Then….. I relaize Dan was no long behind me. I pulled over and waited, thinking he must have stopped for a potty break, picture, something… After a while still no Dan. I turned around and headed back about 6 miles to find him on the side of the road. Hands on hips staring at his bike with no sidecases and shaking his head….

I asked him whats up? And looked at his bike… He said – “the f*cking masterlink broke – I was running along at 85 mph and heard a “chabang” – pulled in the clutch and the engine died right off – coasted along looking for a nice place to pull over and listening to the silence and tires whining….. when I pulled over and got a look the chain was still on the bike and there was oil oozing out from behind the countershaft sprocket cover”…

He had spent a few minutes opening every compartment in his bike looking for tools tiill he remembered they were all on John’s bike… so he decided to just relax till John came back.

We pulled the tools from John’s bike and set to work - first we took off the countershaft sprocket cover and saw the chain was super wedged in behind the countershaft sprocket… we tried prying on it, putting the chain on the rear sprocket and trying to rotate the wheel, then putting a little rod we had for leverage on the wheel – then we just sat there and looked at if for a while. John said something like “that’s wedged in there and we’re not going to get it out” – We talked about getting the bike back on the ground and pushing it backwards or something – then Dan said “I’m going to go take apart that fence and grab a fencepost” – about 10 minues later he came back with a steel fence fence post and we stuck it into the rear wheel and used the swingarm for leverage – after 2 or 3 tries we freed the chain from the super wedgy… only to find the chain had fractured the engine case and that was the source of the oil leakage. John said “we’re done dude”. To top it off, Suzuki in their infinite wisdom had placed the clutch actuator shaft/rod right next to the countershaft sprocket – sort of daring the chain to break and blow the rod apart – which, of course, it had.

We talked about it and decided we needed to pull the left engine case cover. But we didn’t have enough oil to refill the engine. We thought about laying the bike on its side but we’d lose the gas out of the tank. So we decided we needed to just lean the bike over far enough to get the case cover off without losing the gas. We took off the left side case, propped the bike on one of it’s own side cases and we used the fence post to hold the rear end up.

Once we got the side case cover off we saw the extent of the damage. The engine case was busted badly, the side case cover was busted and the chain had sheared off some wires. The wires used for the neutral switch and the wires used for the battery charging system…. Of course the clutch actuator rod was blasted apart like a bad guy’s car on the “A Team” TV series.

Looking at the case – it was apparent the pieces couldn’t go back in there cause they were bent too much – even the side case cover had a hole the size of a quarter in it.

We again sat there and talked about it. What did we have, what didn’t we have etc. Dan said “We’re going to fix it and I’m riding it into town on its own power”.

We had some quick steel putty witch is like JB weld. So we set about cleaning the oil and chain spoodge off. Dan mixed up the putty and we built it up as good as we could. This stuff is allot like play dough in that it holds its shape, However when it cures it is like steel. You can file or drill it.  While the quick steel cured, we repaired the wires, we had a 12volt soldering iron with us. So those were a pretty easy reapair. After the wires were fixed up,we then filed the putty where the mating surfaces of the cover and case go together. So they were smooth and matched up as well as can be expected. We both were happy with the fit of the cover, So we applied some silicone sealant we had. (Dan had bought some to glue some decorative thingy’s on his bike, good thing too!) Anyway we reinstalled the cover. We had an extra masterlink for the chain so we reinstalled the chain.

Now with the push rod for the clutch smashed into many peices. We had no way to make the clutch work. But thats ok, you can ride without the clutch. In town is pretty tough, but on the hwy no problem. Most bikes shift just fine without the clutch if you do it right. More importantly though, the clutch push rod goes into the engine through a seal. Without the rod the motor will just pump oil out the hole….. We found a small bolt that fit into the hole and we wedged it in place with part of a hacksaw blade and some safety wire…. We test fired the engine and we had NO LEAKS!!!!

Looks as though we were good to go!  We loaded all of Dans crap back on the bike and gave him a running push start. He was off and running again…Total repair time about 4 hours on the side of the road.

Every so often John would ride up along side and have a look at the repair area. No leaks. The repair was good. We cruised the 60 miles or so to Rio Gallegos with no trouble.

Dan hit almost every light on the way into town (and ran a few red lights to avoid having to start without a clutch!) and we stopped at the first gas station to fill up and figure out where to go to get a clutch rod ordered/made/cobbled so Dan would have a clutch.  While then this dude comes up and starts chatting us up. He knows our bikes are V-stroms so he is a biker. We then tell him about our troubles, needing parts etc. He tells us to follow him and he’ll take us to a bike shop. Cool! so off we go. Dan using the starter button to get going from a stop. He would just have the bike in first gear and hit the button. The starter was strong enough to turn the engine and move the bike forward. Then bingo she would light and off he’d go..

Anyway we got to the bike shop. SM Motos in RIO Gallegos. It didn’t really look like much from the outside and we were a bit skeptical…. But after going inside we saw they had a proper repair shop and more importantly a guy who knew his shit and was willing to help. We pulled the clutch rod from John’s bike and showed it to him. He dropped what he was doing and started searching his shop. He found a rod that was very close. It was a little too big on one end but he set about turning it down on the lathe in the corner. We stood there in disbelief. We had been in his shop for about 30 minutes and he was MAKING a part for us.

It turned out to be a bit more of a job then planned, but in the end we left his shop at 8:30 that night with a working clutch and new chains on both bikes. He charged us about $60 bucks US to make the part and he spent about an hour and half making it…. After closing the shop he then led us to a hotel and wished us luck.

This is the kind of bike shop that most shops in the US have lost sight of. “sure we can order that part, It’ll be here in 2 or 3 weeks. How would you like to pay for that?”  If you are ever in Rio Gallegos and need anything for your Moto, Please go spend some money at this place.

BTW my buddy Erik wrote on the very cover that got broken, “Unbreakable top kit” at the going away party… It turned out to be a cruel joke on the side of the road while we were trying to fix it!! Thanks E! We owe you one!

Dan threw down on the best hotel in town after our tough day. We ordered room service, watched a bad movie on TV (Passenger 57 with Wesley Snipes… “Always bet on black” – paaalease…) and talked about how feak’n bad our luck was, As well as how freak’n good our luck was…..

Tomorrow we ride south!!

15,000 plus miles and we reached the farthest point you can ride south in the world!

I’m going to let the pictures do the talking….

Thanks everyone for riding along with us and for some of the great email's and comments we’ve received. Of course the journey is not over yet. We still have to ride 2000 miles north to Buenos Aires. Figure out how to get the bikes home and all that sort of thing. So we’ll keep the blogs coming and I’m sure some kind of party will be in order when we get home.

Tomorrow we ride NORTH!

We then we went out for a “Parrilla” Argentina BQ. Its a pretty cool deal. They had a glass enclosed area with a huge fire going. Some super old crusty dude working all kinds of different meats. A real veggie’s nightmare! Anyway we ordered a couple of the best steaks on the menu. The parrilla master heads back into the kitchen and returns with a couple of massive chunks of beef. Throws them on the fire and we put back a couple of beers watching our steaks cook. They turned out to be the best steaks we’ve had on the trip. We ate like kings, Had a few more drinks and called it a night.

Cheers!

Wind – EPIC Wind.

We got a reasonably early start after a virtually non-existent breakfast at the crappy little YPF gastation/hotel we stayed at (sorry Wes).

The road heading north was pretty uneventful – just a nice two lane asphalt road with too many trucks and busses on it.

Things were decently warm and going well until we got to the coast just south Comodoro Rivadavia. We had some wind but it was just the lightweight stuff – like 20 mph with gusts to 30 or so (and of course it was always a crosswind no matter which way the road turned).

Maybe 20 miles south of Comodoro we were hit by the legendary winds of Patagonia and Southern Argentina. We fought them all the way into Comodoro – blowing at 50mph with gusts over that to something like 250 mph… who knows how hard the gusts were? We figured out that the steady wind was around 50 mph because when we had the infrequent (and very short) times when the wind was at your back, we could go 50mph with ZERO wind in your face… it was very wierd.

The effect on us was amazing – we all would lean heavily into the wind and wait in fear for the gusts to come and try to blow you off the road or into the oncoming trucks. When the gusts came, you would have to react fast and lean the bike even more into the wind and try to keep the thing from going off track.

We finally made it to Comodoro Rivadavia and pulled into the first YPF we saw for some gas. That’s the other thing about the wind, your fuel economy goes way down. We normally would get about 180 to 200 miles on our tanks before we would be on reserve – with this wind we were seeing 120 miles and then the reserve light would be on.

After filling the tank, we sat inside for a bit and talked. We all were amazed at the power of the wind and hopeful that we’d seen the last of it. The worst is over and all that sort of thing….

We set off out of the YPF and about 1/2 a mile out of town the road ran along the ocean – and then the real wind hit us! WOW! The stuff coming into town was just a warm up. This was the real deal and was even more gusty. Looking out at the ocean you could see the waves rolling into the beaches were being flattened by the wind and the tops of them were foaming and streaking back out to see. We fought this for only a few miles before Wes made a radical break across traffic to stop under an overhang which would break the wind. John and I weren’t able to make the same move because of oncoming traffic and we fought on. We were literally going about 20 mph and being blown all over the road. It seemed the slower you went the worse it was because the bike had little forward momentum.

I tried to take pictures with one hand and ride behind John with the other – not the best idea in the conditions – but his lean angle was incredible. I was blown to the edge of the road and onto the shoulder where I stopped. As soon as I stopped the bike the wind was on me – blowing hard as ever and my feet were on pebbly ground and the wind kept the pressure on – I let the bike go. No point in fighting it. Tough to get it picked up with the wind on it.

The three of us stopped on a ridge overlooking the ocean and talked about how terrifying the wind was but I think we all enjoyed the challenge.

We pressed on for maybe another 25 miles of difficult wind - and then we were inland off the ocean. The run up to Trelew went smoothly and compared to the wind challenges of the morning was a piece of cake!

Sorry but I scanned through all the pictures and we just didn’t take many today… the ones that were taken are blurry and very forgettable.

Cheers!

After a tough day of riding the wind – we slept well in yet another moderately crappy hotel (MCH).

Today may have been one of the most boring days of the entire trip. Flat, straight, good asphalt roads with virtually no scenery. No trees to speak of, no ocean, not much of anything. The best part of the day was the noticable warming in the weather. Yesterday we were fighting the wind but the wind was warm. We are in full mesh gear (and happy about that!) and it’s getting warmer. Definitely in the 70’s and sunny.

Hard to blog about stuff that didn’t happen – all the bikes ran fine and we blasted our way up to Bahia Blanca with only the usual gas stops, mate stops, and nary a bike problem to deal with.

We had some trouble finding a hotel in Bahia Blanca – its a medium sized town and we arrived there a bit late and of course its Easter weekend. After 3 or 4 tries we ended up in one that was pretty decent with secure parking down the street.

We headed out into the night in search of Parrilla (grilled meat) – found a place that hand been around for about 80 years. We ordered their specialty which turned out to be a steak with some mushroom sauce on it. John didn’t want the sauce and the food was pretty darn tasty. Not quite the steak we had in Ushuaia but it was damn good.

We’re about a days ride from Buenos Aires – kind of a bittersweet thing at this point. We’re tired of grinding out the last 2 or 3 weeks – riding every day for long distances – but we also know the trip is coming to a close.

Cheers !

This is one gripe I think we all have about Argentina – one of very few. The breakfasts here are so lame it’s just hard to imagine. It’s like every hotel took their que from the Super 8 Motels in the US… they serve some pastries that are probably a week old (and even then, they were probably pulled from a box that sat on a shelf for maybe a month before that), some Tang that was mixed at about 1/2 strength, and if you’re lucky, you might see a slice or two of some not so good cheese, and if you’re really lucky, you could see a slice or two of some unidentified meat substance that is probably all the leftover lips, hoofs, and snouts ground up and pressed into little flat slices of delightful happiness. But I digress…

We got out of Bahia without too much fuss – a couple wrong turns and back onto the main road out of town. Maybe 10 miles out of town Wes pulls over and I came up beside him. He said he felt like his chain was “slipping” and wanted to have a look and maybe tighten it up. We got off the bikes and he dug out his tools. I took a look at his counter shaft sprocket (this is the sprocket that is attached to the engine and pulls the chain so the rear wheel pushes the bike) – well, there were no teeth left on the sprocket. Wes had busted them all off. He did a couple boosts (wheelies) in Bahia that morning and one of them was a little too much for the old sprocket.Here we go again with the chain problems – and we are literally about 400 miles from being done! John was out in the lead and he returned a few minutes into our discovery. This didn’t look good, it was Easter Sunday and there would be ZERO parts stores open today. Wes didn’t have a spare counter shaft sprocket. We set about taking things apart to have a better look at the sprocket.

Once the sprocket was off we could see that it was definitely cleaned of all teeth – at least Wes did the job right. Why leave a couple teeth on there to limp into the next town with?

 For those of you who don’t know what a sprocket is supposed to look like – imagine the one in the picture only all those nubbed off things are longer and pointier.

So, we worked through our options and eventually we decided the best thing to do was tighten the chain up as tight as we could so that that the little nubbins of the sprocket that were left would be able to engage the sprocket and maybe we could get it into town…. but it’s not possible to tighten a chain that tight on a bike with rear suspension because the rear wheel needs to go up and down and the chain needs to be semi-loose to accommodate this movement. So, we had to disable the rear suspension. We found some tiedown straps that Wes had and set about cinching down the rear end of the bike.

We manage to modify the strap hooks to fit over the axle and sub frame – using some available custom made concrete and rocks.

With Wes and John jumping and pushing on the rear subframe – I was able to get the strap super tight and it would hold the rear suspension solid.

We wrapped the strap several times around the hooks for added strength, tied up the loose ends with cable ties, and then tightened the chain up super tight. We had to double, triple, quadruple (and all the other uples that come after that…) the strap up to make it strong enough and keep it out of the chain and sprockets.

After Wes’ bike was ready we moved some of the heavy stuff to Dan and John’s bike (clearly a simple plot by Wes to un burden his bike of the heavy stuff…) and set off. Wes’ mission was to not spin that front sprocket against the chain as it would wear off the nubbins that were left and we would be done.

We took off and it was working great! Even if we had created a bit of a lowrider KLR – Wes was able to do 50, 60, 70 even and he could even pass a few cars here and there without so much as a chirp from the sprocket/chain. The downside was that he had ZERO suspension in the rear! This meant that ever single little bump in the road was transmitted very efficiently directly into Wes’ ass and up his back… and of course, Dan and John were looking for the best line of riding to hit the bumps, railroad tracks, and everything we could to drive a little payback for having to carry his heavy stuff.

The bike was doing great and we made it to the next gas stop without any troubles. We were keeping the speed down in the 60 mph range but that’s better than zero or waiting for parts.

After that gas stop the traffic heading back into Buenos Aires on Easter Sunday began to build. We were on a two lane road and it was getting dangerous. The aggressive drivers would begin to pass us and just pull out beside us to go the same speed for a while – not sure why they do this – then when they figured out they couldn’t get the full pass in, they would just start to move over into our lane. Pushing us to the side or expecting us to just get out of the way. Then there were the super aggressive guys who would fly up the left lane trying to pass as much as they could and when they saw the bikes they would just push into the bikes to get out of the way of oncoming traffic. Normally, the best way to handle all of this on a bike is to be traveling faster than the cars are and “work” the traffic. That way you are in control of things – not the maniacal drivers. But we were limited by Wes’ bike problems and he couldn’t push the bike much.

At one point, we were riding behind a row of cars, there were numerous cars in the oncoming lane and people behind us were frustrated. One of these guys pulls out from behind us (he’s got his wife and kids in the car and she looks terrified) – he pulls all the way to the other side of the road and onto the shoulder of the oncoming lane and he floors it! – so he is passing us and the row of cars in front of him while on the shoulder of the oncoming traffic and the oncoming traffic is going between us!!! Pretty scary stuff.

We spotted a YPF and decided to break for gas and try to regain our sanity. We had a very hard time pulling into the station because as we slowed to turn left across the road it was the signal for everyone behind us to pass – and pass at very high speed. So after dodging several cars we finally got into the station. Filled the bikes up and pulled over to the side in the shade to just let our nerves down a bit.

At this point – it seemed like a signal for every one of the Argentinians to come over and talk to us – in English! – These were the very same people who were literally out to kill us on the road coming in here – so it was a challenge to have a civil conversation with them! We did meet this very nice gal with her daughter and dog on her bike. I’m sorry but her name escapes me right now. But she was enthusiastic about our trip and they looked great on the bike!

We decided to cut the run into Buenos Aires short because of the traffic and the dangerous drivers. We would hit the next town of Canuelas and find a hotel. That would put us about an hour out of Buenos Aires in the morning – but that same distance tonight would take us several hours of scary/dangerous riding tonight.

We made it to the town and road the shoulder along several miles of backup – crossed into the main town area and eventually found a nice hotel. We ordered some beers and booze, celebrated Wes’ bike actually making it there, ordered some pizza and watched yet another crappy movie (YACM) on the TV!

Tomorrow we ride into Buenos Aires!

Cheers!

Last night we got the GPS coordinates of the hostel we were going to stay at – Dakar Motos – they have the GPS directions on thier site which is nice. Hopefully they are correct!

We set off and the run into BA was short – maybe 15 miles on the motorway before we started hitting the beginning of the sprawl. And of course, the toll booths…

ok, here is another gripe about Argentina (yes, pretty minor – before you email me!!! I love this place and I realize this is a very minor issue!!!) – they require motorcycles to pay tolls. Of course you say “that sounds fair, why should they go for free?”. Most of the other countries in South America let motos go toll free – in fact they have little express lanes to let the motos skirt the toll booths and fly on thru. Why? – because the motos cause traffic jams at the toll booths. When the biker pulls up there, he has to stop the bike, take his gloves off, dig for some money, hand it to the attendent, wait for changes, put the change away, take a ticket, do something with the ticket, put his gloves back on, then ride off. That takes time and the people behind are honking and not happy…

There must have been 10 toll booths on the way into BA – each collecting the equivalent of 20 cents per bike – hardly seemed worth the hassle.

We rode right into downtown – got onto the Avenida 9 de Julio (Independence day in Argentina) – down the big 9 lanes (in each direction!) street – past the Obelisk – back onto some other semi-highways and weaved our way up north towards Dakar Motos. We had to circle back once after we passed an exit but otherwise we arrived at the hostel without so much as a wrong turn or an argument.

Javier greated us and we got off the bikes to rest and take it easy.

We spent the afternoon setting up our tents in the backyard, talking to some of the other travelers there and getting things organized to go home.

Had a nice Parrilla with the other travelers that night and hit the sack realatively early.

We made it to Buenos Aires – in one piece and without any real lasting damage! Tomorrow we start working on getting the bikes shipped back home!

Cheers!

Well – I finally managed to get the blogs updated into Buenos Aires. There are 3 or 4 of them here with a few good tidbits to read about.

I’m going to work on finishing the blogs thru our time in Buenos Aires – several of you have sent emails about whether we made it home, what’s happened with this or that – so I’d like to tie up the loose ends. Thanks again for your patience.

A short update on Pete – Hopefully you all remember Pete – we met him in La Paz and bumped into him again down in Southern Chile.

Well – Pete crashed his bike on the return trip north to Buenos Aires. In the same area where we hit the huge winds. I’ve received a few updates from him but the news is fairly sparse. He got a little banged up but is physically ok. His bike was pretty well totalled I guess. There was some debate whether he should repair it and ship it home or just leave/sell it in Argentina.

Argentina (as with most countries) don’t want you leaving vehicles in the country. It’s basically to avoid having people import vehicles without paying all the proper fees (and bribes I suppose). When you enter the country they record your passport number, vehicle details and so forth. Then if you try to leave without your bike – they say “Where is your moto?”.

So Pete has/had a bit of a problem. He had some folks who wanted to buy the bike from him but he couldn’t sell it because then he would be leaving it there illegally. Although the people in Argentina probably don’t care – the bike would also not be legal for them to ride/license. He was told that he could “give” it to Argentina (which would ultimatley end up being to the customs agent I suppose) – but this didn’t look good either. On top of this, Pete was in some town about 500 miles away from Buenos Aires.

The last email I received from Pete indicated that he was going to truck the bike up to Buenos Aires and contact Sandra at Dakar Motos to see if he could figure out some solution to the problem.

At any rate, I hope Pete is home by now – but when I hear something I will post it here as well.

Thanks for reading –
Dan

Hi everyone -

This blog is a story about 2 brothers on a motorcycle journey.

John and Dan Clemens took a trip beginning in January of 2009 departing from Portland/Seattle with the destination of Ushuaia, Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina. To the southernmost point you can ride/drive in the world. Ushuaia is considered the southernmost city in the world and if you ride about 15 miles out of town you come to the end of the road.

We're back home now - and we had a wonderful trip, met a lot of great folks along the way (and a few not so great!), and learned a lot about ourselves in the process.

We tried to keep the blogs running every day along the way and there is a lot to read here with some great pictures and the "Where are we?" tab above has maps of every day of our travel as well as the entire trip.

In the end - we did about 17,368 miles overall in little over 3 months. We covered 14 countries - USA, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile. Looking back, we didn't take enough time because it seemed like the last month or so was made up of "ride, eat, sleep, repeat".

Great to achieve a goal like this - best part of the entire trip was having another great adventure with my brother! - Check out our last weird adventure too if you have a minute - Crossing the Sahara desert in a 35 year old ice cream van! - CreamyTreats

If you'd like to read the blog from the start in chronological order - start here - and then follow through the archives.

Thanks for reading and feel free to drop us a note if you have questions/suggestions or you feel like donating a big wedge of cash so we can do another trip! Our contact info is here.

Dan and John