Final thoughts

Day 13 (0 miles)

       Good night rest did wonders and got up early to tend to my business and had to do some catching up and collect some bills. Overall it was a very good experience and found out what worked and not worked.

First of all, I never been on a motorcycle in my live, besides a 49.9 cc Kreidler, when I was 16 years old and that was using it on flat roads in Holland and mainly in Amsterdam and these bikes were not allowed to go faster as 40 Km or 25 miles. Even thou I have a lot of experience in driving cars, trucks, buses and eighteen wheelers, a 650 cc dual motorcycle is way more demanding as I thought and my age/lifestyle is not working in my favor.What I learned is that you have to be:

•  In good physical shape and have a good butt or saddle to sit 4+ hours on a motor cycle a day and I do not know yet what is worse, dirt - or smooth road. so at this moment my whole body is still sore, especially knees, butt, muscles, and neck. Motorcycles, especially on dirt roads,  are missing bolts and nuts every day and you have to check every morning the important ones, Locktite and tie wraps are a must as well a toolkit, I carried about 30 pounds of tools, but know now, what I can leave home next time. We didn't had no flat tires, so have no experience with that yet.
• Rain is uncomfortable, but all we had was about 10 minutes of drizzle during the 12 day trip, so we have to deal with that problem next time.
• This particular bike can go through rivers about 2 feet deep, if the bottom is kind of solid, other wise you are in problems and don' t slow down once you start. We learned the hard way, this bike is too heavy to drive on the beach in mull sand. We had plans to do this towards Palacios, but had to give up.
• We left with a duffel bag 80 pounds half way on the seat and rear part, this made the bike top heavy and was hard to park with the side stand and one time this caused the bike to tilt over and dented my tank. besides all this the bike has plenty of power (40hp) and surprised me. Was getting 43.5 to the gallon and Scotty more as fifty. ( I am heavier and tuned the bike less lean)
• Realized a couple of times, we were stopped less by officials then cars and the couple of times we were stopped, it was only general questions , they asked us once or twice for papers. Never bribes were necessary or was asked for, even thou you hear all the horror stories from other bikers, if they enter Honduras. Another good thing is, you do not have to pay toll in Honduras, but then there are only a handful places where there is toll.
• Don't drive at night, traps, potholes and roadblocks can ruin your day. During the day most cars have no respect for you and will push you of the road.
• GPS is a must for any road trip and as well is a useful tool to make a blog.
• Water proof bags and zip lock bags are a must, especially to keep dust outside.

Our next trip will be in May towards Panama for about a month, but that depends if the license plates are in!

The complete road trip done was 1300 miles and the road was driven according the map below, if interested can send the tracks in Mapsource readeble files, so you can download it to your GPS

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