After spending the night at Terminales de Ruiz, we angle back toward Bogotá and spend one last night in a cool boutique hotel two hours out. Infinity pool and bungalows; we enjoy cold cocktails after checking in, which is already becoming a ritual. Expensive by Columbian standards, $150. The dated but nice rooms are quiet and allow me to get a solid night’s sleep. In the morning, I head to breakfast 30 minutes before the others arrive to have my coffee and check email.

Share Any Major Dude Will Tell You

Finally, an email from Blaine. “We have shuffled some payables and have reached out to slow-paying customers to collect cash.” Something they should have been doing all along. “We will make payroll, but barely.”

“I’ll be back on the 11th and will stop in Denver on my way home so that we can meet to talk about the future,” knowing that we won’t miss payroll lets me put the drama aside for now.

The others trickle in for breakfast and agree to meet at 9:00 to ride the hundred-mile leg to Bogotá. At 9:00 three of us are loaded and ready to roll. No Tucker.

“Let’s roll,” I suggest. “He knows where we are headed.”

“I agree,” says Evan. “This is bullshit.”

Before he can respond, Aaron spots Tucker coming up the hill to the parking area. “Here he comes.” It’s 9:20.

“I had to check my bill, and then Hannah called,” he at least acknowledges his tardiness.

I fume under my helmet but hop off anyway to help him get his gear strapped on. Aaron checks the tires. In ten minutes we ride out.

Within minutes of leaving the Villeta Boutique Hotel and Spa, we are on Highway 50, the main artery running between Medellín and Bogotá. The fast two-lane road becomes four lanes after 20 minutes, then climbs immediately with a series of banked hairpins weaving through the forest. Trucks belch black smoke as they struggle for oxygen up the 6,000-foot climb to the summit at 9,500 feet. They drive side by side, jockeying for position and blocking faster-moving cars and our motorcycles from passing. The whole thing feels like an unsanctioned race. Again, I over-grip the handlebars and can’t find a gear that fits the speed and tightness of the turns and traffic.

After crossing the summit, we drop 1,500 feet into the arid Sabana de Bogotá. The trucks now build downhill momentum, gain speed, and use both lanes without regard for smaller vehicles. Passing even the slow vehicles on the hairpins causes me to grip even harder. At least the riding of the past several days has rounded my rental KTM’s tires so I can hold a decent line on the pavement. Aaron and Evan are now out of my sight, and Tucker is somewhere behind me. I’m too nervous to look in my rearview long enough to find him.

The 50 enters Bogotá close to where we exited the city on the 55 a week earlier. Jorge’s shop is the destination on my phone; if I don’t reconnect with the others, I know I will find them there. “Aaron, do you copy?” I ping my intercom. “Tucker, do you copy?” I wait a few minutes before trying again, to no avail.

I find Aaron and Evan waiting on the side of the road after a stoplight. Tucker pulls in behind me. “That descent was crazy,” I say.

“I know, not safe,” Tucker says.

We arrive at Jorge’s office around 1:00; it’s hot and stuffy. We are anxious to gather our things and head to the hotel.

We have seven days before flying home, enough time to make it to Quito if everything goes smoothly at customs in the morning. There is a chance we will need to circle back to Bogotá if we don’t have time to make Quito. Before we leave Jorge’s office I ask if we can leave our bikes in his garage in case we return to Bogotá at the end of the week. He says he will check with the landlord to see if we can use an extra parking space next to his. Parking side by side we can fit all four bikes. “¿Cuánto?” I ask.

“One hundred dollars each,” he answers in English. It seems reasonable for three months of secure storage.

“We will let you know if we need the space before the end of the week.”

I feel better knowing the bikes will be secured for the two or three months they sit while we return home.

After dropping the rental bikes, we grab two taxis to an airport hotel called the Movich. Clean, comfortable, efficient — the local equivalent of a Marriott. We check in, shower, and meet in the bar for cocktails before dinner.

Our mood and conversation are light; we look forward to un-crating our own machines tomorrow. I reach out to Veronica, who says her people will pick us up at 7:45 A.M. to take us to the Aduana (customs) office, emphasizing 7:45 so we can be first in line at eight.

The air conditioning and wi-fi work well. I sleep easily.

****

The next morning, the four of us eat breakfast together and head to the front of the hotel at 7:45, ready to catch a ride with Veronica’s employee. I’m the only one holding a helmet.

I text Veronica, “We are in front of the hotel; where are your people?”

She takes five minutes to respond. “They will be there shortly.”

“This is bullshit,” Evan says disdainfully.

“It is what it is,” Aaron calmly interjects.

At this point, we have no idea how long it will take to retrieve our motorcycles from the Aduana; we assume it will be done by lunchtime, but we have no real information to support that belief.

8:15 passes. At 8:30, a tired white minivan shows up and stops at the curb where we are all now seated. Tucker confirms he is with Veronica. He is. “Hola, I’m Carlos,” he says in Spanglish. “The person who will be taking you through the Aduana today.”

Then we learn the customs office is only five minutes away, directly across the street from where we waited. We could have walked faster if we’d known where to go. We show IDs at the guard shack, cross the yard, and enter the four-story building, where we go through a metal detector to a reception window. We present our passports and motorcycle paperwork, and the agent behind the window gives us badges.

We follow our representative upstairs to the Aduana processing office. The room is a 30-by-60-foot open area with several rows of chairs, most of them with something broken, at one end. Most of the 30 or so chairs in the waiting area are already occupied by freight forwarders and truckers picking up their shipments.

The air is hot and unmoving. Sweat. Old cologne. Sour cigarette smell.

Opposite the open area with the chairs, four rows of desks extend to the far end of the office. About a quarter of them are occupied by agents, all working quietly. A small nativity scene and fake Christmas tree sit at the end of the middle row of desks. It’s December 6. Nothing seems to move with urgency here.

We find four chairs, but not together, and sit. I look for a place to set my bulky helmet without letting the padding and chin strap drag on the filthy floor. Veronica’s rep approaches one of the nearby agents in the seating area. After a short, quiet exchange, he returns to let us know we need to wait and that we are now in the queue.

“How long will we be here?” Tucker asks in Spanish.

“I have no idea,” the rep replies. Then he leaves the office. We look at each other and comment sarcastically about how we’ve been abandoned. In about 30 minutes, Carlos returns and stands against the wall. Time drags while I check and respond to email on my iPhone, the weak cell signal making it painfully slow.

The Aduana agents call people up one at a time, reminding me of the driver’s license office back home, just slower. One every 15 or 20 minutes.

I walk over to where Tucker sits. “I just did the math and at this pace there is no way they will get to us before the office closes at 4:00.”

“Really?” he asks.

“Really,” I confirm. “It’s 10:15, and there are about 20 people in front of us. They are processing three or four an hour; that means they probably won’t get to us, especially with an hour lunch break. Talk to Carlos and get his take on the situation; I’ll text Veronica.”

Tucker talks to Carlos and urges him to ask if he can speed up our processing. He is polite and sheepish. He doesn’t seem to know how to apply pressure, and he doesn’t seem to have a rapport with any of the Aduana agents. He returns to tell Tucker that we are in the queue, and that nothing can be done.

Fifteen minutes later, three people arrive wearing riding gear. I approach them and introduce myself. “Where are you coming from?”

“We just flew in from Panama,” the youngest replies with a German accent.

“Are you from Germany?” Aaron asks.

“I am; the others are from the U.S.,” he responds. “We are not traveling together.”

“Are you working with Veronica’s company?” I ask.

“Ya, we are,” the German replies.

I can see they were escorted here by an older agent from Veronica’s company; he seems to know the agents and is assertive in how he approaches them and presents the papers from the three newcomers.

I learn that the three had just flown in that morning from Panama and their bikes were ready to be picked up. “I’m not sure we are going to make it through the queue today,” I tell the young German.

Noon comes and the room empties. The agents leave their desks. We decide to walk the ten minutes back to the hotel for lunch. At 1:00 we are back in the Aduana’s waiting area. The same people drift back in. The same waiting settles over the room.

Two. Three. Three-thirty.

Then, the German and two other Americans are called forward to one of the agents.

“Did you see that?” I ask Aaron.

“Yep,” he replies.

“What the fuck,” Evan pipes in.

I call Veronica. “Hey, your three clients who arrived at 11:00 are already being processed; we have been here since 8:45.”

“OK, I’ll see what’s going on,” she replies.

I see Carlos’s phone ring; he answers. Looks confused.

I receive a text from Veronica: “I’m sending someone else over to help.”

Ten minutes later, a different man appears. José. Older. Assured. He moves straight to an agent who is helping another customer and speaks as if he belongs there. The energy shifts; Carlos watches.

The three riders who just arrived wait for an hour, are processed in 45 minutes, and disappear down the stairs to retrieve their bikes. We wait. At this point I’m tired of holding my helmet, and even more tired of reading on my smartphone. I finish the last crossword.

Four o’clock arrives. We miss the window; our only company now is José and Carlos. Everyone else has been processed.

Tucker is called forward first. Then Aaron. Then Evan. I’m last at 4:45.

****

At 5:15 we leave the now-closed office and cross the yard to the Aduana warehouse. The light is thinning fast; the yard’s halogen lights snap to life. We are led up a 50-foot ramp to one of the high-bay doors of the warehouse. Inside I can hear forklifts revving around. Halogen lights beam down on cargo stacked 30 feet high in some places. We are instructed to stand at the edge of the entrance where there is a yellow rectangle painted on the concrete — twenty feet by fifteen. We stand silently, all too tired to converse.

I hear a large forklift approach. It carries a wooden crate 12 feet long, five feet high, and four feet wide. It navigates around a row of stacked cargo smoothly and without slowing, and comes to a stop at the yellow square. The crate is lowered in front of us, and the forklift disappears into the massive warehouse. Evan’s Ducati.

Carlos hands us a crowbar and two claw hammers from the toolbox mounted on his run-down truck, which is parked at the bottom of the long loading ramp. Without the tools, we couldn’t dismantle and unpack the crates. I wear my riding gloves to protect my hands from sharp screws and splinters. We tear into the sturdy crate. Screws pop. Wood splits. It feels like opening Christmas presents as a kid. The Ducati sits there intact, strapped securely to the crate. Not a scratch on Evan’s new machine.

Next crate: Tucker’s 790. Then Aaron’s Ténéré. Then my Tiger.

By 6:30, the sun is gone, and it’s completely dark with the exception of the tired halogen lights barely illuminating the Aduana’s yard. The workers are closing up for the night, and I can feel their desire to have us gone. Nobody says anything to us, but it’s clear that they want us out of there as quickly as possible. Other than customs workers leaving for the day, activity has ceased.

Aaron rolls his bike to the bottom of the ramp, onto the edge of the dark parking lot while I’m still unlashing the last bits of packaging from the Tiger.

“My battery is dead,” I hear him say from the bottom of the ramp.

“Was it left on?” I ask.

“Yep,” he replies.

Carlos understands the exchange and grabs a pair of jumper cables from the old, rusty toolbox attached to the underside of the truck.

I roll my bike to the bottom of the ramp to be with the others. It’s darker here. I reach to turn my ignition on and feel a sinking feeling when I discover it was already fully turned to the right. I turn it counterclockwise to the off position, hoping that it was my mistake. Then back to the right. The display does not light up. The fuel pump does not hum. I press the starter. Nothing.

“My bike is dead too,” I announce. “They left the ignition on.”

Our bikes were left on in Miami, then sealed in their crates, sat for nearly two weeks, and slowly drained their batteries. No consequences for the incompetent people who loaded the bikes. Evan and Tucker’s bikes start without hesitation.

Tucker comes over to help. I hand him my phone with the light on so that I can see what I’m doing. Accessing the battery means removing the seat, which first requires removing the luggage strapped to the rack and subframe. It takes me a few minutes to remove the layers. Aaron is busy doing the same with his bike; Evan is helping.

I push my bike closer to the truck where Carlos runs the cables from the truck’s battery to the Tiger. I connect them, turn the ignition clockwise. The lights come on dimly, and I can hear the buzz of the fuel pump. I press the starter button. It fires up. I disconnect the cables and let the machine idle to charge the battery while I replace the seat and repack the luggage.

The Ténéré isn’t as cooperative. Aaron gets it started after a couple of tries, but the bike won’t idle without the cables attached. “I’m going to let it charge for a few minutes; you guys can take off,” he announces.

“I’ll stay here with Aaron if you guys want to head to the hotel,” I reply.

“I’ll stay,” Tucker says.

“Me too,” Evan falls in.

Aaron lets the bike idle for about ten minutes while we wait and talk about the day behind us. Eventually we roll to the gate in the dark. Aaron, Evan, Tucker roll through first, helmetless, showing the agent in the guard shack their paperwork. I’m last.

Outside is Bogotá traffic again — four lanes of slow-moving chaos headed away from the airport. I stop before entering the carretera and can see the hotel sign eight stories up on the other side, less than a hundred yards away. We need to cross, hit the airport turnaround about a quarter mile down, and come back up the opposite side. To do that, we need to get across four lanes of traffic.

They go. No helmets. Horns erupt immediately. Apparently, helmets are required in Bogotá, and for some reason, other drivers care if you aren’t wearing one.

I see a small opening between taxis and commit. I can see the turnaround and begin changing lanes to make the exit. I quickly make a lane change, then another, and can see that I still have 50 yards to get into the inside lane to make the exit, plenty of room.

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© 2026 Major Dude Media LLC. All rights reserved.

This is the song that got me started with Zero 7 twenty-five years ago when I heard the Garden State soundtrack. The song captures the excruciating pace of waiting, nothing happening, and the feeling that nobody is listening.

In Bogota, the two days of excitement around retrieving our bikes amped us up. Then the process at Aduana (customs) slowly ground us down.

“Do you believe in what you see? / Motionless wheel, nothing is real”

Commitments made, commitments ignored. Hard to believe that the Veronica saga ends with another dropped ball.

We head to the plaza where we find a sliver of space on the curb to park our motorcycles.

“Can someone use their phone to look for a hotel?” I ask. “My phone is almost dead.”

“Happy to do it,” Evan says. He sits on a park bench and starts working on it.

Meanwhile, Tucker and I walk into a cafe on the corner of the plaza to see if we can buy some bottled water. He starts a conversation with a teenage girl who appears to be working there.

“¿Cuál es tu hotel favorito de la ciudad? (What is your favorite hotel in town?)” he asks.

She returns a puzzled look, then repeats the question to the woman behind the counter. She too looks puzzled. Neither of them has probably ever stayed in a hotel, much less one in their own town.

“Let me ask around,” Tucker says.

“Evan is looking on a booking site to see what’s here,” I say.

“I know, but the locals will have better intel,” he replies.

“I don’t think the locals have any intel on hotels, much less which are good or bad,” I reply.

Evan is looking at his phone when I get back outside. “Looks like there are a couple,” he says. “An interesting one on a farm just out of town. Have a look.”

The photos look great. A lodge about a half mile out of town with four rooms available. “Hey guys, Evan found a lodge out of town; it looks pretty good,” I say.

“Sounds good to me. How far?” Aaron asks.

“Looks like it’s on the edge of town,” Evan replies.

“Great, I’m in,” Aaron says.

“Me too,” I say.

Tucker ignores the exchange and is still asking the woman about a place to stay.

“Hey Tucker, let’s roll,” Aaron says.

Tucker listens.

* * *

The lodge sits in a meadow on a hillside at the end of a long partially paved drive. Dairy cattle graze in the pasture surrounding the lodge, and flowers bloom around the property. The air is clean and crisp. At the top of the hill, where the drive begins, there is a walk-up cafe that appears to be coming to life for the night.

Aaron, Tucker, and Evan decide to head up the hill to have a swim in the stream. I stay back to get showered and make a couple calls, hoping to close the loop with Blaine and touch base with Betty.

I call Blaine and get his voicemail; I don’t bother leaving a message.

I call Betty, we talk for a few minutes before she has to run out to meet friends for dinner. The conversation is transactional, but I feel better without logging more conflict.

My phone rings; no caller ID on the local network. “Hello, this is Shaun.”

“Hey, it’s Blaine. How goes the ride?”

“It’s going well. How about you? I’ve been trying to reach you,” I manage to say without an edge.

“Things are better than when I sent you the email a couple of days ago, but still not good,” he says before diving into the details of the issues at Torrent.

I learn that the company has missed its revenue targets and that our two largest customers are late on multi-hundred-thousand-dollar payments.

“Have you been out to see them?” I ask.

“No, I’ve been dealing with family stuff.”

“Is everything O.K.?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’ll tell you about it later.”

“How about Josh? Has he visited them?” I inquire whether our VP of business development has worked on the relationship.

“No, he’s been busy with other stuff,” he replies.

“Am I missing something here? What is more important than cash flow right now?” I ask with annoyance. “Are we going to be O.K. until January?”

“I think so,” Blaine replies with a longer explanation of the projected cash flow.

“I’m flying back next week and will stop over in Denver so we can work through this together. In the meantime, someone, preferably you, needs to go see those customers to see what we can do to accelerate payment,” I suggest what I think is obvious.

“I’m busy next week; I’ll see if I can get Josh to go,” he says.

The conversation ends. It is now clear to me that something needs to change at Torrent when I return.

* * *

Just before dark, I stroll alone the quarter mile up the drive to the entrance of the estate, where there is a walk-up cafe. The temperature is dropping with the down-sloping breeze coming out of the mountains, so I wear my insulated jacket.

I approach the walk-up window and introduce myself to the young couple running the small street-food style cafe. They speak decent English, I tell them about our trip. I order a beer and go out back with my tablet to check email while I wait for the others. Nothing from Veronica; I shoot her the usual text, not expecting news.

The outdoor dining area is covered, with a fire pit at one side. String lights line the fence and trees, creating a warm atmosphere. A couple of nicely dressed middle-aged women are setting up for a party. A large decorated cake, flowers, and a tablecloth are on the picnic table.

“¿Fiesta esta noche? (Party tonight?)” I ask the woman working behind the counter.

“Sí, una fiesta de quinceañero,” she replies. Coming-of-age parties are a common tradition in Latino cultures.

Eventually they trickle in, first Tucker, then Evan, then Aaron who’s tied up on a business call.

“What’s happening here?” Evan asks.

“Quinceañero,” I reply.

“What’s that?” he asks. I explain.

More people begin to trickle in, all dressed nicely with hair done up, multiple generations. The men head to the back where they start building a fire in the fire pit. Everyone seems to know what to do. We look out of place, sitting in our jeans and flip-flops. The people setting up acknowledge us, which makes me feel comfortable despite being underdressed.

“Quinceañero?” I ask one of the men.

“Sí,” he replies. “¿De dónde eres?” he asks.

“Estados Unidos,” I reply to the man now preoccupied with setting up a large Bluetooth speaker for the party.

Aaron joins, and we order food and more beers at the window. By now the party is in full swing. The ladies have brought a potluck of food that looks and smells amazing, better than our fare. Musica tropical (cumbia) now plays on the speaker. The restaurant owners take turns manning the window while the other joins the party. Family friends. I can see the men in the back setting up some sort of tossing game. Curious, I approach them to see what it is. “Hola, ¿Qué es esto?” I ask about the game.

“La Rana (the Frog game),” an older man replies. Then he waves me closer and demonstrates how to play. After they finish eating, the men start to play the game. We watch as they stand about 15 feet from the boards that have small holes in them. Each turn a player tosses 10 coins to see if they can hit the holes. The game and the players — all family and close friends — are competitive and well-practiced.

The older man waves us closer and asks if we would like to play. It doesn’t feel like an intrusion; we are welcomed into the celebration and through the window of a family tradition. We take turns playing La Rana with the men and young women while the older men and women watch and laugh as we struggle. The 15-year-old boy jumps in to play with the older men and us strangers. He is engaged and having fun with his elders and us.

Aaron orders a round of beers for the group, and we continue playing for another hour before deciding to leave the celebration. The man who explained the game to me comes over and gives me a hug. Again, I’m dumbfounded by the hospitality of complete strangers.

I can hear the party up the hill continue as we walk back to the lodge.

This week’s drop of Honest Miles brings us into the heart of Colombian tradition when we are invited into a family celebration. It marks the beginning of me taking my guard down in a foreign place rooted with historical violence. Not everyone here is violent, few are, just like anywhere. The warmth and hospitality of the Colombian people begin to settle in, and I stop looking over my shoulder.

Rounding a steep switchback while staying on the throttle to avoid losing upward momentum, we encounter a road crew that has completely closed off the one-lane road for paving. I’m in front, have stopped, and rolled backward at an angle to prevent my bike from falling over on the incline. Aaron sees and stops far enough back to give himself room to do the same.

The workers stop when they see us approach, looking happy to have a diversion from their labor. Five of them with hand tools and a gas-powered Portland cement mixer. The forms they are setting are made from a hodgepodge of scrap wood. The wet concrete they have poured today spans about two meters of the twenty or so they have prepped for paving. There is no detour around the construction and the road is blocked in both directions. To turn around would detour us at least 50-60 miles.

Tucker and Evan pull in behind us and park their bikes parallel to ours on the steep hill.

“Are we going to be able to make it around these guys?” Aaron asks.

“I’m not sure,” I respond. “It looks like we might be able to edge around their forms on the side of the road.”

Meanwhile, the workers have moved the wheelbarrow blocking the path around the concrete forms. One begins smoothing a narrow path in the sand on the side of the road. Another approaches and speaks to us in Spanish, too fast for anyone other than Tucker to understand.

“They want to help us get around,” Tucker explains.

They wave me through first. I fire up the KTM and attempt to ride in the loose sand on the path but find no traction. I lose my balance, extend my foot to gain purchase, but find nothing but air, then dump the bike onto its side. Two workers immediately jump in to help me right the bike without hesitation. I start it up again and ease on the clutch while the two workers push from behind and I push from the bars. It takes a couple of minutes to make it over the two-meter section to the dirt road on the other side.

I carefully park the bike on the steep dirt road so it won’t tip over and head back down to help push the others’ KTMs around the job site. Meanwhile, two of the workers widen the path and knock down a couple of humps in the sand to make it easier. My riding partners make easy work of the section I struggled on.

“Seems amazing they would close the whole road,” Evan observes.

“I know. I wonder what happens when a truck or car comes along — no signs here,” I say.

“Hilarious, I guess they’re backing up this mountain or waiting a long time,” Tucker weighs in.

Three or four miles down the road, we pass a truck heading in the direction of the worksite.

Now we are about 60 miles southwest of where Pablo Escobar was headquartered when he dominated the world cocaine trade in the 1980s. At that time, approximately 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres) were under coca production in Colombia. Then, most of the coca production was in Peru and Bolivia. Colombia was simply the most geographically advantaged transit port for controlling the trade between South America, North America, and Europe. Today the number of acres of coca tillage in Colombia is estimated to be 18 to 20 times what it was in the 1980s — an area roughly 40% the size of Delaware. Economists estimate that the export value of Colombia’s cocaine crop is now about 3-4% of its GDP ($16-$18 billion) — larger than its oil and gas industry.

* * *

Knowing we are getting close to our evening destination, I restart my phone navigation and see we are about 20 miles out of Pensilvania. Saturday is when Colombians go to the “city” to socialize and shop. The road is busy with motorcycles carrying couples, dogs, and whole families. The 11 million registered motorcycles in Colombia outnumber autos by 50%; in the U.S., autos outnumber motorcycles by a ratio of 30 to 1. In contrast to Bogotá, where helmets are a requirement, nobody in rural areas seems to bother with the protection.

The roadside population is becoming denser, with small settlements every three or four miles instead of the 10-20 mile intervals behind us.

Several miles before the town, I pass a small motorcycle ridden by a man and a woman up a steep, rocky section of road — their riding is slow but smooth. The woman riding on the back wears flip-flops and holds a two-by-six-foot glass mirror with both hands while she balances on the bike behind her partner. I can see them conversing; the woman laughs.

We ride past a couple of small motorcycles headed in the opposite direction, dragging small 20-foot bundles of rebar. Everywhere we go, motorcycles do the work pickup trucks, delivery vans, and minivans would do in the U.S.

I’m leading on the road when we approach Pensilvania.

“Aaron, can you hear me?” I check the intercom to see how far behind he is.

No reply. Out of range, or a dead intercom battery.

I stop at an intersection before crossing a small bridge into town to avoid being separated from the others. After a few minutes, Aaron rides up alongside me.

I check the intercom. “Tucker, do you copy?” No reply. “Let’s wait here for a few minutes before riding into town; I don’t want to lose them,” I suggest.

“I think my rear tire is low; the bike wants to wallow,” I say as I jump off to investigate. “Yep, I’ve got a puncture. Wish I had my tire kit. Do you have any plugs with you?” I ask.

“Nope, my kit is on my Ténéré,” he replies.

“Mine’s on my Tiger,” I say, feeling the frustration of not having my gear.

“I’ll wait here for the others. Why don’t you ride into town and see if you can find a llantera? Stay on the main street; we will find you,” Aaron suggests.

I ride into the busy town on the main street. The sidewalks are crowded with locals enjoying their day off. The smell of empanadas, frying garlic, and spit-roasted whole hogs permeates the thoroughfare. Small motorcycles line the curbs, parked diagonally for blocks. I notice whole families dining at the many restaurants on the street even though it’s already 3:00 in the afternoon.

I’m hungry.

“I haven’t heard from the others,” I say over the intercom to Aaron, who is still a few blocks back. “I’m worried they may have flatted or crashed. Let’s get this tire inflated and ride back to find them.”

Meanwhile, an old man with the usual dark, leathery skin and a cooked limp of men his age here says something to me; I don’t understand him. He repeats himself and points to my front tire. “Tu neumático está pinchado.”

“No hablo Español,” I reply.

“Tu neumático está pinchado,” he repeats and points at the front tire with more intent.

I look down and notice that my front tire is now nearly flat. “¿Dónde está una llantera?” I ask.

He shrugs, looks confused, and points up the street toward the center of the business district.

“Muchas gracias,” I thank the man.

Aaron has now parked his bike down the street and starts to walk toward me.

“I’ve got two flats,” I say. He does what he always does and jumps in to start diagnosing.

At this point I start to notice we are gathering attention — our big orange KTM 890s standing out against the many Indian, Colombian, and Chinese-made 100-125cc workhorse bikes lining the streets. Few, if any, travelers make it through places like this, and there is no sign of a tourist economy. Here, the stores, all open, serve the local population.

“Do you mind waiting here and watching the bike while I walk up the street to see if I can find a repair shop?” I ask, feeling that the little gear I am carrying on the bike could be swiped in seconds in a place like this.

“Sure thing.”

I walk up the street not more than 50 feet and find a motorcycle repair shop. The small, open storefront has a counter with a display of aftermarket motorcycle parts — mostly LED lights, phone holders, and some hard parts. An array of motorcycles in various states of repair is parked on the curb, the sidewalk, and in the shop. A teenager, maybe 14, sits on a stool in front of the counter; an older man, the mechanic, works on a motorcycle in the back of the poorly lit shop.

I use my translation app to ask the teen if he has tire plugs he could sell me. He shrugs and shakes his head, confused. Then he asks the mechanic something and points to me. The mechanic stops working, nods, says something to the teen I don’t understand, then hands me an inner tube. I shake my head. “No.” The tires on our KTMs are tubeless, like most large street bikes around the world. Here, there are no large bikes — only small bikes, all with tube-type tires.

“Mi moto no tiene,” I say, trying to communicate that my bike does not have tubes. He appears to understand and says something to the teen, who then runs past me and out of the store. The mechanic motions for me to sit on the stool. Five minutes later, the teen rushes back into the store holding an unopened package of tire plugs, likely from an auto repair shop somewhere on the same street.

“Perfecto, muchas gracias! ¿Cuánto cuesta?” I ask.

“Quince mil,” he replies.

I pay the teen 15,000 pesos ($5.00) and thank them again. Before I leave the shop, I point to the compressor hose hanging on the wall. He nods, then says something to the teen.

I exit the shop and start walking back to Aaron. The teen follows.

“While you fix your tires, I’m going to ride back to find Tucker and Evan,” Aaron says.

“I’d rather stick together,” I say. I look at my phone and notice the battery is at 10%. “My phone is nearly dead, and we won’t be able to communicate.”

“Just wait here for us. I’ll find them, then come back here,” he says.

I feel like we are being watched. Not by a single person, but everyone. It is clear that this town sees few, if any, outside travelers, and we definitely stick out with our large orange KTMs. Me walking up the street, Aaron sitting on his bike, the teen following me — all create the scene. I feel the need to hurry things along.

“No big deal, I’ll find them, and we’ll be back soon. You stay and fix your tire.” Unconvinced, Aaron starts his bike, makes a U-turn, and heads back out of town the way we rode in.

The teen points to the bike, then to the store. “We push it,” he says in reasonable English. I grab the bars, put the side stand up. He grabs the luggage rack on the back. We start pushing the bike toward the repair shop 50 feet up the hill, the flat tires doubling the usual effort of pushing the 450-pound machine. We arrive back at the shop, and onlookers stare from the sidewalk.

“Gracias,” I thank the teen.

I use my translation app to ask for the compressed air hose. They both look at me, confused, not understanding my poor pronunciation. I enter the shop toward the hose. Before I can point to it, the teen grabs it, quickly uncoils it, and starts to inflate my front tire.

I’ve repaired many tires and know that the best way to locate a leak is to first inflate the tire to operating pressure — in this case 33 or 34 pounds per square inch. Without being able to hear the hissing noise of leaking air, it’s nearly impossible to find a puncture on a knobby tire.

The plug kit is like the ones found everywhere: ten plugs, a small tube of rubber cement for lubrication, an awl to enlarge the puncture, and a plug eyelet tool to insert the plug. The plugs are about six inches long and about the diameter of a pencil, made from fibrous material coated with unvulcanized rubber so they are sticky and flexible.

He helps me roll the bike forward while I listen for a leak. Then I hear the hiss. I take my water bottle and pour a small amount where I think it’s coming from. I find the leak and see the end of a nail protruding slightly from the tire next to a knobby tread. I use rudimentary sign language to gesture that I need pliers.

“¿Alicates?” the teen asks.

I don’t know what he’s saying, so I use my fingers to mime a pair of pliers. He goes to the back of the shop and returns with a pair. I grab the nail with the worn tip and begin to pull. I can’t get enough grip because the pliers are too worn, so I take the awl and dig the nail out partially, then try the pliers again and finally extract it. Next, I use the awl to enlarge the puncture so it is big enough to fit the tire plug — the air now rushes out of the tire. I thread the plug through the eyelet on the end of the plug tool, apply rubber cement, then push the plug into the hole using much of my strength. Once the plug is halfway in, I pull the plug tool out, leaving the plug to seal the hole tightly. The teen airs up the tire. I pour a small amount of water on the plug to see if it bubbles. Nothing; the tire is fixed. My knees are beginning to ache from kneeling.

I repeat the process on the rear tire and discover that after extracting a nail, plugging the hole, and inflating the tire, it won’t hold air. The teen helps me roll the bike until we find another leak. I repair it, air the tire up, and it holds. The whole process takes about 20 minutes.

I offer to pay the teen for his assistance. He won’t accept it.

* * *

I turn my phone on to see if the others have messaged me. Nothing. I try calling Aaron, then Tucker. Nothing. I wait for another 30 minutes, then decide to ride back to see if they need assistance. About five miles out of town I find them heading toward me on the road. We all stop.

“What happened to you guys?” I ask.

“Tucker flatted,” Evan says.

“And this awesome guy came along with a truck, loaded my bike, and took us to his place,” Tucker explains.

“Unbelievable,” Evan says, “the guy has a complete shop with tools.

“What took so long?” I ask.

“It took us forever to get the tire off,” Tucker says. Then I realized their mistake: trying to get a tire off a tubeless rim without a proper tire-changing machine. Not only is it unnecessary, but it can also damage the rim. One gouge on the rim bead, and it will no longer hold air. Fortunately, the repair seemed to have worked.

“Sounds like an adventure,” I say, not commenting on the tire fix. “Let’s head to town and find a place to stay.”

I identify with Wilson, an R&D food scientist before becoming a singer-songwriter. He never lost his roots: working at his father’s autobody shop as a kid, and having a family where everyone could fix anything. It takes one to know one.

This chapter of Honest Miles is full of Garys, everywhere in Colombia. Road workers, workers dragging construction material on motorcycles, a teenage motorcycle mechanic, and me. In the U.S., we are beginning to grieve the slow loss of Gary; in Colombia, he is alive and well.

My appreciation for Gary runs deep; I’ve always seen him as an equal in intelligence and insight, and with more common sense than many of the credentialed people I’ve studied and worked with as an adult. A gift from growing up on a remote ranch where we fixed everything ourselves. Gary makes a steadfast friend and reliable motorcycling partner, which is another reason I’m drawn to him.

I can’t shake my inner Gary. I still love fixing the plumbing, wiring a light fixture, repairing the clothes washer, changing the oil on my truck, and fixing anything else that comes my way. At 60, I now appreciate the inner Gary I have taken for granted all these years as an engineer, investment banker, CEO, and investor. My Gary has stuck with me, a constant.

Gary is lonely. Not part of the AI-driven, Instagram world our society values, mostly by choice. Left behind, his only witness to dying, his pet parakeet.

Next chapter of Honest Miles drops Sunday.

“Anyone hear anything from Veronica?” Evan asks.

“Nothing on WhatsApp,” Tucker says.

“I’ll give her a call,” I say.

“Groundhog day,” Aaron says.

“I know, this is complete bullshit; we should have never trusted these people,” Evan says.

This time, I don’t let it go. “Look, nothing happens unless we put trust in people to get their jobs done. Veronica had great reviews online and has been upfront with us the whole time.”

“Yeah, but this is BS,” Evan retorts.

“I’m frustrated too, but at least we’re riding,” I argue. “We will get our bikes eventually.”

“I’m sure we will get it resolved at some point,” Aaron says, trying to diffuse the tension.

Breakfast ends, and we head to our rooms to get ready for the day.

I check my messages again — nothing from Blaine. Aggravated by the exchange with Evan, I text: “Blaine, I’m concerned and would like to talk today to see where we are and discuss what needs to happen.” I’m now fully preoccupied by the situation back home.

Before leaving the room, I call Betty as promised. The call forwards to voicemail, and I feel more alone. I leave a short message and head out to meet my friends for some exploring on foot before hitting the road again.

* * *

We stumble into a pop-up BMW motorcycle promotional event a few blocks from our hotel. The facility is in a colonial building restored into a community event center. When we arrive, young women are putting up promotional banners and product displays, getting ready for an event. Brand-new machines alongside perfectly preserved vintage bikes, on stands all around. A makeshift barista offers us espresso drinks; I take her up on the offer and ask for a double.

Aaron and I run across a man who seems to be in charge of the event. “What’s going on here?” Aaron asks, assuming the man speaks English. He does.

“We are launching the new GS 1,300 in South America today here,” he replies.

“Very cool,” I reply.

“Stick around; we will be serving lunch in a couple of hours, and a few celebrities will be stopping by,” the man replies.

Looking around, I can tell that the event hasn’t opened yet, and we are probably where we shouldn’t be. This doesn’t stop us from checking out the vintage bikes while the staff sets up.

Aaron approaches a woman organizing a rack with BMW-branded riding gear. “Habla Inglés?” he asks.

“Yes, a little,” she replies perfectly.

“Are you selling riding boots here today?” he asks.

“We have a few pairs. What size do you need?” she asks.

“I’m a 42 or 44,” he replies.

“I’m a 42,” I interject.

She disappears outside to the sprinter van that carries the goods for the event and returns with two boxes. “Here are the 42’s,” she hands a box to me. “And some 44’s,” and hands the other box to Aaron.

There is no place to sit, so we remove our cheap hiking boots in the middle of the room and try on the BMW touring boots. Mine fit perfectly, and immediately my feet, ankles, and shins feel more secure.

“How are yours?” I ask Aaron.

“Slightly big. Can I try yours?”

“Sure thing.” I pull one boot off and hand it to him.

I can tell it’s hard to pull on. “Too small,” he says and hands it back.

The BMW-branded leather boots are relatively inexpensive, the equivalent of $250 US dollars, and well worth it. The boots aren’t as burly as the ones strapped to my bike sitting in Miami, but I’m relieved to finally have some protection for my feet, ankles, and shins. We pay and head back to the hotel to pack up.

I use the laces of my cheap hiking boots to secure them to the outside of my duffel bag, loose and sloppy, but it will work for now. I hope to donate them to someone needy along the road later in the day.

* * *

Our ride today is a short 62 miles on rural, mostly paved roads to a lodge on a large lake near Norcasia. About halfway, while riding in the lead, I pass an old, hunched man walking barefoot with a cane on the side of the road. It takes me about 100 meters to register the scene. I find a spot wide enough to turn around, and manage a three-point turn without falling off into the jungle on either side. The others ride past me as I ride slowly back to the old man.

He is startled when I approach, stop, and shut my bike down. As I approach, I notice his leathery skin. His worn, sweaty tank top is torn and filthy. His jeans are worn through at the knees and ragged around the cuffs. He stands with most of his weight on his left foot. I can’t imagine where he is coming from, or where he might be headed.

“Hola,” I say, smiling, making eye contact. “Buenos días.”

“Hola,” he quietly replies with a look of confusion on his face.

I dismount and begin to untie the boots from my duffel. “¿Gusta un par de botas? (do you like a pair of boots?)” I ask in broken, incorrect Spanish.

He now looks more confused. I approach with the boots. “Estas para ti (these are for you),” again in poor Spanish.

I hand the boots to him. He smiles slightly but says nothing. I smile back and nod as if we somehow knew each other.

I remount my bike, start it, make another three-point turn on the wet road, and return to the others who are waiting where I passed them earlier.

* * *

We arrive in the town of Norcasia. This town of 6,400 people is known for its eco-tourism and the nearby Amani reservoir. There, we will take a boat to an eco-lodge made up of treehouses that Tucker found in his research. We park on the busy, colorful square. Aaron and I take refuge from the heat in a nearby cafe where we order cold sodas while Evan looks for a place to change some dollars.

“Check out the motorcycles here, so clean,” Aaron points out.

I look around at the bikes parked in front of the cafe and those passing by — nearly all of them are in clean condition. This contrasts with the thousands of scooters and small motorcycles we’ve already seen in Colombia that are purely utilitarian. Here, they seem to mean more to their riders.

“Very cool, check out the customization. The LED lights,” I reply.

Meanwhile, Tucker is on a call with the hotel to get further instructions on how to get there.

While we wait, I decide to send a message to Blaine to see if I can clear my mind of the annoyance I am feeling.

My short note: “Burn rate? Runway? I still need answers!”

I delete the note before sending it.

Instead, I remember I forgot to call Veronica. I shoot her another message: “Any update on our motos? We are really getting concerned.” I don’t expect an immediate reply.

Tucker rejoins Aaron and me on the sidewalk with a cold beer.

“They want us to leave our bikes in a parking facility on the edge of town,” he tells us. “We are supposed to take taxis from there down to the lake where a boat will meet us for the ride across to the lodge.”

The paid parking site is nothing more than a partially covered dirt lot behind a house on the highway that leads out of town. The rickety gate is open when we arrive. The owner comes out to greet us immediately. He tells us it will be 15,000 pesos each (about $5) for 24 hours of parking. He directs us to the back of the lot, where several cars are parked, and tells us to park side by side along a fence shared with farm animals on the other side. Pushing my bike the 25 feet across the lot unleashes a stream of sweat down my face.

“This place doesn’t look too secure,” Evan announces. Nobody responds as we start unlashing our gear.

“¿Cuándo cerrarás el portón con llave? (When will you lock the gate?)” Tucker asks the owner.

“Cuando sales del trabajo,” the owner responds.

“He says he will lock it when we leave.”

“I suggest taking anything you can’t live without,” I say.

We park our motorcycles and secure items that would be easy to steal before calling two tuk-tuk cabs to take us to the boat launch. The three-wheeled taxis feel unstable as we descend about a mile down a very steep, one-lane paved road to a dock area. I can smell the acrid fumes of the burning, squeaking brakes from the taxi Tucker and I are riding in. I imagine how everything would be over if they failed and we flew off one of the switchbacks into the jungle. We nervously joke about the situation.

At the bottom of the hill, there is a small parking area where we unload. The tight area is buzzing with activity. A few ragged-looking men approach us immediately — one tries to sell us candy, and another couple, acting as porters, immediately grab our duffels, hoping to get paid. I let them, knowing that a small tip will mean a lot to them.

At the boat landing, a 30-foot livestock barge is docked and being loaded with cattle and pack animals for the crossing to a pasture somewhere on the 15-mile-long lake. The 20-foot fiberglass panga taking us to the lodge is also waiting. We meet our guide and he helps us load our duffels. I tip the porters a few pesos and board the boat.

The open boat’s 15-horsepower two-stroke outboard putters away from the dock. The boat driver announces that the lodge isn’t ready to receive us and that he’ll take us on a lake tour. It’s only 3:30 in the afternoon and we are up for exploring, so nobody protests the delay. At this point I just want to get away from the stench of fresh cow and horse manure permeating the dead air.

The panga takes us a few miles up and across the lake. The steep jungle-covered hillsides fall steeply into the lake. High up I can see where the rainforest has been cleared for cattle grazing — not massive clear cuts, but big enough to scar the terrain. Tucker reaches into his pack and pulls out a box of Caldas rum he had stowed. Still cool, not yet warm, but no ice cubes here.

“Dude, what an awesome call!” I exclaim.

The boat driver hands us a knife to cut the corner of the box off so we can access the rum. We take turns pouring it straight into our mouths and pass it around before cracking cold beers. We eventually slide into a cove where a stream lands in the lake after a waterfall about ten feet high. “We will stop here for you to swim,” the boat driver announces.

We all reach for our luggage and begin digging for our swimsuits while the driver ties the boat to a tree on the shore. We disembark one by one, slowly and carefully from the bow, making sure not to fall in from the tipping. The driver leads us up the large boulders along the stream to another waterfall a few hundred feet upstream. The rocks are prickly on the bottom of my feet.

“It looks shallow,” Aaron says.

“Not sure I would dive in here,” Evan agrees.

Tucker makes the first move and jumps into the pool. The rest of us follow. The water is cool, not cold. We take turns climbing up the waterfall and jumping in. I’ve forgotten about the bikes, the road, Veronica, Blaine, Betty. The water, the beers, the jungle, the mindless fun banter. I finally feel like I’m away.

Around 5:00 the boat takes us to a boulder that serves as a dock directly across the lake from the harbor we departed from earlier. There we are greeted by the woman who operates the lodge, which sits about 300 feet above the lake. Evan, Aaron, and I unload our duffels and start hiking up the steep, muddy jungle trail, still in our flip-flops and board shorts. Tucker has decided to stay behind to try his hand at fishing from the shore.

About 50 meters up the trail, the hostess says something in broken English that none of us understand. Evan asks her to repeat.

“Watch for snakes,” she says. “They are very poisonous.”

I stop dead in my tracks and take notice of the rainforest floor thick with snake habitat. It makes me itch. “I’m stopping here to put my boots on,” I say.

“Me too,” Aaron says.

All three of us find boulders to sit on while we unpack our boots and put them on for protection up the remainder of the trail. We trudge the remainder of the steep, switchbacking trail in our board shorts and riding boots.

The treehouse “lodge” turns out to be one of those places that sounds too good to be true in the guidebook. It was. The three treehouses are roughly constructed on stilts, with corrugated metal roofs. Evidence of continuing construction is all around. Sewer pipes run next to water lines on the ground to an above-ground septic I can see propped up on rocks about 50 meters down the steep hillside. One treehouse has a queen bed and a single; the other, down the hill, has a full-sized bed but limited electricity for charging phones. The third appears to be occupied by the property’s owners and workers.

We throw our things down and sit on the balcony of the highest treehouse where we find cold beers in a mini-bar on the deck. We laugh about the adventure of getting here and the operation’s disorganization while we wait for Tucker to return.

I see Tucker coming up the trail from below and yell down, “How many did you catch?”

“Nada,” he replies. “The stick and string they gave me didn’t really work for fishing; I’ll bring my own gear next time.”

“No fresh fish for dinner tonight,” Aaron announces with humor.

We clean up and are served dinner on the deck.

After dinner, we play another round of cards. This time Aaron pulls out a win.

We finish the evening with a round of rock, paper, scissors to see which of us has to make the trek down the hill in the dark to the lower treehouse for the night. I lose every toss. Tucker loans me his headlamp for the 50-yard walk down to my treehouse.

Lying in a sheetless bed, I can hear monkeys, birds, and other creatures in the jungle. There is no cell service here, and the wi-fi is too weak for a call to Betty. I send her a goodnight text and check in one more time with Blaine.

* * *

After a breakfast of partially burned eggs, we load up and head across the lake on the boat. The air is heavy, and the sky is dark. Rain feels inevitable. We retrieve our motorcycles at the parking shed — everything is intact, just as we left it the day before. As usual, Aaron and I are ready to ride before Evan and Tucker have their gear secured. I notice that my cell phone has connected to the network again, and I decide to check for messages from Veronica. No news.

No news from Blaine either. I decide to let it sit until I’m in a place where I can call him and talk.

Before leaving, I lead the group into town to top off our tanks and tires for the 61-mile ride to Pensilvania. We are starting to find our rhythm riding as a group and agree that if we have time, we will try for the hot springs at Terminal de Ruiz, 77 miles past Pensilvania. Tucker decides not to follow us to the gas station and takes his own route to another gas station; we end up burning another 15 minutes waiting for the group to come back together.

I feel my rear tire slip as I accelerate onto the two-lane highway, the surface already slick from the humidity in the air. I let off the pace.

The first raindrop hits my face shield about five minutes out of town. Then another. It isn’t long before sheets of rain begin to obscure our view of the road in front of us. Aaron, in the lead, decides to pull over to put on his rain poncho. I have one too, a cheap plastic version the guys bought for me in Bogotá. It’s too late; I’m soaked head to toe. I feel like I should be shivering, but I feel warmed by the rain and humidity.

We ride another five minutes slowly on the slick two-lane paved road. Aaron spots a row of houses along the road, one with a sign advertising fruit for sale. We pull in. A couple of younger, well-dressed men and an elderly woman sit in chairs on the front porch. A teenager leans against the wall while they talk. Two or three generations of the same family, all there.

Tucker asks the woman if we could join them under their veranda until the rain dies down. The three family members stand without saying a word, giving up their seats for four completely soaked strangers.

We sit and make quiet small talk with the family, Tucker translating. We learn these rainstorms are a near-daily occurrence in this part of Colombia and last about 30 to 60 minutes. Tucker asks about further down the road toward Pennsylvania. The three are confused, not recognizing the name of the place.

We offer to purchase fruit from the woman. She hands us some fresh bananas and papaya and, at first, refuses to let us pay. I reach into my pocket, grab the equivalent of $5 in pesos, and hand it to the younger man, who accepts it.

The rain slows, then stops. As we head out, I notice that my phone is no longer charging. I mess with the USB connector but nothing seems to work. My battery is already at 30% — it won’t last the rest of the day with navigation running. I turn off my maps and let the group know I won’t have navigation today. I’ll follow.

© 2026 Major Dude Media LLC. All rights reserved.

This chapter of Honest Miles is where I begin to escape the stresses of the trip, work, and relationships. Forced into listening to nature because of failing connectivity… and the rain.

“Half a mile from the county fair / And the rain came pourin’ down... / And it stoned me.” We got wet in a big way, soaked on the road. We stood under the veranda of a welcoming old woman waiting for it to pass, enjoying each other’s company. “Yeah, it stoned me to my soul.” It felt good. Not uncomfortable like rain usually feels. Not awkward like you’d expect sharing a complete stranger’s front porch.

“But our throats were getting dry / Then we saw the man / From across the road / With the sunshine in his eyes.” The absolute kindness of strangers: mine to the old man, the old woman’s to us, literally from across the street. No questions asked. People with no common background seeing someone across a divide and helping. “And it stoned me.”

“Oh, we saw the swim and jumped right in.” The lake experience landed us exactly where we needed to be, not by plan. All we needed was a cleansing, and we got a double!

Thank you, my loyal subscribers, for checking in on Honest Miles and me while I took a few weeks off from releasing chapters. I needed a summer break from drafting, editing, and editing. It meant a lot to me that so many of you reached out asking for the next installment. Here it is! Enjoy.

We immediately ascend 3,000 feet from the mine to a ridgeline that more resembles a knife edge extending for miles to the west. The rutted, red dirt road etched into this edge divides the 40-degree slopes on either side. It’s plenty wide for most four-wheeled vehicles, but I feel like I could go flying off into the abyss with the slightest hit from a rock. Ridges like this can be seen for miles in the distance, spidering off the Cordillera Central.

Aaron and Evan are riding fast out front. Tucker and I are riding slower, trying to take in the amazing terrain without crashing. I decide to stop on the edge of a switchback so I can snap photos of Tucker as he rides toward me. He pulls alongside me and stops.

“Incredible road, I’m really glad we came this way,” I say.

“Unreal! I’ll ride down to the bottom of that ridge and catch a video of you riding down,” Tucker says.

“Cool, thanks, man,” I say. I take a video of him as he descends to the saddle below.

I give him a minute to set up. I see him wave and give me a thumbs up. I start my bike, stand up, and head his way. I ride past him and keep going slowly to let him gather his things and catch back up.

Eventually we hit a recently paved two-lane highway. The day’s feel changes immediately from wide-open countryside to the hustle of a busy, winding two-lane. Green box trucks dominate the road in both directions, tilting over the center line, almost on two wheels as they round each curve. Motorcycles and scooters try to pass between the hairpin turns. I’m immediately thrust out of my element and feel my forearms tighten as I grip too hard. I keep thinking, “This cannot be safe.”

Something doesn’t feel right on my bike. Each time I lean into a turn, the rear end rolls, then drifts. It feels impossible to hold a steady line in each curve. I go through a checklist in my mind. Loose rear axle? Low tire? Issue with the suspension?

“I’m pulling over, want to check something on my bike,” I announce on the intercom less than ten minutes after turning onto the highway.

Aaron, in the lead, responds, “I’ll pull over at the next turnout.”

He finds a sliver of a turnout on a left-hand curve. Tucker and Evan pull in behind us. I dismount, aware that there are only a couple of feet between me and the trucks flying by on the highway. Aaron dismounts and heads over to examine the bike with me.

“It wants to tip then drift on the hairpins; it won’t hold a line,” I say.

“That’s unusual,” Aaron replies.

“Probably my inability to ride pavement,” I joke, half meaning it.

I give the rear tire a couple of hard kicks to see if anything moves. Nothing. I borrow Aaron’s tire gauge and check the tire pressure; it’s 32 PSI, just fine. After examining the rear tire, I notice that the middle treads have been worn flat, probably from the thousands of miles the bike has done on pavement with Jorge’s tours up and down the Pan American highway.

“Take a look at the profile of the tire,” I say.

“That’s probably it,” Aaron replies. “It’s squared off.”

“I’ll live with it. Let’s go,” I say. “You guys go in front; I’m going to take my time.”

I let Evan and Tucker pull in front of me in case they want to ride fast out front with Aaron. We wait for an opening in the truck traffic; the four of us pull out, drag racing quickly to gain speed before the next truck comes bearing down on us.

Now knowing that I’m riding on tires with compromised tread, I’m even more tense on the winding tarmac. I see every hairpin as a threat that will drift me off the road to the right, or directly into oncoming traffic to the left. I feel unsteady and ride without aggression or confidence.

Aaron pulls out to pass a truck on a short straightaway. Tucker follows, barely missing an oncoming motorcycle in the opposite lane. “Jesus, that was close,” I hear him say on the intercom. Evan passes on the next straightaway.

“I’ll catch you guys at the next intersection,” I say over the intercom.

They all disappear from sight and range of the intercoms.

At the bottom of the pass, I find my three friends waiting for me. I stop, turn off my motorcycle, and remove my helmet. The heat and humidity are more intense here than they were at the top of the pass, 4,500 feet above us. I can hear the whine of truck tires on a highway in the distance.

“Aaron and I rocked that two-lane down the mountain,” Tucker announces. “We must have passed 10 trucks! What a blast!”

“It was fun,” Aaron says.

“I want more of that,” Tucker exclaims.

“Really fun, but the trucks are insane,” Evan says.

I feel excluded from the experience, knowing I had ridden the road not for fun, but for survival. The thought crosses my mind that I am now the one holding the crew back. I choose not to respond, knowing that the only thing I could say would place the blame on my machine.

“I’m going to grab a drink of water and a snack,” I say.

“I just had one,” Tucker says.

“Hear the trucks? We must be close to a four-lane,” I say.

“Yeah, this is where we get on the Pan-Am for 20 miles to get us to Honda,” Aaron says. He’s been here for a few minutes and has studied the route on his phone.

I finish my energy bar and stow my water. “Let’s roll.”

We enter the Pan-Am and accelerate to 70 miles per hour; I pass the others without thinking and am now in front. The road reminds me of Highway 280 in the Bay Area, where it winds its way with high-speed, banked curves through the foothills, except here there are fewer cars and more trucks. I am not surprised the bike drifts more on the curves at these speeds. There are no straightaways, so passing the trucks only happens on the high-speed curves; the buffeting from the turbulent air they create throws the bike side-to-side, adding to the instability already created by the tires.

We ride the Pan-Am about 20 miles before exiting onto a busy two-lane into Honda, our destination for the night. We cross the Rio Magdalena into town. The Magdalena is the main river flowing through central Colombia, running 1,500 miles from the Andes to the Caribbean, where it flows into the sea at Barranquilla. Founded in 1539 by the Spanish, Honda was the main port city on the Magdalena where goods were transported to and from the inland city of Bogotá. It is also known as the “city of bridges” because of its 40 bridges that cross the four rivers that converge there.

We ride past tractor dealerships and supermarkets as we enter the town of 24,000. It feels clean here, almost cosmopolitan compared to the villages and towns we have passed through since leaving Bogotá. The one-way cobblestone streets are narrow and lined with two-story whitewashed walls. The storefronts and dwellings are marked by few windows, just small signs and large wooden doors that open into courtyards. It feels like riding through a white maze.

I lead the group into town and navigate to the hotel. We arrive around 5:00. The hotel’s arched entrance has 15-foot-high solid wood doors set into tall whitewashed stone walls. No windows onto the street, just a small sign announcing the “Posada las Trampas.” Tucker hops off his bike and buzzes the intercom. Within thirty seconds, the huge wooden doors swing open, and a man and a woman greet us, each wearing the hotel’s uniform: black slacks and white pressed shirts.

* * *

I found Las Trampas advertised on a booking site when we stopped for lunch earlier that day, marketing itself as a “Luxury Historic Villa.” We were only four nights into the adventure and were relieved to find this gem of a hotel. Well worth the $150 rate, which was 4-5x the cost of the places we had stayed the prior two nights.

The receptionist points us to an area near the entrance to the sloped courtyard, where we line up our bikes and dismount. I put my kickstand down and lean my bike over, not noticing that it has slid between two slick cobblestones. The bike tips further, then falls over, heavy side down.

Aaron and Evan rush over to help me lift the bike back to its wheels. “Thanks, guys,” I say with embarrassment.

“The hotel looks nice,” Aaron says.

“Excellent choice,” Evan agrees.

While we check in, a server dressed in all white brings us glasses of cold maracuyá (passion fruit juice). A porter, also in white, grabs our things and starts carrying them to our rooms.

The eighteenth-century mansion has ten rooms, each with air conditioning and 14-foot ceilings, all meticulously decorated with a combination of native and colonial artifacts. It’s a designated heritage site in Colombia.

After checking in, I head to my room and call Betty.

“Hey hun,” she answers.

“Hey babe, how are you?” I ask.

“Tough day at work; I’ll fill you in later,” she says.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” she says with an edge. I let it go. “How was your day?” she asks.

“It was great.” I keep it simple, sensing she would probably resent hearing about the ride and the place we are staying. “We’re staying in a boutique hotel, a colonial villa that’s pretty cool.”

“Oh yeah, what’s it like?” she asks.

“Very clean, authentic, 14-foot ceilings. It’s built around a beautiful courtyard and has a pool in a second courtyard, tons of flowers,” I explain. “You would probably really like it.”

“That’s nice,” she says. “It’s snowing back here, and the dog has diarrhea.”

I choose to keep my enthusiasm to a minimum. “Sorry to hear that,” I say with strained empathy.

“I’m headed to work out before meeting a client for dinner,” she changes the topic. “What are your plans for tomorrow?”

“We have a shorter day; we plan to start a little later,” I explain. “Give me a call when you wake up.”

“Love you, be safe!” she says.

“I love you too.”

I lie back on the bed for a few minutes to absorb the conversation. I feel alone and distant from her. I don’t wish I were there.

I change into my board shorts and head to the pool where I find Tucker. He has already ordered a round of margaritas and beers to get things started. The cool water feels incredible. We recount the day, the characters we met in Muzo. We laugh. We agree to meet at 8:00 in the on-site bar before heading out to dinner.

Back in my room, I gather my riding shirt and jeans, both filthy after two days of dirt roads, and put them in a cotton laundry bag for housekeeping. Aaron and Evan do the same. Before turning it in, I confirm that they will be returned before our 9:00 AM departure.

I decide to check my email, which I have neglected for two days. I open my tablet and see a string of messages labeled “URGENT” from the CEO of Torrent, a software company I co-founded and currently chair the board of. I open the first message in the chain, sent early yesterday.

“Shaun, it looks like we are going to miss our 4Q revenue numbers again. Cash is low; we need to talk. Let me know when you’re available.”

I reply via text from my phone, more immediate than email: “I saw your email. I can talk anytime for the rest of the evening. Please call me.”

We head out for dinner at a nearby restaurant with contemporary Colombian food. Aaron and I order a bottle of Chilean wine and finish it before dinner is over. We recount the day — the mine, the ride, ripping down the knife-edge ridge — and the mood is light. I find it difficult to engage, now preoccupied by my conversation with Betty and the troubles with Blaine.

Back at the hotel, we take over the small bar lounge and order more cocktails. Tucker finds the tiny ziplock with the emeralds we had mined earlier in the day and dumps them on the small coffee table for us all to examine.

“Pretty sweet,” Evan says. “Wonder if they’re worth anything.”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“I bet you could make a cool bracelet or something like that,” Aaron suggests.

“How should we split them up?” Tucker asks.

“What if we played cards to see who gets them? Winner takes all,” I suggest.

“Great idea. Let’s keep track of our scores each time we play. Whoever has the most points at the end of the trip wins,” Tucker suggests.

Tucker has already anticipated a card game and breaks the cards out from his jacket pocket. “Let’s play!”

We order another round of drinks and play two rounds of Screw Your Neighbor. Tucker wins again. At 10:30 the server tells us it’s time to close the lounge. When I get back to my room, I find my washed and pressed clothes waiting for me on the dresser.

I check my messages and email again for a reply from Blaine. Nothing. I shoot him a text: “I’m headed to bed, but would like to catch up. Please call me if you’re available. I’ll leave my phone on.”

The demo version of this song, released in 2004, is rawer than the original release; I feel like it captures the feeling of the slipping and loss of control bleeding through.

In this week’s chapter of Honest Miles, things start slipping away. My relationships at home, my travel partners, and my business. I didn’t see it, but I could feel it, and it made me feel disconnected and uneasy.

The destination of understanding was more than 13,000 miles of riding away.

“We work our jobs / collect our pay / believe we’re gliding down the highway / when in fact we’re slip slidin’ away”

After a few weeks off for summer stuff, I’m back with the next chapter of Honest Miles on Sunday

This week, I published my AI manifesto so that people could see how I am using it in a world that is increasingly machine-generated. Then I heard Petty’s song on the radio. Holy shit!

I’m going to let the song speak for itself. The parallel between the 2002 radio industry and today’s AI industry is stark. Corporate efficiencies and technological change are driving the mechanization of content creation and distribution; underneath it, the human longing for the human touch and authenticity is alive.

History repeats itself whether we like it or not.

I do not see myself as the DJ, but then again, maybe being at the bottom of the dial is where the real stuff happens!

• I will never post something AI has written, even small things. Not my essays, notes, or photos (I did once and regretted it!). It will always be in my own hand.

• I will never let AI change my mind about things I think are important parts of my writing.

• I will never let AI alter my voice.

My philosophy about AI
AI is just a tool, like any other tool man has invented throughout the ages. It makes some things more efficient, like all tools. But that does not mean I believe that we should use AI in all aspects of work or life. And I hate to burst people’s bubbles, but it’s been around in our lives, silently, for decades.

It is not human, and never can be. It can only imitate human critical thought, creativity, and natural beauty. It can not create it. Yes, AI poses ethical dilemmas that prior technologies did not – like every technology before did. The lightbulb vs. the candle, bronze vs. the stone, the elevator and urbanization, you name it. AI’s are just different, and further-reaching in the scary ways it can trick us into believing something is real.

My philosophy about why I write
I write because it frees me to be authentic to the world. It is the entire creative process that liberates me, not just the words on the page. I love the brainstorming, the strategy, the beginning-middle-end, the actual typing of words on the page. I view it like painting; it happens layer by layer, through iteration.

If I were to delegate my creative process to another human, much less an AI model, it would literally steal my freedom. I will never let that happen.

How I use AI in my writing
I am not yet fortunate enough to have a human editor; I wish I did! I use AI as a tool during my writing process in five ways:

• To proofread a scene or chapter for accuracy against my story outline or codex; it’s great at busting me for inconsistencies in narrative and voice.

• I find it useful for testing ideas, like I would with another person. “Hey, I’m thinking that I may have missed an opportunity for interiority in this passage; what do you think?”

• I’ve used AI to break logjams where I’m working through the meaning of something. Sometimes I take its suggestions and write 100% in my own hand.

• I am a terrible typist, and I try to get my ideas down really fast so they are not lost; this leads to a lot of typos, sometimes unintelligible letters on a page! AI can be a good copy editor, but only for the small stuff. I never let it restructure my prose or even my punctuation (which is often incorrect, but I like it that way!)

• One time I was missing a photo for one of my essays, so I worked with AI to create one using a couple of real photos I had taken. I will probably never do this again; it felt inauthentic.

I will continue to use AI, like I would a paintbrush for a painting. Just as a tool, never as a creative, never as a co-author. If for any reason I do, I will tell you.

I’d love a conversation about this. Or, if you disagree, please say so.

Every year I pick a song for my summer anthem; last year it was “Levitating” by Dua Lipa (my friends still can’t believe that I picked that!) I play the summer song over and over; driving, surfing, riding my motorcycle, everywhere. Usually loud.

This year the song is 726 by Goose. I’ve been waiting for July 26 to roll around so I could honor the song’s title before writing about it.

A few weeks ago I was hanging out with a few buddies on Jackson Lake wake surfing. Spectacular in every way. My turn came up, so I put 726 on the stereo; loud. “What the hell is this? Some sort of chick music?” one of my friends shouted out, referring to the cool vibe of the song. He probably expected to see me surf to something from Ozzy’s archives. After seven minutes of surfing and one song, I ended my session and hopped back on the boat. “Wow, that was awesome, you were in the zone, somewhere else,” the same friend said. “Now I get it!”

The sound of this music transports us immediately into summer, and into our soul. It has an arc. A laid-back meter with an airy feeling, like summer. Yet it evokes a deep, sad feeling of drifting and passing. Just like summer passing (especially living in the mountains like I do, where we only get about 10 weeks of it).

The listless, hazy feeling of summer in 726 is really about drifting through a directionless period of life. The arc builds anticipation, then acknowledgment, and ends with release.

“Somebody’s waiting / Tired and laden.” Our spirit is the somebody, perhaps somebody we’ve suppressed. The somebody who’s worn out or ignored.

It is also always waiting to help us get back on track. “And all I’ve caught of a soul / Is knowing it’s on me.”

Everything we need is already inside of us, “hid out and shaking”, ready to be discovered. We only have ourselves to blame for not moving forward, even when we are “up on a haze.”

The bridge tells us to let go, “We all just need a little direction sometimes / ‘Cause no one’s holding these hands.” It’s on us to find it. But maybe we’re “holding on a little too tight” to see it.

“And I am swimming up on a tide / Well I’m tired of waiting / It’s already taken a little too long to get back up.” Directionless times can feel like we are being carried by the ocean, with an abyss beneath. The fear of not knowing where we are going, and maybe even sinking. Definitely not surfing! We need to trust the tide to eventually bring us back to shore, solid ground. Sometimes it takes a little too long for our liking, so we wait before taking action.

The action happens by following our spirit, not just our minds like most men are taught. It requires intention and the willingness to be led from within. “So show me the way in / I know that it’s blatant lord.” It’s already there; lean into vulnerability and honor the spirit beneath.

The vulnerability reveals the spirit with the clarity of a “diamond.” An awakening that feels like “cold, cold water.” It recognizes that the spirit and the ego are two entities that travel together: “Never showing us alone / We’ll go someday / To where I’ve known us all along.”

726 closes by releasing all the tension and loneliness it has built. We are never far from home — the home where our spirit lives. The fade-out is a three-minute instrumental, not a jam, but a melody for reflection and dropping in and being carried home.

On another topic, if you are someone who doesn’t like jam bands, Goose might be the jam band for you!

No Honest Miles drop this week; see you next week!

The whole song is about people doing their own thing and transferring “weights” to others in different ways. A kind of craziness that makes no sense, but we all do it.

“Hey mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed? / He just grinned and shook my hand. ‘No’ was all he said.” No refuge from the burdens we were each beginning to carry:

• Evan’s burden of not knowing where our bikes were and not trusting the people I had hired to get them there, and trying to transfer it to everyone.

• Aaron’s burden of thinking he was the only one who could fix everything for everyone.

• Tucker’s burden of not accepting that he’s on a trip with a group and can’t be completely independent, pick his own route, or go at his own leisurely pace.

• My burden of assumed, not granted, group leadership — and holding myself accountable for everything that had gone wrong to this point.

“Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee? / He said, do me a favor, son, won’t ya stay and keep Anna Lee company?” No bikes. My research, my work, my plan and booking had gone awry. Empty messages from Veronica. Everyone turning to look at me. I raised my hand to put this trip together. Now I carry everyone’s worry about when the bikes will show.

“Take a load off, Fanny / Take a load for free / Take a load off, Fanny / And you put the load right on me.” The chorus cuts both ways. Taking a load off someone is generosity. Putting your load on someone is theft. Same lyric, opposite acts. Aaron shaving down a helmet liner, checking everyone’s tire pressure — that’s the first kind. But it also robs the rest of us of a chance to carry something. I was doing the same thing, in almost the same way, with the route planning and mapping.

“When I saw Carmen and the devil walking side by side / I said, hey, Carmen, come on, let’s go downtown / She said, ‘I gotta go, but my friend can stick around.’” This stanza captures how I felt descending from the safety of a well-traveled public road to a river devoid of soul. Environmental degradation, razor wire, despair. Just to see if we could get a better deal on emeralds at the source. It didn’t feel right. A moral compromise, another accumulated burden.

We caught our “cannonball” out of Muzo the next morning, our bags sinkin’ low. We rode out carrying everything we rode in with, and then some. The weight doesn’t come off; it just redistributes.

In case you missed it, Chapter 7 of Honest Miles dropped last Sunday. Check it out here:

We meet downstairs at our agreed-upon 7:00, and head out to the restaurant around the corner, where we had eaten the night before. The sun has not yet peeked over the tall, forested mountains that surround the town. The air is heavy and still, and already feels suffocating. We order coffee, huevos fritos y jamón con arepas (fried eggs, ham, and arepas), a standard in Colombia. The too-weak coffee comes quickly. We sip it as we watch the street outside begin to wake up.

“I brought my helmet to see if we can tweak it to fit better,” Evan says. “The thing gave me a headache all day yesterday.”

“Where does it hurt?” Aaron asks as he reaches for the helmet.

“Right here,” Evan points to his forehead.

Aaron jumps in and takes over before discussing a solution with anyone. He borrows a knife from the kitchen, removes the liner from the worn black rental helmet, then starts shaving the protective foam from the front of the helmet, removing about a quarter inch of material. He reinstalls the liner and hands it back to Evan. “Try this.”

Evan pulls the helmet over his ears. “Better, could use a little more.” He hands the now-compromised helmet back to Aaron, and the process is repeated. This time the fix works. Less protective now, the helmet won’t be causing Evan more pain.

“I made a really cool off-road route for today,” Tucker says.

“Send it to me so that I can have a look, I just sent everyone the one I made last night,” I reply.

Tucker fiddles with his phone and isn’t able to get the route to export properly so it can’t be shared.

“Let’s stick with Shaun’s route since we all have it,” Evan says.

“I’m cool with that,” Aaron agrees.

Tucker ignores the exchange as he continues to struggle with the download on his device.

After breakfast, the hotel manager takes us to retrieve our bikes from their stable. He removes the padlock and opens the makeshift steel door. With some relief, we find everything the way we left it the night before. We ride our bikes back a block, up the hill to the hotel, and park in front. We agree to head out no later than 8:45. Thirty minutes. Plenty of time.

We return to our rooms to pack up. On the way out, I pay for my room — 150,000 pesos, about $37, cash-only here. I arrive at my bike around 8:30, and Aaron is already there working on his. Evan arrives. Sorts some gear and plops his duffel on the bike. Then tightens a strap. Loosens it. Retightens. All three of us are loaded with our duffels within a few minutes. We share Aaron’s tire gauge to check tire pressures while we wait for Tucker to arrive. Aaron checks Tucker’s.

8:45 rolls around, and Tucker is still not down. The sun peeks over the top of the west-facing, three-story hotel and immediately heats the morning air to a muggy heat. I begin to sweat. The three of us are looking for shade while we wait for Tucker.

He finally appears. “What’s up, guys?” he says enthusiastically. Aaron glances at me. I meet his eyes, which roll, then look away. No one says a thing.

“I checked your air pressure, the rear tire is at 26 psi and could use a top off,” Aaron says to Tucker.

“Thanks, man, you’re awesome,” Tucker replies with appreciation.

“Let’s take care of it when we fuel up,” I say.

While Tucker loads his belongings, I study the road ahead on the map. I think about distance. About heat. About daylight, already slipping. I suppress my urge to push things along. Our destination today is Muzo, a short 90 miles, but in unknown terrain.

Tucker’s gear is the most extensive of everyone’s. He brought everything he planned to ride with on the trip from home, since his bike was coming directly from Miami, where he bought it sight unseen. He piles his gear on the sidewalk next to the bikes and begins stuffing items into the bike’s side panniers.

“Can we help,” I ask with annoyance.

“Don’t hurry me, it will only take longer,” he retorts.

Panniers loaded, he grabs his giant yellow dry sack duffel and straps it to his tail rack, then takes the fishing pole he has hauled down here and slides it under the straps. The uneven load bulges.

Tucker finally mounts up, and we roll out at 9:15. No one comments on the time.

Before heading southwest to Muzo, we head a couple miles north to check out a waterfall that supposedly flows through a hole in the side of a cliff — the reason we stayed in Florián. A Tucker find. At the waterfall, the tension loosens. We park on the side of the narrow road and dismount. A small, faded sign marks the trailhead.

We hike a couple of hundred feet down a steep, slick trail to a rickety suspended footbridge that crosses a stream bed flowing into a cave — really a grotto with a 50-foot ceiling. We scramble down the damp, mossy rock footing and around automobile-sized boulders to a slow-moving stream, a trickle this time of year. We then follow it to where it exits the cave, here it drops 1,400 feet straight down. I can see Florian tucked in the rainforest on the side of the mountain, a few hundred feet lower and a mile or so to the west. I’m noticing the lack of graffiti, trash, or broken bottles that usually accompany sites like this in most parts of the world.

A weak mist rises. Hummingbirds buzz around, nectaring on the jungle flowers that surround the mouth of the cave. It feels mystical. We speculate about what this place might have meant to indigenous people. Did they perform rituals here? Sacrifices? Burials?

We linger, trying to capture some photos of the birds. Eventually, I start back up the trail, hoping that my exit will suggest it’s time to move on. Evan and Aaron follow.

Back at the bikes, Aaron, Evan, and I are ready in five minutes. Helmet on. Gloves on.

Tucker is still coming up the trail. Many great photos to be had. We wait another five minutes. It’s now 11:15, time to roll.

We ride the two miles back into Florián and fuel up at its only gas station. Aaron helps Tucker top off his rear tire while Evan and I take turns topping off our bikes. I pay for both to save time, and Evan agrees to get the next tank. After Tucker and Aaron are ready, we head out of town the way we had come in.

* * *

We leave Florián behind as we ride past the same small rows of shacks from the night before, all feeling less substantial and quieter in the glare of the sun now directly overhead.

We decide to distance ourselves to let the dust settle between bikes, agreeing to stop at every intersection so we can stay together. We all have the day’s route up on our screens. Aaron leads, me next, Tucker, then Evan. The road is more traveled during the day, with a steady flow of farmers on small motorbikes, occasional tractors, and overloaded agricultural trucks carrying varying loads of harvested crops. The road is not wide enough in most places for two vehicles to pass, and it’s tight even for our motorcycles when oncoming trucks approach. The going is slow and dusty.

About 10 miles out from Florián, we come to a small village where our route splits from the route we took from Bogota the night before and turns west toward Muzo. By the time I arrive on the edge of town, Aaron is pulled over and waiting. I pull alongside him and shut the bike down. We both remove our helmets for a drink of water and a snack. After a short wait, Evan arrives before Tucker.

“Evan, did you pass Tucker?” I ask.

“No, I never saw him,” he replies. “I thought he was in front of me.”

“He was,” I reply.

“I wonder if he took a wrong turn,” Aaron says.

I pull my sweaty helmet back on so that I can use the intercom to try to reach him. “Tucker, come in. Do you hear me?” No response.

A couple of minutes later, I try again, but nothing.

“Let’s have a snack and wait a few more minutes,” Evan suggests. We do.

“I’ll try him on my phone,” Aaron says. “I’ve got two bars here.” No response.

I finish my energy bar and have some water. “I’ll ride back to see if he’s OK,” I say, hoping that he hasn’t crashed or flatted.

“We’ll wait here,” Aaron replies.

I head back the way we came in and ride about three miles to the point where I last saw Tucker in my rearview. He’s nowhere to be found; I’m now worried. I turn around to ride back to Aaron and Evan so we can formulate a plan to find Tucker. As I pull up to where I had left them twenty minutes prior, I see three bikes parked. I pull up and remove my helmet.

“What the hell, where were you Tucker?” I exclaim.

“I decided to explore the route I made last night to see if it connected to where we are going,” he replies. “It dead-ended into a single-track goat path.”

I feel my blood pressure rise now that I know his detour was intentional. “Dude, we were worried about you. We’ve been waiting 45 minutes. We have to stay together out here.”

I’m pissed.

“I agree,” Aaron says calmly, but with annoyance. “Let’s stay together.”

“And on our agreed-upon route,” I add.

“Yeah, probably a good idea,” Tucker says.

Evan, who is still getting a feel for the group, sits quietly on his bike and looks away from the conversation.

“We should hit the road, it’s almost 12:30, and we’ve only made it 15 miles,” I say.

* * *

We settle in on the ride for the day, a mix of dirt and poorly maintained paved two-lane mountain roads. We arrive in Muzo around 4:00.

“I guess I was wrong about how long it would take to get here,” I say over the intercom as we roll in.

“It was a fun ride, glad we’re here before dark,” Aaron says.

Muzo is the emerald-mining capital of Colombia, and like most mining towns, it feels raw and uneasy. Gaunt men, young and old, walk the sidewalks in the dead, humid heat, their ragged clothes and hands stained black from the shale that hides the tiny emeralds. I see very few women or children. Aside from its emeralds, the town was the site of the Guerras Verdes (green war) between El Chapo’s drug-cartel-funded Marxists and the government, which ended in 1991 after claiming nearly 10,000 lives. The pall left by the conflict 30 years prior lingers.

Tucker locates a hotel on a booking app at the edge of town, more of a walled motor lodge. The heavy-wheeled gates are locked shut when we pull up. He buzzes reception on the scratchy intercom. A teenage boy shows up in a few minutes, unlocks the gate, and rolls it open. We ride through and park in a covered area near the front office. It feels more secure than the night before.

While Tucker talks with the receptionist, I spot beers in a small refrigerator in the corner. I grab four Aguilas and pass three to my friends as we go through the slow registration process. The cold beer goes down quickly. I grab four more before paying the receptionist for all eight.

My ground-level room is air-conditioned. I unpack my gear and take a cool shower. I head to the small courtyard and try to call Betty. Voicemail. I text instead — “We are in Muzo at our hotel, fun ride, call when you can” — and add a red heart emoji. Aaron and Evan join me at the small round metal table where I sit.

After a few minutes, Tucker rolls in carrying a six-pack of beer. “I talked to the hotel manager. He hooked us up with a tour guide who will take us to an emerald dealer who will open his shop for us tonight. 20,000 pesos for all four of us, about $60.”

“That sounds great,” I say with hesitation, reluctant to commit to a guide who doesn’t speak English. But the others are up for it, so I go along.

The tour guide arrives on a small dirt bike. He walks us toward the center of town past a small arena where kids and families are beginning to gather for a soccer match, halogen lights already blazing. The emerald dealer is there when we arrive at the storefront, inside with a younger version of himself, presumably his son. They unlock the door and show us around.

The store shelves are sparsely stocked with necklace pendants, small gold rings, and earrings, none of high quality. I start examining the raw stones and think of Betty. There is no way I would buy her a piece of jewelry; she is far too particular about what she wears. I decide to find three stones of similar shape and quality for her to have set in something she would value. A gift with real meaning, and something she would wear with her designer brands. The thought process makes me miss her more.

He explains in Spanish how emeralds are graded for darkness, clarity, and occlusions. Tucker translates. Aaron and Evan look around but aren’t buying. I feel rushed. The owner brings out several small white envelopes and empties them onto a tray under a bright light with a magnifying lens, pointing out the specific traits of each stone. It takes me about 15 minutes to find two that are close in color and size. I can’t find a matching third.

The merchant breaks out his calculator and scratches a number on a small pad: 1,500,000 COP (about $450). I respond with 1,000,000. We settle on 1,250,000. I instantly feel I’ve been swindled — I hadn’t considered the cut for the tour guide, and possibly the hotel manager who recommended him. I watch as he carefully folds the emeralds in white paper, then inserts them into a white envelope. I dole out fresh bills. He hands me the envelope across the counter.

Tucker completes his own purchase.

The merchant closes and locks the door as we exit the store. It’s almost dark outside. The guide takes us across the plaza to the Emerald Museum, which is officially closed but open for us by arrangement. Like the town, the museum is tired — poorly lit exhibits of miners’ tools, ore reproductions, and photos of revolutionaries. Fifteen minutes to see the whole thing.

Exiting the museum on the plaza, I notice the ragged population again. I can’t stop thinking about whoever controls this trade — the men who never get their hands dirty. The buyers, sellers, traders, and exchanges. The disparity scares me deep down and makes me want to keep moving.

We eat dinner at a small restaurant, then head back to the hotel.

“The guide will take all four of us to see a mine in the morning, $20,000 pesos each,” Tucker announces. “He’ll meet us here at 6:30, breakfast at his place first, should be done by 10:00. Should we do it?”

“Sounds good to me,” I vote. The others agree.

“Let’s sort out tomorrow’s route before committing,” I suggest. “I plotted one that looks interesting.”

“Yeah, I did too,” Aaron says. We compare them. His is slightly longer, about 80 miles, but it’s impossible to tell which will be more interesting.

“I vote we take Aaron’s route,” Tucker proclaims without having looked at either.

“How can you pick a route without looking at the options?” I ask.

“Let’s take Aaron’s route,” he replies. “It will be more fun.”

My temples pulse with the dismissal. I suppress the feeling. “All right then, shoot us the track on WhatsApp, Aaron.”

* * *

It’s light out, but the sun isn’t up yet, and it’s relatively cool. We are all ready to depart the motel at our agreed-upon 6:30 AM. The tour guide arrives on his dirt bike. We follow him past the edge of town, a few miles down a wooded dirt road, before turning sharply up a narrower steep road. We ascend a series of switchbacks through the rainforest. Partway up the mountain, we pull into a crudely developed parking area that overlooks the town a thousand feet below. There we are led up a path to a couple of outdoor picnic tables. Pigs and chickens roam the yard.

We are seated at the tables, and a woman comes out of the house almost immediately with a tray of small coffee cups and a small milk pitcher. We sit sipping the weak coffee and quietly talk about what might be next. Then the guide and the woman return from the house with four plates of fried eggs, ham, and arepas, along with fresh guava juice.

After we eat, the guide explains to Tucker, who translates, that we will be hiking up a steep path to an abandoned emerald mine for a tour. He brings us rubber boots and hard hats with lights on them. We swap among ourselves, trying to find the best imperfect match.

The guide leads us out of the yard with an electric jackhammer slung over his shoulder. He hands Aaron a five-gallon plastic bucket to carry and hands Evan a rolled-up screen. We hike about 15 minutes to a small, crooked mine shaft entrance nestled on the steep wooded slope. The old timbers supporting the shaft entrance are tired. The inside of the mine appears completely black, like coal. We crowd around the door, perched on the small flat area in front of the opening, while the guide connects the jackhammer’s power cord to a generator. He fires it up before handing each of us a pair of foam earplugs. Then he leads us in.

We crouch as we walk about 100 feet down the shaft; it’s completely dark except for the beams from the cap lamps on our hard hats. Water drips. The guide stops and signals us to stand back. Then he begins hammering aggressively into the black walls with the jackhammer. Shale crumbs and chunks the size of walnuts accumulate at our feet.

Then he hands the jackhammer to Tucker, who repeats the process for a few minutes. We each take a turn. It feels like a hundred degrees in the cramped tunnel, and I’m beginning to feel claustrophobic. After we each have a turn with the jackhammer, the guide shovels the shale ore into the plastic. We turn and begin exiting the shaft, our pace faster than when we came in.

It takes my eyes a minute to adjust when I exit the pitch black of the mine, the day’s sun now fully up. I feel like I can breathe again.

The guide grabs the screen he had stashed beneath a bush and turns on a water hose. He dumps some shale onto the screen and positions Aaron and Evan opposite each other, each holding two corners of the screen. He begins running water over the screen and motions for them to start shaking it back and forth. The shale crumbles and washes off the screen. After about five minutes of shaking, we find our first emerald. A green, cloudy, cracked breadcrumb of a gem. Then another, and another. We are all now focused on the screen and on what riches we might find.

After about five minutes of shaking, the guide dumps a fresh batch of shale on the screen. Now Tucker and I give it a try. We find a few more of the same cloudy gems. The guide lets us keep our loot and gives us a small ziplock for safekeeping. I notice that my hands are now black.

Before we leave, Tucker asks the guide about a place he had read about, where active mining still happens, the Rio Minero. The guide says we can check it out, but warns us that it is still a commercial operation. He offers to take us there for another 20,000 COP each. We decline, opting to explore it ourselves.

* * *

On our way back through Muzo, we fuel up and top off our tire pressure for our 110-mile ride. Tucker’s tire is low again, not his fault, just a slow leak. While he tops it off, I check my messages for an update from Veronica.

“Motos are still in Miami customs, will update when I learn more,” is what I read. I read it aloud to the others.

“I think we are being scammed,” Evan replies.

The rest of us dismiss the accusation.

We head out of town on a well-traveled, wide dirt road that leads us through a small gorge. We can see the river a few hundred meters below us. Just past the gorge, we turn off the main road to another well-developed dirt road that descends to the river bottom. The road is lined with chain link fences topped with razor wire. There are buildings perched on the steep hillside that suggest commercial operations, and the military presence here is felt. We don’t see anyone on the road or behind the fences. I still feel we could be stopped and turned back any minute by an armed patrol.

We continue to the bottom, where we encounter a river about 50 yards wide.

The plain is devoid of flora. Piles of black tailings the size of small huts litter the drainage as far as we can see upstream or down. We stop to check it out, then decide to cross. I go first. It’s not deep or slippery, and the KTM crosses without incident. The rest follow.

Once across the river, we spot about 50 scattered miners, each sluicing for emeralds. They begin to notice us and our four orange KTMs on the shore and start setting down their tools. I immediately think about how each of our bikes is probably worth more than these miners earn in a year or two of hard labor. We dismount the bikes and remove our helmets.

“Let’s go see if we can buy some emeralds from them,” Tucker says.

“I bet we can,” Aaron replies.

I’d already blown my emerald budget the night before and wasn’t interested in buying more. I was still curious about the miners and what they had to offer. Something tells me this place is not safe. Not just a place to get ripped off, but possibly robbed. I get the sense that very few outside visitors who are not in the emerald trade venture here.

“I’ll stay behind to watch the bikes,” Evan offers.

“Thanks,” I say, “good idea.”

Tucker, Aaron, and I walk toward the miners, who have now gathered in a group of about 15 or 20. A particularly muscular, tattooed, and assertive leader, less dirty than the others, approaches us and does the talking. He controls the conversations with each miner as we inspect their gems one by one. A couple of miners try to bypass the leader and are quickly put back in line.

Each miner reaches into their trousers and shirt pockets, retrieving small, dirty, folded envelopes containing their daily finds. The circle now closes around us, tightening with the excitement of making a deal. The miners empty their emeralds into their dirty palms to inspect. Two, three, five stones at a time. Most are larger and darker than the ones we had mined ourselves earlier in the day.

We find the prices lower than at the Muzo store, but the stones are not curated. Tucker and Aaron each find a couple they want to buy. We are short on cash, so we pool our pesos to finalize the transaction and pay the leader directly.

When we start walking the 50 yards back to Evan, I notice that a few straggling miners have approached him directly from upstream with their wares. He does his best to ignore them, but I can tell he is uncomfortable with their approach.

Back at the bikes, we quickly put our helmets back on, trying to ignore the onslaught of approaching miners the way one does when closing the windows on a car to keep the mosquitoes out.

“No estamos interesados en comprar más esmeraldas,” Tucker repeats more than once, clearly communicating our disinterest. They don’t leave us alone until we fire up the bikes and begin to ride away. I’m thankful for his language skills.

As we ride along the riverbank and back across, I feel like I’m being watched all the way to the main road.

I am fiddling with my phone, trying to get the map to recenter while riding with one hand, which causes me to momentarily swerve into the lane to my right. Immediately behind me, Tucker sees a bus almost clip me.

“Look out, Shaun!”

“Damn, that was close,” I respond as a sweat bead rolls from my forehead into my left eye.

The close call reminds me that I’m not wearing any of my usual protective gear; riding boots, knee and shin pads, elbow pads, chest protector, and Cordura pants and jacket all on my crated Triumph in Miami. I joke to myself that I might as well be riding in sneakers, shorts, and a tank top. At least I have my helmet.

We somehow manage to stay together as we navigate the same neighborhoods from the night before, spilling single file onto the eight-lane heading north. The dry 67 degree day feels more like 90 with the intensity of the high-altitude sun and heat radiating from the pavement and black diesel exhaust belching from the buses and trucks around us. Scooters, buses, trucks, cars, and motorcycles everywhere — more two-wheeled vehicles than cars. I can’t imagine choosing a car in this country.

Motorcycles slip between lanes of traffic like it’s normal. I’m not convinced it’s safe. Catch a mirror with your handlebars, and you will go down and maybe under. My singular concentration is on not being run over by a huge truck.

Aaron chimes in with a suggestion, “We should split lanes.”

“You already are, I see you six cars ahead,” I reply.

“I’m not too comfortable with that,” Tucker says. I’m not sure I am either.

Aaron is the most experienced city rider in the group. He lives in Salt Lake and has owned motorcycles for commuting to work. He knows how to navigate a stop-and-go freeway. Evan too. But not Tucker or me.

“I’m thinking we should — right now we aren’t making five miles an hour. At this pace we won’t make it out of the city before dark,” I say, exaggerating.

“Alright, let’s split lanes,” I hear Tucker say, riding on my rear fender.

I check my mirror and use my left signal as I pull onto the white line between the crowded lanes. I shift from first to second and accelerate, passing between a row of cars and a large tractor-trailer, then a bus, and more cars. I see Evan in my rearview mirror, right behind Tucker. Aaron is now out of sight ahead of us. My shoulders tighten, and I grip the bars like my life depends on them, choking the blood from my forearms. On one hand, the intensity is exhilarating, on the other, I’m wondering what the fuck I’m doing out here.

It takes an hour to travel the 10 miles to the edge of Bogotá. Despite the thinning traffic, my nerves are frayed and I keep thinking, “Get me off this road.” We ride north another thirty minutes to a major intersection where the route splits — this is where the day tips one way or the other. I feel disoriented. My internal compass had been calibrated for moving south, toward Tierra del Fuego. Momentum, just not forward.

Out of nowhere, I remember that I had forgotten to call Betty this morning, my riding concentration broken. I’ll have to wait until we get to Florián.

I see the split on the map on my phone. Small roads, dirt, and fun. Or the main road, trucks, and traffic. Both dangerous, but in completely different ways.

Over the intercom, I say, “We might not make it to Florián before dark if we take the smaller road. I don’t really want to ride in the dark.”

Aaron answers immediately, “Let’s take the route I made; we can make it.” Riding in the dark concerns him less.

“I’m totally down for that,” Tucker backs him without hesitation. “I want out of this traffic.”

The lack of an intercom keeps Evan out of the discussion and decision-making process.

I don’t oppose the plan, especially since I feel like we’ve pushed our luck with the dense traffic enough for one day. I repeat the concern about daylight, “we have only three hours of light left,” and don’t push back further.

* * *

Bogotá is located on a high, dry, flat plateau, the Sabana de Bogotá (Bogotá Savanna), that averages 8,400 feet in elevation, sitting between the Cordillera Central (Central Range) to the west and the Cordillera Oriental (Eastern Range) to the east. The route we are now on will take us over two small passes, one that tops out at 10,000 feet and the other at 10,500 feet, before dropping to 3,000 feet into a valley. There, we will ascend to the other side, to Florián, which sits at an elevation of 5,700 feet.

The ascent from the plateau passes over a mountain dotted with small farms and houses. The road quickly narrows from paved two-lane to cobblestone one lane to dirt. The barbed wire fences come right up to the road, no margin. Again, I ride faster on the dirt, leaving everyone except Aaron behind. Herders move their livestock down the roads, rotating from pasture to pasture. I lead for a while, following the green route we all loaded onto our smartphones back at Jorge’s garage. The road gets progressively steeper. Eventually, I miss a turn by a hundred yards, and our procession stops.

“Did you see the turn?” I ask over the intercom as I see Aaron ride up behind me.

“No, but it’s gotta be there,” he replies.

We turn our bikes around on the steep path and head back the other way. We catch Tucker and Evan before they reach the turn we missed, saving them from a U-turn on the steep rocky road. Aaron now leads on the now smaller road. The summit is not really a summit; it’s just the highest point of this part of the route where the road peeks around a ridge that continues up out of sight. The view into the Bogotá Plateau and east to the high peaks of the Cordillera Oriental is spectacular. The valley activity below is completely obscured by the day’s thick smog.

We descend the ridge, cross a small valley, and begin ascending the second, 10,500-foot ridge. Here it is more rural. Farms, but fewer of them. We ascend a dirt road through a forest where the air begins to cool and condense into a cool mist. The damp road is slick, and I can feel the rental KTM’s tires and traction control take over as I go up the steeper switchbacks. Peeking over the summit, Aaron and I decide to stop to wait for the others.

Looking north, the Cordillera Central is now in view; it appears as a series of velvety green, knife-edged ridges. Here, the air is clear, and I can see the bottom of the valley a mile and a half below. Small, irregularly shaped farms cling to the hillsides and the valley floor. A major, paved road winds through the bottom. Clouds are below us.

I’m chilled and dig into my luggage to find my insulated flannel shirt, the thickest layer I have with me. Tucker and Evan arrive, and they do the same. We each grab a snack and drink some water before starting the descent. The 16-mile descent winds down switchbacks that repeat every few hundred yards on loose, steep gravel. Each rutted switchback turns sharply toward the exposure below, then back again. The edge of the road is jagged from erosion and landslides. There is no room for error here; I ride standing and alert

The ABS system on the KTM is a lifesaver, preventing the front wheel from washing out in every turn. About a third of the way down, I stop to wait for the others. Aaron is close behind as usual, Tucker and Evan are several minutes back. I take the opportunity to remove my flannel and restow it while we wait, the humid heat now causing me to sweat. Aaron does the same.

I check my watch. It’s 6:15. The group eventually takes an hour to descend the valley, including stops and waiting. At this pace, I realize that there will be no way to make it the remaining 20 miles to Florián before dark. Rule one: don’t ride after dark. We will be breaking it on day one.

Aaron and I take turns setting the pace out front on the rough dirt road, stopping every 20 minutes or so to wait for the others. The road here winds up through the rainforest. About halfway up, we encounter a wide stream that flows across the road, the first of two. I stop to inspect it before crossing, not knowing how deep or swift the water is. Aaron rides up behind me.

“How’s it look?” he asks.

“Not bad, maybe 18 inches deep, slow moving,” I say.

He doesn’t reply, or stop, and rides through the stream and up the steep, slick exit on the other side. I follow, trying to hold my feet high to avoid getting my boots and jeans wet. Aaron waves me on up the hill and waits to be sure that Evan and Tucker ford the stream safely. No incidents.

Dark falls fast as expected. We pass a few people walking on the primitive road in the dark. I imagine they are heading home from working in the fields.

Chickens and occasional goats scatter as we approach. All living things are heading in for the night. I stick my boot out twice to avoid being bitten by the dogs that bark and chase us with intent. Smells of onions cooking waft from the dimly lit shanties as we pass, a contrast to the peaty smells emanating from the rainforest between settlements.

A chicken on the side of the road decides to fly directly in front of my headlight. “Did I hit that chicken?” I ask Aaron, now behind me, over the intercom.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Good thing, I bet that’s a tough one to settle up with its owner.”

He laughs.

I don’t feel safe stopping, unsure about the people we see walking sporadically in the dark. Not necessarily bad people, just unfamiliar. We pass another line of three or four dwellings, ride a quarter mile, then stop again to wait for our friends. Once we see Tucker and Evan’s headlights, we start again before they reach us to keep the momentum and spacing.

“Why don’t you lead for a while?” I tell Aaron. I give him a 30-second head start to let the dust settle. When I get close to him, dust in the dead air fills my headlight and almost completely dims it. I can’t see the drop-offs into the jungle below, but I know they are there. I stay focused on the narrow band of light in front and Aaron’s taillight when I can see it.

No one talks.

Florián is dark when we approach. Aaron and I stop at the edge of town to wait for Tucker, who has booked one of the two hotels in town for the night. He leads us into town. The few halogen streetlights are spaced so far apart that most streets remain unlit. The town is run-down, well past its heyday.

* * *

Florián clings to the edge of a gorge, six to eight blocks of cobblestone, cinder-block structures, and concrete. The hotel is easy to miss. We overshoot it by a couple of blocks and end up on the other side of town from where we entered. We circle back down the steep street and ride slowly so we don’t miss the hotel.

Tucker sees the hotel, front door wide open, and stops. I check my rearview and make a U-turn. The others copy the move, so our bikes face uphill. We roll them backward diagonally into the curb to prevent them from rolling backward. Tucker dismounts, removes his helmet, and walks past a little barefoot kid running out as he enters the rundown inn. The rest of us wait outside until he returns.

“The good news, we each have our own room. The bad news, the place is a shit hole,” he announces. “I really fucked this up. There must be a nicer place here.”

“Dude, no worries,” I say. “None of us is here for the lodging experience,” thinking this type of lodging would likely become a norm on our trip.

Aaron pipes in, “This place will be fine.”

“Is there a place to park our bikes that is secure?” Evan asks.

“The owner said it’s down the hill, a block away; he will lead us there after we unpack,” Tucker replies.

We unstrap our bags and head into the cramped hotel. A blast of frying fish smell and onions hits me as I enter the reception area. Inside, children sit on a bed watching football, the owner’s family. Oil and heat hang in the dense, still air.

The owner takes our passports and fills out the usual forms, and returns them. It’s fast and efficient. Then he leads us up a steep, narrow flight of stairs to a dark hallway that opens onto the back of the building. He shows each of us to our rooms, mine is the last one on the right with a screenless, open window overlooking the pig pen and chicken coop below. Beyond is a steep cascade of houses stepping into the dark jungle below—corrugated metal roofs, blue tarps stretched where walls should be. The smells mix and drift in.

The room is barely larger than the bed. Muggy. The mattress sags, half bed, half hammock. Still better than sleeping on the roadside without camping gear.

The three-foot-by-six-foot private bathroom is worse. The toilet, which blocks the entry to the shower stall, is jammed so close to the wall that there’s no way to sit—only to squat with your head against the wall. Bare wires poke through a hole in the ceiling, wrap around the shower head, and snake down to a lightbulb hooked to the ceiling. I study it longer than necessary. Electrocution feels plausible.

Once settled, the owner leads us down the block with our bikes to a “secure” place to park for the night. He stops at a corrugated metal building that appears to be a livestock stall. He unlocks the metal gate and points us in. It smells of horse manure and urine. One by one, we manage to wedge the four KTMs side by side. We can only exit by climbing over them; when we are done, there is no room left in the stall. He replaces the padlock and walks us back to the hotel. He points out two small cafes on the way back, both still open.

* * *

Back at the hotel, we agree to meet in twenty minutes to head out for dinner. I head up to my room, undress, then remember that I need to touch base with Betty. I call her and get voicemail. Then I text, “just tried calling. We made it to our hotel for the night. Call when you get this. Love you!” The interaction with my phone makes me miss her.

Stepping around the toilet, I reach in to turn the shower on, only to find cold water here. I use the ketchup-style pack of soap to wash my hair and sweaty body. I’m careful not to splash water above my head, knowing that the bare wires a few inches above my head are probably not grounded or connected to a breaker. I dry off, put on a clean T-shirt and underwear, and then the sweaty, dusty pants I had ridden in all day.

Everyone shows up as planned in front of the hotel, and we head back around the corner to one of the cafés we had passed before. The halogen-lit establishment has four tables, each with four plastic yard chairs. There is a couple having dinner at one, the rest are empty. Yells and cheers of kids playing football across the street in the brightly lit arena filter in.

We scope the menu: pan-fried trout, fried chicken, potatoes, and beer. “Cuatro cervezas, por favor,” Tucker orders a round.

“Y aguas, por favor,” Evan continues.

The cold beer tastes amazing, and within a few sips, the edge of the day begins to dissolve. Aaron checks his WhatsApp messages. Nothing from Veronica.

“She’s ghosting us,” Evan proclaims with accusation.

“I’ll text her now,” Aaron says.

Within a minute, she responds, “Your bikes are still tied up in U.S. Customs; our forwarder there is doing everything they can to get them through. We hope they come this week.”

“This week!” I exclaim. “What the fuck, this week? She can’t be serious.”

We lament our bikes and manage to change topics. Our order arrives, and as expected, everything on the plate is deep-fried. This is probably a good thing given the number of flies I see buzzing around. We devour it within minutes, then decide to settle up rather than have another round of beers in this place with the flies.

We are still hyped up from the day’s ride and decide to check out a local bar a few blocks up the hill instead of going to bed. The tavern’s windows and doors are open at both ends to encourage airflow. Several rough-looking characters hunch at the bar, drinking and smoking sour-smelling cigarettes; ragged clothes, tattooed, and worn from work. I’m glad I’m with three other guys, even though none of us remotely blend in.

We order a round of beers and find a small, worn table near the front door, hoping for a draft of fresh air. Instead, we get more cigarette smoke from outside where two men are talking on the mostly deserted sidewalk. Tucker has brought a deck of cards, and we play his favorite game, Screw Your Neighbor. The mood lightens. The day has exhausted us, but we are finally riding in the Andes.

We walk back to the hotel around 10:30.

“Meet downstairs at 7:00 for breakfast?” Aaron asks. We all confirm, before heading up the stairs to our rooms for the night. I check my messages one last time before turning out the light, nothing from Betty.

I love this song… pop country and all! Lambert absolutely captures the momentum and rhythm of the “roaming town to town” exploration we were looking for. Our motorcycles were trapped somewhere in a U.S. Customs warehouse 1,500 miles away. We had no idea if or when they might show up, so we took immediate action to build momentum.

“I wanna go somewhere where nobody knows / I wanna know somewhere where nobody goes”

...and we did! We didn’t hesitate; we rented bikes and hit the road. We weren’t even going south toward our destination 7,000 miles away. We knew we’d have to circle back to Bogotá the second word came through. But for us those days, the not-knowing didn’t matter.

“There’s something ‘bout the way I feel when the wheels go round and round and round”

We didn’t even have our proper riding gear, it didn’t matter our wheels were going round on some kick ass, Austrian-made KTM 890s that Aaron had found.

“Highway vagabonds. Living like hippies. Moving right along to the next big city”

Lambert’s vagabonds never have to go back; they don’t even need direction. We did. That’s the difference, and it’s also what made every day of the loop Tucker devised worth savoring.

Chapter 6 of Honest Miles drops on Sunday.

I have a checklist of things that need to happen before heading south: confirm dates and addresses with the shipper who will get our bikes to Miami, fix the Triumph’s cruise control issue, mount a fresh set of tires, and change the oil.

I load the Tiger the way I will be riding it — panniers packed, an old leave-behind duffel with my riding gear and boots strapped to the rack, and snacks in the tank bag, everything in its place. The only things I will carry on the plane are my helmet and my dry-bag top duffel.

The cruise control issue is electronic, not something I can easily diagnose at home. A short call with a technician in Idaho Falls leads me to believe that the rear traction control sensor (TCS) is malfunctioning. This could be an expensive repair that requires the diagnostic analyzer, which only the dealers have; thankfully, it is covered by warranty. I put the loaded bike on my truck and drive it the 90 miles to the dealership. There, I tell the shop manager about the LatAm trip and that a transport will pick up the bike in four days to take it to Miami. He assures me they can resolve the sensor issue by then.

I walk past the service desk into the shop, past the signs that always read “EMPLOYEES ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT”. I want to be sure nothing gets lost in translation between the Manager and the person who will be doing the work. The repair and the timeframe are critical. In the shop, I find the tech behind a row of broken bikes waiting to be fixed, he’s wrenching on a dirt bike sitting on a lift.

“Hi, I’m Shaun. We talked on the phone a couple of days ago.” I put my hand out, and he wipes his greasy hand on an equally greasy red shop rag before shaking mine.

“Tim, nice to meet you,” he replies. “Is the Tiger yours?” He asks.

“Yep, taking it to South America.”

“Cool, would love to do that someday,” he responds.

“Can you help me unload the bike?” I ask.

Tim hits the red button that lifts the large service bay door. It’s raining outside, cold.

“Back it up to the loading dock,” he says, not wanting to roll the 500-pound machine off the 4-foot tailgate. I am relieved the dock is there.

“I know you will need to remove everything from the bike to get to the TCS. I just want to be sure we get everything put back on before the transport picks it up in four days,” I explain. I hand him the top duffel with my riding gear in it, “When you’re done, can you strap this to the top rack?” I hand him two old ratchet straps from the bed of my truck, “Use these.”

“None of that should be an issue,” he replies. “I’ll put all the luggage over in that corner so it doesn’t get mixed up,” he points to an empty corner next to the restroom, the only space in the whole shop that isn’t presently occupied.

“Thanks, man.” Now that he’s met me, I feel like he will prioritize the repair and the repack.

My gut still says this is risky. I have no choice but to ignore it.

A week and a half before Thanksgiving, the transport picks up the Tiger from the dealer. In the process, he texts me several photos and a short video to show me that all my gear has been reloaded onto the bike and that everything is intact. I respond with a thumbs-up emoji. He then heads south to Salt Lake to meet Aaron and pick up the brand-new Yamaha Tenere’700 he will be riding, untested.

Tucker has found a used, low-mileage KTM 790 Adventure R at a dealer in Miami who would prep the bike with new tires and an oil change, then deliver it to the airport to be crated along with the other bikes, also untested. Evan had traded his BMW 1250 for a Ducati Desert X 900 several weeks before and had broken it in. He was accompanying it from Virginia to Miami on the Amtrak Auto Train, tested. Aaron and my bikes arrive a couple of days ahead of Evan and his bike.

When Evan arrives at the shipper’s warehouse, he snaps some photos of our bikes next to his and texts them to us with a note, “This place seems legit, lots going on here.”

Now, all the bikes and our gear will sit in the freight forwarder’s warehouse for a full week before Thanksgiving. Plenty of time for emptying fuel tanks, crating the bikes individually, and clearing U.S. customs.

* * *

I coordinate with Veronica to have our bikes delivered on the Monday after Thanksgiving. She made it clear that we needed to be there when the bikes arrived to receive them at customs. She assures us that there shouldn’t be a problem coordinating our arrival with the bikes’ arrival from Miami. Her people would walk us through customs and help uncrate the bikes. Something she says she facilitates every day.

I create a WhatsApp group called “Bike Shipping” that includes our crew and Veronica so that we can all be on the same page. “Bikes are crated, waiting for U.S. customs,” she assures us with a note on Friday.

Tucker, Aaron, and Evan fly to Bogotá on Friday to check it out for a couple of days before our bikes arrive. I can’t join them since I am still in Bozeman visiting my family for the holiday.

My 7:00 A.M. Sunday flight to Bogotá starts in Jackson, with a four-hour layover in Houston. Evan sends a message in the Bike Shipping group: “Veronica, any updates on the bikes?” No response, all day. I’m not worried — the bikes should be through customs by now and sitting on a wide-body plane ready for takeoff to Bogotá.

The passengers are a mix of businesspeople and tourists. No wi-fi on this flight. I watch a movie on the seatback screen, then nap for a couple of hours, head bobbing. We land at 10:00 P.M., right on time. I turn my phone on while we taxi to the terminal. A flurry of WhatsApp notifications pings my screen the second my phone hits the cellular network.

The first one I see is from Tucker. “Aaron found us some bikes we can rent while we wait for our bikes.” My stomach sinks knowing what I will read next, in reverse chronology, an unraveling.

I open the chain between Veronica and our group. “I do not know when they will get here,” her last message. I know what has happened, and I decide to skip the whole chain.

I call Tucker. “What’s going on?”

“Sounds like our bikes aren’t going to be here tomorrow,” he answers.

“Any idea on an ETA?”

“Veronica thinks they will get here in the next day or two, she won’t commit. Aaron found us some bikes to rent while we are waiting,” repeating what I already knew.

“That’s great, how much are they?” I ask.

“$150 a day.”

“Not bad, I think that’s a good idea,” knowing that it’s more than any of us wants to pay.

“Evan is in, and so am I. I’ve already started mapping a route that allows us to see most of what I think is interesting in Central Colombia,” he says.

“Excellent, let’s do it,” I say hesitantly, knowing that the plan he and I had discussed is now just his.

I deplane and start walking toward the immigration passport checkpoint in the dimly lit airport, earbuds in. I can see that the maze leading to the booths where the immigration officials sit is nearly full.

“We are out at dinner right now. Come to the hotel, and we will meet you there,” he says.

“I gotta go, an officer is telling me to put my phone away. Send me the GPX routes, I’ll look at them on my cab ride.”

The core piece of this plan is to do a loop North and West of Bogotá that never puts us further than a day’s ride away, so we can return to the city as soon as we get word that our motorcycles have been shipped from the U.S. This plan is way better than sitting around Bogotá killing time waiting indefinitely for an unreliable plan to materialize.

The rental bikes solved part of the problem of gaining forward motion, but I felt naked. One of my main concerns is not having my riding gear with me. My boots, riding pants, jacket, protective pads, and gloves were all strapped to my bike, supposedly sitting in a customs warehouse in Miami. I can live with everything else for a few days, but my riding gear is all designed for protection.

It takes about an hour of standing in line to get through immigration. Before exiting the terminal, I go to an ATM to withdraw 80,000 pesos, about the same as $200 U.S. Dollars. I stand close to the machine to conceal the withdrawal, the whole time turning my head, making sure not to get mugged from behind.

It’s warmer than I expected when I exit the 8,300-foot-elevation airport. I am immediately accosted by several drivers hustling for a fare in broken English. I walk directly past them to the taxi stand without making eye contact. The line is about five people long. I count back the queue of taxis and see that mine will be a beat-up Renault compact. The driver arrives, opens the trunk, and reaches toward me to retrieve my duffel and helmet. I retract, opting to keep my belongings in the back seat for security. The tired rear seat engulfs me as I jump aboard and close the door. A seat spring pokes me. The air is sour. I can smell the remnants of garlic and onion odors from the driver’s dinner. The Translate app on my phone helps me communicate the hotel’s address to the driver. I roll the window down so I can breathe. Then I enter the hotel address into Google Maps on my phone, which gives me a sense of security as I follow the progress.

Shortly after 11:00, the taxi exits the airport onto the dimly lit eight-lane highway into the city. The traffic is immediately stop-and-go. Scooters and motorcycles buzz past my open window as the car traffic inches along. Although he doesn’t know I’m tracking our route, the driver follows the blue line on my maps app exactly, inching the taxi in the stuttering flow of late-night traffic into the city. Eventually, we enter downtown Bogotá and hit a stoplight. Beggars panhandle between the stopped cars, and prostitutes loiter at the curb. I roll up my window and double-check my door lock.

Tucker’s texted instructions are for me to text the hotel manager when I arrive so she can meet me on the street and unlock the security gate protecting the boutique hotel. I text the hotel, and on cue, the receptionist greets me on the nearly dark sidewalk. The young woman offers to take my duffel into the hotel. I decline the offer, preferring to keep it.

After checking in, I throw my things in my room. The hotel is nice, small, and clean, with a boutique vibe I enjoy. I head to the kitchen, where an array of fruit and pastry snacks is laid out for late-arriving guests. I hear the guys returning from dinner, bantering. They find me in the kitchen, we hang out and drink a beer while we discuss the plan for tomorrow.

The mood is light, given our circumstances, and Evan seems to be fitting in well with Tucker and Aaron. I’m relieved.

“Tucker, great find on the hotel!” I say, giving him a bear hug when he walks in.

“Thanks, man,” he replies, “so psyched you’re finally here!”

We talk about the customs delay and what it means for the trip, though none of us have any concrete information about when our bikes might arrive. A day, two, or five, we have no idea.

“Aaron, good job on finding some rentals,” I say.

“I went and checked them out today, they’re excellent bikes,” he replies.

“I think we are getting the run around from Veronica,” Evan says, slightly off-topic. “She has no idea what’s going on, and I feel like she is stalling.”

“Come on, I’m sure this kind of shit happens all the time,” I say. “The research I did on her, reading the Reddit posts on the Internet, was all positive.”

Tucker had gone to his room and returned. “Evan and I went to the flea market today,” he hands me a molded plastic figurine of the motorcycle cop from the Terminator movie. “This is Moto-Man, he’s yours to mount on your bike.”

“Did you guys get one too?” I ask.

“We each got something different,” he replied.

“That’s awesome! Thanks for thinking about me.”

Tucker and Evan were also donning fresh haircuts, another activity to pass the time on a Sunday in Bogotá.

“I bought a couple of pairs of hiking boots for riding, since I knew that ours were both packed with our bikes,” Aaron said. “A pair of 10’s and a pair of 11’s, I can wear either size; you decide which ones you want.”

I am relieved that Aaron recognized the need, and it felt good that he thought about it enough to buy a pair for me.

“What about you guys?” I ask, looking at Tucker and Evan.

“We each brought our gear with us,” Evan said. “But, I don’t have my helmet, it’s with the Ducati.”

“The guy at the rental place has some rental helmets he can rent,” Aaron informs us.

At about 1:00 we decide to wrap up our conversation and head to bed, agreeing to meet in the dining room at 8:00 for breakfast.

* * *

I’m there an hour early, mostly because I couldn’t sleep and was looking for a cup of coffee. A few people filter in and take seats at the closely spaced tables. Eventually, Aaron wanders in.

Still no new information from Veronica. We discuss our options: wait another day in Bogotá for our bikes to arrive, or rent the bikes he has located and go exploring.

“I’ve done some mapping on Gaia to make it interesting,” Aaron replies.

“Shoot me the tracks, I’d love to have a look,” I say.

The waitress, who is also the cook, stops by our table. I order two huevos fritos y jamón (fried eggs and ham) and a glass of orange juice.

“Mornin’ guys,” Tucker says, arriving a few minutes past 8:00. Then Evan.

“Mornin’,” Aaron and I reply to each.

“I slept like shit,” Evan says, “couldn’t shut the shades enough to block out the halogen lights.”

“Same here,” I reply. “Aaron and I are bouncing some ideas, I’d love your thoughts.”

“We can either spend another day in Bogotá to see if the bikes show up, or we can do the loop Tucker concocted, or something like it,” Aaron says.

“Do you think the bikes will get here tomorrow?” asks Tucker, directing the question at me.

“I hope so, but have no idea. You know what I know,” I reply.

“I vote for doing a loop,” Evan pipes in.

“I’ve already been here two days and want to ride,” Tucker votes.

“Excellent, we have a plan!” I say. “When can you nail down the bikes, Aaron?”

“I’ll text Jorge now to see when he can meet us,” he answers.

“We just need to be able to get back here as soon as our bikes are on the way,” Evan says.

“I agree. Let’s keep the loop to within a day’s ride of Bogotá,” I suggest.

“Do you think we are getting ripped off?” Evan asks, referring to Veronica.

“I don’t think so. This is her business,” Aaron replies.

“I think the problem is not in her control, U.S. Customs, the Thanksgiving holiday backlog, you know?” I reply, trying to address Evan’s agitation.

Veronica finally replies to the texts Aaron and I have sent her. No new news to report, the bikes are still waiting in the Miami queue. Veronica is quickly becoming an unpopular messenger of non-news.

I start a conversation with a young American couple to change the topic and find out they have been traveling in Colombia on their honeymoon. They suggest a few things to check out, most of which are on Tucker’s list. Aaron is having a separate conversation with a guy who is a racecar driver in Bogotá for a promotional event with his sponsor. The pace is relaxed, knowing that we can’t really get going until we hear back from Jorge.

* * *

Finally, at 9:00, Jorge replies to Aaron and agrees to meet us at his office ten blocks away at 10:00. After another cup of coffee, we head back to our rooms to pack up. We check out and call two taxis to take us with our bags to Jorge’s office.

The rental office is on the tenth floor of a 15-story building. The security guard at the ground-floor reception immediately recognizes us from our gear and appearance that we are here to rent motorcycles. He buzzes us in, then calls Jorge’s office. After a few words, he waves us to the cramped elevator, two at a time.

We find Jorge and his assistant crammed into a 10-foot-by-15-foot office with boxes of paperwork, helmets, and other random motorcycle gear stacked in corners; the door open, a small fan circulating stale air. After spending an hour filling out paperwork, paying up front for a two-day (optimistic) rental, and finding an ill-fitting helmet for Evan, Jorge takes us to the parking garage in the basement, where he assigns our motorcycles.

Aaron, Tucker, and I probe Jorge on the best way to our first destination in Latin America, a place called Florián. One route takes us out of the city, then onto a smaller road that eventually turns to dirt. His suggested route, the one Google Maps plotted, keeps us on pavement until the last 10 miles of the leg, about 3-4 hours. He has no estimate for how long it will take to get there on the more challenging route — I guess 5-6 hours. I know which one the group will pick without asking.

We spend the next hour in the dank, dimly lit parking garage two levels down. We strap our duffel bags to the luggage racks. I leave most of what I have in my top duffel since it’s waterproof and quick to unstrap at the end of a riding day. We use the generic phone mounts on the bikes to affix our smartphones to the handlebars for navigation. I see Aaron using zip ties to attach his dragon figurine to his left mirror.

“Can I steal one of those?” I ask. I spend more time messing with how to affix Moto Man to my bike than I do getting everything else ready.

Tucker, Aaron, and I manage to get our Cardo intercom systems working after several tries. Evan doesn’t have his since it’s attached to his helmet, which is crated with his Ducati.

I swap the running shoes I wore here with the cheap Chinese-branded hiking boots Aaron had given me. The flat insoles and stiff imitation Cordura uppers make the boots feel awkward on my feet. Lifesavers, but just barely more protection than the running shoes I arrived in.

While I wait for the others to finish packing and gear up, I take the elevator to the ground floor to get a signal so I can check in with Veronica one last time before we leave Bogotá. I try her, using WhatsApp voice. No answer, so I settle for another text, “any update?” I head back down. Everyone seems ready.

We finally head out; it is about 1:00 in the afternoon. Our excitement level and optimism are high. I’m hungry, but I don’t want to slow the forward progress down by suggesting lunch. Let’s just go.

“Watch out as you exit the garage, the turns are tight,” Jorge warns about the two tight turns up the ramp to the street. I go first. He’s right — the turns are very tight, steep, and slow, making it difficult to balance my bike as I ascend in the dark. Encountering a car coming in the opposite direction would pose a serious challenge.

The automatic gate senses my arrival, but not soon enough for it to be open when I arrive. I stop on the steep ramp and put my feet down to steady the bike while holding the front brake. Only the tips of my toes touch the somewhat slick concrete. The front tire can’t find traction, and the bike slowly begins to slide backward. I slip the clutch to hold us in place until the door opens wide. Halfway up, the light through the opening slams into my dilated eyes and blinds me. I’m afraid of tipping over here, before beginning anything. My toenails clench the inside of the cheap boots as I hold my breath. Meanwhile, I hear two bikes coming up behind me, then a third. I can’t tell who is who. I stay focused; if I tip over, they might also. I can’t cause more delay.

Gate almost up, eyes adjusted, I pull out onto the sidewalk. I wait for the others to assemble in the street. “Everyone ready?” I ask over the intercom.

“Check,” Tucker says.

“Yep,” from Aaron.

Evan can’t hear. I look at him and hold my thumb up. He nods. We are off!

Cocker doesn’t sing this song as a happy melody; rather, he puts soulful, deep vulnerability and insecurity out front. He slugs his way through it.

“What do you do when things go wrong?” Lennon and McCartney ask. “Lend me your ears, and I’ll sing you a song.”

The plan I’d spent months building was blown apart before even setting foot on the continent. Our motorcycles were stuck in a customs warehouse in Miami, along with most of our gear. The planning and control were gone before I touched the ground.

Tucker had already rebuilt the route by the time I cleared immigration. Aaron had found near-new KTM 890 Adventure bikes to rent while we waited for ours to show up. They even thought to buy me a pair of hiking boots to ride in.

What happens when the shit hits the fan on a plan you’ve architected, letting down those who followed you into the mess? Your real friends step up and move it forward without judgment, without criticism.

“Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends / Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends”

We didn’t get there because of my plan. I didn’t know it then, but we got there because of them.

Chapter 5 of Honest Miles drops on Sunday.

Riding a new bike out of the crate often uncovers things that were missed at the factory. Small defects in workmanship or loose fasteners. I also knew I needed more familiarity with the bike, its handling, and riding fully loaded on pavement and off-road.

With Betty gone and my work obligations under control, I spent a couple of days in the garage dismantling and reassembling the major components of the Tiger. A new bike feels great out of the crate, but the factories miss details that matter. Screws are improperly torqued or missing completely. Insufficient grease on bearing surfaces. I always find something.

Digging into the new Triumph revealed its British engineering, precision-machined components, and stainless-steel allen screw fasteners. The white tank was surrounded by a matching factory-installed crash bar, the one flimsy thing on the bike.

I installed aftermarket upgrades along the way. A high front fender, luggage rack, firm heated seat, and wiring for my phone charger, GPS, and heated jacket. I routed all of it from the auxiliary fuse under the seat, through the airbox compartment, under the tank, to the cockpit. This is work I wouldn’t trust to a shop mechanic. I didn’t like the slick Pirelli tires that came stock on the bike, street-oriented. The tires I chose were the Heidenau Rangers — I had ridden them on the 790 in Ecuador and liked their grip on slick surfaces.

The most important upgrade was the suspension. Manufacturers market these bikes as off-road capable. In reality, they know that 90% will never see a dirt road, consigned to be commuters. I invested in Touratech’s front-and-rear aftermarket suspension setup for my fully loaded bike, matched to my riding style and weight. I spent the better part of a day dismantling and rebuilding the bike’s front forks, installing new components and oil that would transform the handling from a street-oriented bike to one that could chew through rough roads. The rear shock was a much easier swap.

I mounted the luggage panniers to test the fit. They wanted to stick out like a toddler’s legs on a tricycle. I fabricated aluminum supports and bolted them to the subframe. The last thing I wanted on rough roads was bouncing luggage.

Sturdy black crash bars, aluminum hand guards, and protective tank stickers rounded out the build.

I mounted a mid-sized tank bag behind the bars, one that could be easily removed for security. In it, I kept items I’d want to access without dismounting — a small multi-tool with a knife, an allen wrench set for fast adjustments, an extra USB cord, a copy of the bike registration, and an insurance card. Almond butter packets and energy chews for the day. A small hydration bladder in the bottom compartment I could access while riding.

I laid everything out on my workbench — sleeping pad, tent, camp chair, JetBoil, tools, tire repair kit, spare parts, and first aid kit. Then I organized it into packing cubes, being careful to wrap sharp, hard items with softer goods to prevent rubbing and degradation on rough roads. I loaded the dry bags inserts for panniers with the heaviest items first, keeping the center of gravity low and balanced. I dedicated the smaller pouch on each pannier to items I’d need for quick access — tool roll and repair kit on one side, tire kit, sunscreen, wipes, and toilet paper on the other. I bought a waterproof document bag to keep in my top bag; it would hold the Triumph’s title, registration, and the temporary import permits for each country. This was a first cut, a dry run. A way to see what was missing before it mattered.

I loaded the bike and adjusted the front and rear suspension sag.

* * *

The weather forecast was for precipitation, lows in the 20’s, highs in the upper-30’s. Mix of rain and snow.

I created a route that would take me from Jackson to Flagg Ranch at the border of Yellowstone, then cut west on a US Forest Service road past Grassy Lake to Idaho. From there, remote USFS roads and two-track ATV trails north, to West Yellowstone, where I would rejoin the highway down the Gallatin River, past Big Sky, into Bozeman. A combination of two-lane highway, rough dirt roads, two-track trails, and twisty canyon highway. I spent three hours trying to load a GPX file from the Gaia app to my Garmin Zumo. The overly complex software was also buggy. An hour on the phone with tech support revealed outdated firmware on the brand-new GPS unit and an underlying flaw in the file system.

I loaded the bike as if I were off for the multi-month trip we were planning. Tools, tire repair kit, spare parts, camping gear, everything. Then I loaded my top pack with my work laptop, clothes, and overnight kit. The bike felt heavy, tippy.

I opened the garage door and fired the Triumph up. Betty was gone. I pulled out quietly, no particular reason to, just the instinct to leave without disturbing anything. The southern rock playlist drew me onto Highway 191 toward white lines that go forever.

I rode past Jackson Lake, cold, no boats on the water this late in the season, reminding me of the summer parties on the lake with Betty and friends. I arrived at the Flagg Ranch convenience store at 1:30. I parked in front of the grey-painted store and went inside to warm up. The Triumph looked small, sitting by itself in one of fifty empty RV spaces, each the size of a Greyhound bus.

The cafe was closed for the season, so I settled for what I could piece together in the c-store for lunch. A Red Bull, a bag of chips, and a microwave cup of soup. Before riding out, I pulled around to the Exxon behind the store to top off my tank.

The storm front had started to move in. It was a chilly fall day in the mountains, the grey of the sky contrasting with the few remaining bright yellow quaking aspen leaves.

I rode west on the Grassy Lake road as it began to rain. I stopped, put on my Gore-Tex rain pants and heated jacket, and took in the wet, peaty smell of the forest. I was already wearing my Gore-Tex ski gloves. The road, which had been built in 1911 to transport materials from Aston, Idaho, for the construction of the Jackson Lake dam, had not been bladed since opening in May. The washboards and potholes jarred the bike as I rode the 30 miles in standing position, passing only two vehicles.

I turned north onto a secondary dirt road just after crossing the border. After about a mile, I spotted giant Grizzly scat in the middle of the road. I did a U-turn to check it out. The claw marks in the fresh mud were still visible. I felt watched and continued on, the hairs on my neck alert.

Ten miles before West Yellowstone, I followed my GPS to an ATV trail that disappeared into the forest. There was a well-traveled three-foot mound bulldozed at the start of the trail to keep non-ATV vehicles out. I hit the mound in third gear as I would on a dirt bike. The rear of the bike rebounded off the top, sending me fully onto the front wheel. The rear of the laden bike swapped back and forth three or four times, tossing my feet off the pegs and slamming me to the seat. The Tiger settled as I eased on the throttle and stayed off the brakes. Manners.

The cold, wet pavement down the Gallatin River was slick. It felt foreign. I decided to slow my pace and make it to Bozeman in one piece.

I spent a couple of nights at my parents’ place helping my mom take care of overdue maintenance on their house. My dad’s decline was more pronounced this time. Lost thoughts in the middle of sentences, and the slow shuffling of his feet behind his walker. His brain had been scrambled when his head hit the concrete from a fall in his garage in 2019. A month after, he retired from ranching. The traumatic brain injury landed him in a neuro ICU for three weeks. His strong intellect was there with no way to get out. I missed being able to discuss philosophy, art and politics with him.

* * *

The weather was getting colder and the forecast was for snow in West Yellowstone. I decided to head back to beat the weather, retracing the route I had ridden to Bozeman.

The snow level had dropped significantly. By the time I got to West Yellowstone, four inches of wet snow had accumulated on the sides of the road. The roads were a combination of wet and slush, moving toward frozen. I could take the fast way home on the highway through Island Park and risk the traffic on freezing roads, or I could take the backroads I had ridden up and risk getting stuck solo in the woods in six inches of snow. I felt safer with the latter. I’d rather be self-reliant in the wilderness without worrying about big trucks or bad drivers pushing me off the road.

About ten miles south of West Yellowstone on the two-track, I stopped to down an energy bar and drink some water. I put my sidestand down and dismounted the bike. Before I could steady myself and the handlebars, the stand began to sink in the soft mud on the road. The bike tipped past a point where I could hold it up. It fell. The bike, with gear, weighed over 500 pounds. I grabbed the bar-end stuck in the mud with my left hand, and the subframe by my luggage with the right, squatted and tried to deadlift the machine to its wheels. The tires on the other side of the bike slid in the soft mud, preventing it from tilting up. My boots found no traction and I slipped to my knees. I tried again, this time leaning into the bike backward and leg pressing. It slid further into the mud.

The snow was now coming down at a rate of an inch an hour. I was breathing hard and my base layer was wet with sweat. The thought crossed my mind that I could be stranded out here without help. Not the best conditions to try out my tent and three-season sleeping bag. The chances of anyone coming down this trail today were slim.

I decided to dismount my gear as the bike lay on its side. This would relieve the bike of at least 75 pounds positioned up high. I tried the deadlift again and the bike slid. I needed to stop the wheels from sliding, so I found a large stick on the side of the road to dig tire-width trenches under each wheel, hoping they would find purchase as I tried to angle the Tiger back upright.

I was sweating under my layers. I removed my GoreTex riding jacket. I grabbed the bike again. It felt lighter as I rocked it up on the crash bars, wheels dipping into the small trenches. After three tries I was able to get the bike to a 45-degree position, my feet slipping but less than before. I held my breath and repositioned my feet in the mud. One last effort to get the bike to its wheels.

Now the only problem was that I could not let go of the bike. If I tried the sidestand it would surely sink again. I searched for anything within arm’s reach I could put under the stand. The stick. But it was on the opposite side of the bike. I inched my way around the bike, stepping over my sprawled luggage, being careful not to let the balanced bike tip. Balancing the bike with my left hand, I extended my right leg enough to hook the stick and inch it close enough to pick it up. I placed it under the sidestand. The unsteady Tiger teetered as I carefully remounted my panniers and top pack.

The steady snow was now accumulating on the road surface. My hair was wet and getting cold. I redressed myself, ate a couple of energy chews, and headed out. By the time I was off the two-track and on the forest roads there were four inches of untracked snow. The ABS and traction control earned their keep. So did the Heidenau tires.

I was cold and wet with another 60 miles before reaching Flagg Ranch, where I could warm myself. The heated jacket, seat, and handgrips worked but could not warm me enough to prevent shivering.

I knew that I had chosen the right companion for the LatAm.

* * *

I reached Flagg Ranch with burning cold fingers and cold to the core. I found a chair in the closed cafe and warmed myself with coffee and another microwave soup. The hour I spent there allowed the snow to stop and the clouds to begin lifting. On this side of the mountains, the pavement was clear of snow and cars. The crosswind blowing off the white caps of Jackson Lake penetrated the smallest of openings in my riding gear.

Riding into the driveway, the house was dark. I pulled close enough to the keypad on the garage door to enter the code without dismounting my bike. I pulled into the garage and shut the muddy Triumph off. I stripped my dirty boots and riding gear in the garage and grabbed my laptop, night kit, and dirty clothes from my top duffel. Everything else stayed.

The house was dark and quiet. Betty would not return for several days. It felt empty, and I was alone.