The planning started for me four years ago as I neared the end of my first motorcycle trip, which took me from Los Angeles to the end of the Pan-American Highway in Panama. By the end of the six tumultuous months of that trip I was exhausted of breakdowns, completely out of money, and inspired as never before at discovering my true passion and the knowledge that so much of North America and all of South America and many places besides were left to me to explore by motorcycle.

‘We’ll go when we come back,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to go riding now when we’re leaving for a six-month motorcycle trip tomorrow.’ ‘The riding season will be over when we come back this way and besides this is my white whale,’ I said. ‘It’s your white whale?’ she said. ‘Yeah, you know, like Moby Dick.’ ‘Yes, I know Moby Dick,’ she said. ‘The Rock Store is the big place where motorcyclists go on the weekends around here. I’ve never gone because I’ve always been nervous becau