I entered New York State on Friday, April 17. Arrived in Toronto the next day. North American route is over. Along with it, some other things also came to an end. I now know that I'm leaving this continent and riding back home is not a plausible option anymore. The luxuries and conveniences of being in this side of the world are going to fade away slowly. One specific characteristic of this journey is that it began from Los Angeles, a city that symbolizes the ultimate edge of western civilization. As I move forward, this system of values and everything that comes with it, will slowly degrade to the point of becoming unrecognizable, meaningless. This is neither something to look forward to, nor to complain about. It's just something to go through and be aware of. Two weeks into the trip and I'm already losing some conveniences that were a part of my life ...Read More

Tomorrow will probably be the last day of riding in the US. I'm now in a hotel near Cleveland, a city on the shores of Lake Erie. I'll take HW 90 all the way up to the Niagara Falls, where I'll be crossing into Canadian soil. After leaving Madison and Savaş behind, I headed towards Chicago. I was coming close to a crossroads where a few phone calls were waiting for me. Ada's birthday, mom and dad, then finally an old friend who lives in Indiana. Fırat and I have known each other since we were little boys and somehow grew up to be very similar people. That rarely happens with childhood friends. Normally, when you look at the face of an old friend, you see the how they'd been 20 years ago. There usually isn't much to share other than old memories. That's not the case with him. I had to ...Read More

We stopped at a cafe in York, Nebraska. Savaş realized that my skidplate was touching the exhaust pipe so I took out some tools. It was nothing major, but when you do any kind of repair in a cafe's parking lot, you are bound to get some attention, even in a place like York. That's how we met Mr Hartfield, a tall swimming instructor planning to do a trans-american bicycle tour... He must have felt some connection to what we were doing because he took out ten dollars and called it our 'coffee-money'. Normally we would kindly refuse it, but I immediately accepted his offer even though we just had our 'grande latte's before he came to the scene... I think I know why I did that. There is a part of me that wants to accept and be accepted by strangers. No matter what the situation is, my first ...Read More

I'm looking for a word... It's not exactly 'geography'. It's more like the movement of it. Not just the tectonic movements over a given time, but also the movements on the surface of it. Water, wind, roads... I feel like the roads we're riding on are prerecorded movements mimicking those of the land. Highway 70 goes through the Rocky mountains following Colorado river. For about 4 hours, we rode along the river following every curve of it. This must be a motorcycling dream. Today was our last night with Bintuğ. Tomorrow morning, he'll be returning to Los Angeles. His companion made this transition much easier for me. We had great time together. Surprisingly, I'm having a hard time catching up with the documentation of the trip. I think all of these habits will settle in a week or so... Here are some recent photographs: [gallery type="slideshow" link="file" ids="1239,1240,1241,1242,1243,1244,1245,1246,1247,1248,1249,1250"] And here is a short video ...Read More

We are leaving early tomorrow morning. Evren arranged a perfect bon-voyage party yesterday afternoon. Most of our friends came together to say goodbye. I had an unforgettable day. Seeing so many friendly faces, witnessing the looks in the eyes of loved ones, effected me deeply in a quite unexpected way. A very popular aspect of motorcycle riding is the romantic ideal of the solitary individual. I love too many people to get carried away with such a feeling. It feels like I don't belong to myself. There is so much in me that I owe to others. Seeing how they 'allow' me to go, gives me all the more reason to be careful and take good care of myself. [gallery type="slideshow" link="file" ids="1270,1271,1272,1273,1274,1275,1276,1277,1278,1279,1280,1281,1282,1283,1284,1285,1286,1287,1288,1289,1290,1291,1292,1293,1294,1295,1296,1297,1298,1299,1300,1301,1302"] Thanks to everyone coming... Special thanks to Ozan for his brilliant photography. Read More

I haven't felt this much excitement for a long time. Less than a week remains now. I come across the bike every day when I park the car behind it. A rush of fear and excitement fills me as I look at it. I don't see a 1000cc class M vehicle... I see the journey that lies ahead and it's too much to take in. Within a few seconds, I get overflown by this feeling and decide to attend some of the preparation intricacies. Focusing on details helps when you want to get away from the big picture. Three weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a friend of a friend in Turkey. He was asking about the paperwork required to ride a foreign bike in the US. I answered with the best of my knowledge and asked what his plans were. That same guy is now sleeping on my sofa as ...Read More

Emilio Scotto is probably one of the most persistent people traveling around the world. I read his book called "The Longest Ride". At one point he comes across a river that is way too high to cross. He doesn't turn back. He pitches his tent next to the river and goes to sleep hoping that the river would be 'gone' by the morning. He wakes up next morning, and guess what, the river is still there... What kind of a person does this? Can you imagine trying to talk this guy into not doing something? Scotto rode his old Goldwing everywhere you can imagine including deserts and rain forests... I think he is the first traveller to ride into China with a foreign registered bike. They normally do not allow foreign vehicles but Scotto insisted to ride his 'Princess'... Read More