The Dashing Donkeys: Ride the World

[dashingdonkeys]

Who are the Dashing Donkeys?
We are two friends who share a real passion for motorcycles, adventures, and exploration. Why Donkeys? Riding around in Africa we came across more donkeys than motorcycles. There was something about the spirit of these much maligned and belittled animals that spoke to us. You would see these beasts of burdens in the most absurd situations, but the donkeys would keep at it and somehow they got their load to the destination. There was an automatic kinship and the Dashing Donkeys were born.

About the Dashing Donkeys's Blog

Here's what you can look forward to. The Dashing Donkeys leave Vancouver, BC on August 30, 2009 to ride across Canada in search of the slow food movement. On this trip we'lll ride from Vancouver, BC to Sydney, NS in just two weeks. We'll be posting photos and our travel and food adventures to this blog throughout the duration of the trip. We trying to raise money for the Canadian Food Bank. You can view our charity trailer and other films on our youtube channel, find link below.

How you can find us?

We'll be quite visible during this trip, as we'll be using palm's new smartphone to handle our major operations. We'll be posting to twitter, youtube, blogger regularly and we'd really enjoy hearing from you.

PREVIOUS ADVENTURES
London to Gambia – Riding through the Snow to the Sahara (Winter 2007)
We start out from London UK on an epic journey to the tip of the horn of Africa. We out-ran winter braving the sleet and snow of England and France on our way to the scorching heat of the Saharan desert. On this amazing journey we rode through 7 countries, 2 continents, and cover over 4000 miles. We tasted the delicious coffees of Paris to the refreshing sugary sweet mint teas of Morocco to the thirst-quenching Gazelle beer in Senegal.

[totalmotorcycle]

Nice photos, looks like it was a real big adventure in 2007 for you.

Mike

[dashingdonkeys]

So after the usual working through and figuring out what bike I was going to ride across Canada, a couple of weeks go I took delivery of my sweet new ride - a BMW F800GS.

Ok, so I have the bike, I just have barely enough time to break it in to allow me to get the first service completed at Bob's prior to our departure and then all hell breaks loose! The original freight broker that I worked with to have the bike picked up from Bob's (after he graciously agreed to have it crated using another bike's metal crate) informs me that the crate arrangements will not suffice and a host of other uncertainties pop-up?! Good grief...now what? Do I ride the bike all the way across the country from Maryland to Vancouver? Yikes - that would be insane!!

So, the manic search for a solution begins. As luck would have it I hooked up with Mitch from Estes Forwarding. He really helped me out - managed to secure a 5 day shipping guarantee and connected me with the Steve and his team at Craters & Freighters who took care of getting the bike in a solid wood crate! Here they are using a gate lift to get the bike into their shop:



Here's the bike all secured to the crate bottom and ready for it's own road trip to Seattle...!



The bike is now in Seattle on it's way to Ride West BMW where it'll undergo the break-in servicing and be ready for me to pick up when I get to Seattle this Friday and hook up with Riz. We then ride up to Vancouver and get sorted out for the begining of our adventure on the 30th!