, states, borders, |
| 1:03.6 | let the miles rack up and the distance from home grow, and that small stuff starts to compound. |
| 1:10.4 | What was a shrug on day one becomes a problem on |
| 1:13.9 | day 10 and may become an existential problem to your plan on day 25. It's why on big trips, |
| 1:20.6 | the first casualty is usually the plan. And whatever happens next is usually called the adventure. |
| 1:26.9 | Today's story explores the idea of a plan. |
| 1:30.4 | This was originally recorded in 2017. |
| 1:33.7 | A dozen experienced riders set out to cross South America, |
| 1:37.8 | Cartagena to Uswaya. |
| 1:39.7 | Now these are experienced riders. |
| 1:41.0 | There's a lot of knowledge here. |
| 1:42.9 | 65 degrees of latitude. They had skills, |
| 1:46.8 | a support van, a trailer, local contacts, and a plan to document the ride. Then the real world |
... |
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