2004 Patagonia - Eat Dust

Starting in Buenos Aires/Argentina and ending in Ushuaia the journey will lead them along the famous Ruta 40 to Patagonia and Fireland, where the penguins meet the whales...you mean this sounds like a nice weekend trip, eh?

Ok, let´s take a closer look at it then: 3000 kilometers of asphalt (or what Argentinians consider as asphalt) plus 2000 kilometers of gravel roads of the type that makes your teeth want to fall out. Endless plains, bizarre mountain ranges and - wind. Wind that blows harder than the exhaust of a V-Rod on nitro.

It’s early December, Wuerzburg, Germany. 4 Harley-Davidsons are being strapped down in their crates. Destination: The end of the world. The itinerary: Buenos Aires, Ruta 40, Ushuaia. The obstacles: broken down planes, cracked gearboxes, bottomless gravel, winds from a cannon.

Three weeks after the bikes have left Europe, the 4 Patagonian Riders Joe, Paul, Tommy and Volker leave for Buenos Aires, to straddle their 74 cu. in. V-twins: Paul’s “46 rigid Knuckle on 19 inch wheels, as hand-shifted and foot-clutched as Joe’s “47 Knuckle with long-range 5 gallon tanks. Next is Volker’s heavily modified off-road Evo Sportster. This one had huge carrying capacity for Volker’s photographic equipment added. Last is Tommy’s Panhead, Panama-mud proven in an earlier outing.

Still without the bikes, we decided to do a little more research on Argentinian life by visiting the local MC Epidemia which has a comfortable club house with vast grounds and a nice pool. A couple of hunks of charred meat and some cold beers later and we almost forget why we’re here. But the next morning the bikes have finally arrived in Buenos Aires. After uncrating them the equipment goes on the bikes. Tomorrow the End of the World Tour rolls!

It was all looking too good. Despite extensive testing before we left home soil, Tommy’s rear brake and the springs on his solo seat give up the ghost. Both items are quite important on a rigid bike. Valiantly he battles on, semi-braked and unsprung, while W&W back home ship out an emergency spares kit via UPS. At last we come across a sign at the side of the road that says “Patagonia Starts Here”. “Hurrah!” we think, we’re finally underway! But Volker’s Sportster doesn’t think so as it slides to a halt. Two spokes have broken and have punctured the tyre. Fortunately the flat is fixed quickly, and after an hour we move off again. Leaving Viedma we face nothing. Okay, there is a road, but to the left and right there is nothing, nothing, and beyond that, more nothing. Not even a bend in the road. Cow skins are drying over fences, the heat blow-dries our faces and the bikes rumble along. That, at the moment, is the sum of our world.

We decide to do a little road testing on the Valdés Peninsula. Oh, and we get the full Monty. Underneath the wheels there is deep, treacherous gravel. To all sides there are killer winds that whip across in all directions, and just to make life really interesting, there’s evil dust that obscures the gravel track. After this ride through hell we take a short break in Punta Norte. This is an amazing place; a reserve created primarily to protect walruses, it’s also an important mating area for sea lions with a colony of some 3000 adults and around 1350 pups in the breeding season. We’re lucky enough to see some of the newborns - cute!

But two wheeled reality is back all too. Regardless of the wind and dust, Paul’s primary chain needs adjusting. Just a little bit later black smoke starts to splurge from his tailpipe. The low-revved gravel-digging we’re doing on this terrain is fouling the plugs. So we stop, dig into the emergency kit and fit new plugs. VRRROOOOM, the bike’s seventy-four cubic inches can breathe freely again, and we make it back to Puerto Pirámides where we do a “major’ service on the bikes. Tomorrow there’s going to be a lot of miles. By noon of the following day we blaze through Trelev, from there to Ruta 25, due west. We crack on, eating up 180 kilometres across the steppe which is big, wide open, hot and utterly desolate. After a short fuel stop in Las Plumas we keep going to the Valle de los Martires, which is an eye opener for all of us.

Next up is 400 kilometres of Ruta 40. 40 in Spanish means “a lot of gravel’. Trust us on that one. Right from the start we had the feeling that the Ruta 40 separates the men from the boys. A biker from Brazil on his way up from the south on a Yamaha brings us the good news: the 40 is in a hopeless state, and the wind comes from a turbine. Hey, this sounds like fun! But, we didn’t ship four Harleys from Europe to South America just to go Sunday riding. We manage a respectable distance and the day ends in a place called Rio Mayo, with an asado - for a change. The local radio (it is actually next door so that really is local) celebrates our leaving with Joe and Volker’s favourite tunes.

The Ruta 40 rocks us. Literally. It is a nightmare of round, pebbly gravel. On the rigid bikes it’s impossible to travel at more than 25 mph. Only Volker on his “modern” Evo Sportster is able to go any faster. This turns out to be a good thing, as he can ride ahead, stop, take pictures of us as we scramble past, and then load up and scoot past us again. Shitty road, great pictures, trouble-free bikes.

Leaving Bajo Caracoles, we plan to cover 230km today. But, just 50km down the Ruta, Tommy’s rear wheel locks up and the bike comes to rest in a large pool of oil. By divine intervention a pick-up truck driven by a couple of German climbers we had met the night before arrives a few minutes later, and they ferry the Panhead back to Baja Caracoles. There we find that the gearbox housing has broken from top to bottom, right through the mainshaft bore. It’s a serious – and expensive – setback. Using a satellite phone we arrange for a replacement gearbox to be couriered from Germany to El Calafate, 400km down the road. It’s the nearest place that anything can be couriered to, and we also have to hire a truck to get Tommy and the bike there, too. The only alternative is to abandon him and the Pan in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t cross our minds. Honest.

Ruta 40 doesn’t change. It’s as if the whole world is made of bloody gravel. We cross the Rio Leona, and find the same gravelly hell on the other side. The Rio Santa Cruz is no better but, at last, after five days of suffering, the gravel ends: we’re back on the old blacktop. The blessed asphalt, smoothest of all road surfaces, black stairway to V-twin heaven, praise be to you! We can even shift up a gear or two, and the road rushes by.

El Calafate is the centre of Patagonian tourism, and here we meet Tommy on Sunday. The rear gate on the flatbed truck has jammed, but we lift the bike over by sheer brute force and willpower. All we need now is a new gearbox. It doesn’t turn up on Monday, and on Tuesday we find that it’s stuck in Customs at Buenos Aires because of a problem with the documentation. Unbelievably, there is a law in Argentina that prohibits the import of reconditioned gearboxes! Several faxes, one customs agent and $200 later it looks like the problem has been sorted so we take a day off to visit the Perito Moreno glacier not far from the Chilean border.

Blacktop all the way to El Cerrito and then gravel again, all in winds approaching V-Rod-on-nitro speeds. After passing the BIENVENIDOS A CHILE sign we tool along to the border town of Cerro Castillo where we get through customs in a record breaking 20 minutes. This calls for beer. And then more beer. The last hundred kilometres to the Torres del Paine National Park can wait until tomorrow.

The flat concrete surface of the Chilean roads are a pleasure after Ruta 40 - and we even manage speeds of 50 mph. By 3pm we reach the shores of the Magellan Straits in Punta Arenas, Chile, just as the last ferry of the day vanishes into the distance. So we set up camp and decide to do a little chain servicing. Joe loosens up the wrong bolt, tries to tighten the chain and snaps an adjusting screw. So, after some heavy cursing, we use the time-honoured way of adjusting the chain tension with a tyre-iron, much of the amusement of several spectators.

The next day we shake, judder and jump over a collection of potholes called Ruta 3 into an enchanted forest. Wind bent trees, branches in all shades of green, overgrown by moss and silvery lichen, sunrays inching through low hanging clouds and wisps of mysterious fog. Why didn’t they make “Lord of the Rings” here? The next village’s name: Tolkin.

Before we reach Ushuaia, the main town in the Land of Fire and the southernmost town in the world, we take a detour over the alpine-like Paso Garibaldi, and suddenly, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, snuggled beside the awesome Beagle Channel, there it is. Ushuaia. Journey’s end. We made it. We actually got there. Strangely we’re not euphoric.

After five weeks and 5500 merciless kilometers, the trip is over too soon.
Later on we move to the Rugby Club camp ground, where supposedly all the bikers meet. Not today, the 4 Patagonian Riders are all by themselves, taking their pick from the nicest spots. They find an excellent pitch right by the river Pipo. The sausages from the BBQ get washed down with some chilled beer, and the river is gurgling in our sleep.

There’s a couple of days left, and we still have ideas: we could take the bikes by boat to the Isla Navarino, still further South, or we could take a plane to the Antarctic. As there are no flights available, we check out the port. Tommy finds a skipper willing to take us over. The only problem is customs, as the island belongs to Chile, and we are in Argentina. This could be arranged with the Chilean consulate, but not on the week end. To kill time we do yet another asado and take a ride to the Lapataia National Park. The sky is a screaming blue and the sun bounces cheerily off rivers and lakes. On the distant Cordillera snowfields are glaring and we have the warmest day in Ushuaia since 92 years with 28°C.