So, about a month ago, I was hanging out at Cal BMW waiting for the windscreen for the Beemer. It was a weekday afternoon and the only people loitering in the shop were me and a couple who looked vaguely familiar. Dirty BMW suits, check. Tall blonde guy, short girl with buzzed haircut, check.
I finally got the courage to go up to them and say, "hey, are you guys riding around the world?" "Guilty as charged!" they replied, which is how I met Simon and Lisa Thomas.
(photo from RoadRunner magazine, who's running articles from Simon and Lisa over the next few months)
For those that don't follow Round-The-World motorcyclists, Simon and Lisa have been on the road for six years now, riding through 50+ countries so far. Their goal is to ride to the northernmost and southernmost part of every continent.
They have their own site, 2RideTheWorld.com, which is the perfect antidote to a boring Friday afternoon -- conveniently, it's Friday now! So go look!
Anyway, they were at Cal getting their Beemers serviced in anticipation of leaving the States for the Asia/Australia portion of their trip. Lisa showed me around her F650GS and all the various crazy mods they've done to it...it sorta looks like my old thumper, if my old thumper were on steroids. A 39-liter gas tank!! Damn.
We talked F650GSs for a while; I was really glad to hear that she hadn't had any serious mechanical troubles with hers, despite having over 120,000 miles on the bike. In fact, the only trouble she'd had were a couple of blown fork seals. My theory stands that my thumper just hated me. ;)
Eventually I figured I had to let these poor people move on with their lives and I should stop following them around the shop like a twitterpated schoolgirl.
Fortunately though, they were giving a presentation back at Cal last Friday, so Peter and I could go hang out some more.
The "90 minute" presentation would up with us being at Cal for almost 4 hours. Their talk was awesome, the pictures and stories just fantastic -- even Peter thought it was cool. :) You can read their diaries here on their site -- very very very worth it.
After the talk, we bought a couple of their photo prints and had them signed.
If you don't already read RoadRunner (which is an awesome magazine anyway, btw), definitely pick up the next few issues to read some stories from the Thomas's trip.
That's awesome! What are the odds! My path crossed with theirs two years ago at Old Faithful in Yosemite. Unfortunately I only saw their bikes and didn't get a chance to meet them. They are are truly inspirational!
http://picasaweb.google.com/dwyer.bill/CrossCountryMotorcycleTrip#5095341073210967682
Posted by: AtlasRider | Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 08:16 PM
Awesome! I read about them in RoadRunner. So cool that you got to meet them! :)
Posted by: Red | Monday, May 18, 2009 at 10:44 AM
Wow. So that's how the other half lives. :) I'm envious!
Posted by: Sandi | Monday, May 18, 2009 at 11:52 AM
S. did a video of them while they were in the BMW store in WA last week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQPPgoNefqc.
Posted by: Red | Wednesday, July 01, 2009 at 09:51 AM