Nick Sanders World Ride - Moments #16

You’re nobody if haven’t been around the world on a motorbike these days but the grandfather of all the two-wheeled explorers, Nick Sanders MBE, is at it again. The 61-year old is currently on his eighth tour of the globe – and for this 100,000km expedition, he’s riding the new Yamaha Ténéré 700.

In previous circumnavigations the super adventurer has been all about speed, most notably in 2005 when he smashed the Guinness World record for the fastest lap of earth on a bike; 19 days and four hours to be exact. And this feat was made even more astonishing because he achieved it on a Yamaha YZF-R1.

This time though, Sanders is not so bothered about speed and instead looks to raise awareness for the Two Wheels for Life charity and take in the “interesting points of view about the world and its people as I ride on by,” so says the man himself.

Starting off by transporting the Ténéré 700 across the pond to New York, Sanders joins his steed in the Big Apple and heads west. We pick up his journey by sharing photos, comment and stories taken from his own blog as well as those which he shares with us on the occasions he’s got phone service.

The journey has moved into a slightly different phase. As well as filming the story of the ride it also needs to grab a few miles. The initial idea of achieving 100,000kms has fallen in the schedule due to the time taken to film and edit the content. So I’m riding 450 mile days to get down from my friend Erik Thompson’s place near Cordoba down to Ushuaia and back up to Santiago. Three days ago I entered Bolivia and below is the film of that transition from Peru into this extraordinary country.

Goodbye Peru. Hello Bolivia!

It's difficult to write the blog as I want to but then the films tell a story, maybe this is a better way for now. The films will act as an aide memoir for writing the manuscript when I get home. Crossing the Andes from Uyuni to Calama in Chile via the frontier town of Olleague was incredible. I’ve done this twice before and it's a remarkable pass that reaches nearly 14,000ft with the Licancabur volcano towering above at nearly 18,000 ft in sight of the road. Crossing the Andes passed through the “Valley of the Rocks” and just as a mighty storm was overhead I had just enough time to get the camera and drone out and got some interesting content.

So down the otherside, all on piste until I got to a small comedor (restaurant) which was so isolated, hours from the frontier with Chile (Olleague) which itself is hours away from the big Chilean city of Calama. So I made up a little film of eating there to show you what this means to me after a hard days riding and filming.

Dinner on the Road

I hope you're enjoying this blog, please do send in your comments via Facebook or Instagram and please do consider booking a ticket for my MACH Festival 14th – 16th August where you can see a re-edited film with material not seen in the blogs.