Ride 50at50 – A midlife crisis. The photos

The 3 Amigos. Adrian, Andrew and David have known each other since school and have travelled the world together. Quite a lot of that being on or around motorcycles. For their 50th birthday year something epic was in order.

Route 66 seemed a little predictable so they looked for something a little different. Riding the old Pony express trail, now Route50 from Washington DC in the East to San Francisco in the West, there was sure to be plenty of laughs, considerable mucking about and probably some bitching and moaning.

Along the way they saw some cool shit and met some interesting people and oh yes, there was the bikes, some drama and a whole lot of booze.

What could possibly go wrong? 

Once again underestimating our timings we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere leaving us with a night ride to remember.

The guy in the gas station warned us of the danger from deer on the road. They will run across or stop without warning. If they are stopped on the road they might break left, right, away from you or, run directly at you. These animals are big and will kill you if you hit them.

With little options available to us and 50 miles to the nearest available rooms, we geared up and hit the road. 

The Indian was on its last legs. It had broken in Monument Valley a few days back and had had to be push started. We called ahead to try to arrange to get the problem sorted. At this point, it looked as if the adventure might be over.

This the control tower which I think might still be in operation. It’s the airbase where American B17 bomber crews trained before the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A strange and desolate place surrounded by beauty. More recently used as a movie set for Con Air and Independence Day amongst others.

This was the airbase where American B17 bomber crews trained before the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A strange and desolate place surrounded by beauty. There are lots of abandoned buildings on the site which I believe were used to house the huge teams that were once based here. The dry climate means they are decaying quite slowly but as they are cool and shady did make me worry a little about snakes and the like!

I set out well before dawn to ride to view Monument Valley. It was one of the most memorable sunrises I have ever seen but boy, was it a cold start. Setting off just after 5am and wearing pretty much everything that I had to fend off the just above freezing cold.

Daytime temperatures well above 46c (115f) Just as the colour started to come into the sky, I was joined by a guy who had been travelling in a van with and his dog for the past 3 years. We sat and chatted about life while the day did its thing.

He brewed us a coffee while the doggo sniffed about. One of the chance encounters that prove people are good and we live in a spectacular place. 

Having grown up on a diet of American movies and TV American cars from the 70’s and 80’s have always been interesting. We couldn’t help but stop and have a mooch about.

It was a bit of a shock when the very ferocious dog and rather angry man came out to confront us. He of course only knows Brits as the ‘baddies’ in American films so it was a bit of a task to convince him we were just interested in having a look and NOT world domination!

We encountered this so much during our ride through some of the smaller places. Some Americans just don’t know much about other cultures and no, England is not that close to Australia.

We had swam in the Atlantic Ocean at the beginning of the trip in Ocean City MD after a memorable few weeks we eventually reached California where we swam in the Pacific.