Heading South....again

We are currently on our way to Santiago, Chile, starting a long 20+ hours of flying and loitering in airports from Edmonton to Toronto, with a 7 hour lay over, we now wait until our flight South.

The bike was crated and dropped off at Edmonton airport last week and should currently be on its way to Miami, where it will be flown to Santiago on Monday. Miami is a bad transit place for 'dangerous goods', they tend to get bumped back as they have a lower priority, so we are expecting some delays before the bike arrives in Chile, but it will give us time to relax and enjoy the city and some warmth. Last week with the windchill it was down to -46 degrees Celsius around Edmonton - the 3rd coldest place on Earth!!!

The bike crating went quite smoothly, we used a crate from a Yamaha cruiser and with the front wheel, mirror, screen and front mudguard removed it fitted in well, with some room at the rear for the wheel and the panniers. Big thanks to Barry at Alberta Cycle in Edmonton for helping us out with the crating - its much easier with a fork lift!!!

We have used Carsons , based in Vancouver for shipping the bike, I wouldnt say that the shipping paperwork went smoothly, but its done, with a few hiccups and we shall see if they come through with the ETA or if we are going to be staying in Sanitago for longer than we expected.....
Grif

The Plan....Revised

So after 3 weeks, some healing and head scratching, looks like we have sorted out the new plan. The bike is  financially a write off by the insurance company, anyone who has had a bike accident knows that it doesn't take much damage to do this as labour to rebuild a bike is so expensive, but easily rebuildable by me, so new parts are on order, I've already straightened the panniers with a hydraulic jack and they are in Calgary having the holes welded this week by Dave at Fusion Welding - who luckily also rides a very nicely prepared DR650!!! The frame has been laser checked for alignment at Anderwerks and is OK to rebuild.

As Lisa's time off work is not flexible, I have to fix the bike up and get it inspected as soon as possible. We are renting out our place starting next week, we our getting kicked out of our home!!! So we are going to head up to Edmonton and stay with Stan and hopefully crate and fly the bike from Edmonton airport to South America, either Bogota, Santiago or Buenos Aires. Then carry on with the trip. This should not cost too much more than me riding and flying it as per the original plan.
I have also got to get some new riding gear pretty quickly, which might be fun this time of year, we will see what I can find.

This means that come March, we will either fly the bike back to Canada or I will ride it back North - which I prefer as I have missed out on riding it South, but we will see what the Boss says...
Grif