Firstly, you're riding a rented bike. This in itself has a whole host of reasons to polarize opinions, but as I see it, the bad outweighed the good. Not only does renting a bike mean you may be riding something you're unfamiliar with, but you have nothing to show for the miles logged on these trips, except for a t-shirt. For some, that works, but for me, I consider the miles earned on my bike a badge of honor, like battle scars, I suppose. "See that wear and tear? I did that." I didn't become one with my bike to leave it in a garage.

Secondly - and this was probably the biggest turn off for me - was the idea of riding in a pack of strangers. I don't do groups. Despite the flexibility to branch off, Peter and I wanted this to be about us and bonding as friends. Somehow I don't believe it would've been the same with strangers all wanting to one-up our stories or experiences. That's not why I ride. In the midst of this frustration, Peter suggested, "We can do this. Let's do our own Edelweiss." And so was born the early concept of Ride A2B.

I introduced the notion of filming the trip. Originally, the idea was to create a live mobile webcam that our friends could log in at any given time to see where we were and what we were doing. As it turns out, that would've required traveling with a satellite. Since that technology isn't available - at least not at a consumer level - the next best thing was to document our trip and then upload it. Setting up a Blog was the natural solution. It wasn't exactly the live interactive adventure I originally hoped for, but was as close to it as possible.

We discussed at length the destinations and then the purpose of the trip. How would this work with Peter living in Seattle, and I in Denver? What route would be the most equitable? Were we going to ride to raise money for a cause? Were we going to do this as an annual thing? Could we grow it to include friends or even strangers? Would they join for the whole ride or just legs of the trip? Should we interview people we meet? Would there be a third person to film us? What should we call this adventure? These were only some of the questions that we labored over for months. The answers to those questions eventually developed into a philosophy of riding without any real plans. Not completely certain this hair-brained idea of ours would work, we approached this as a "motoventure beta test", if you will.

And so we agreed June 1, 2007 would mark our official departure date. We'd meet up in Twin Falls, Idaho and then make it up as we went, filming, photographing, and blogging along the way. There were a few must-sees and must-dos we had in mind, but other than that, we were going to ride as the wind blows. As fate would have it, in the strangest of ironies, our journey began with both Peter and I being involved in two independent motorcycle-automobile collisions, effectively totaling both bikes. Our trip, as we knew it, was over before it began. We didn't get to see the must-sees or do the must-dos, but we got something more than we bargained for. It's a story that we didn't think we'd be telling, but it's a better one.

This experiment wasn't a failure by any means. It has given us a lot to think about as it won't be long before we'll be planning our next motoventure. We'll likely revisit the questions we faced a year ago and fine-tune our mission. We'll take what we felt worked to the next level and forego what didn't. Keep an eye out because this adventure may be done for now, but our journey continues...

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posted by Mark Paul @ 12:00 AM