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BMW Ducati Husqvarna Motorcycles of AtlantaYour leading BMW, Ducati, and Husqvarna dealer for the Southeast |
No fixed abode - and proud of it!
To all those frustrated ‘armchair travellers’ stuck behind an office desk and dreaming of a life on the road, the message from Chuck Quast is quite simple - just do it!
After participating on an Edelweiss motorcycle tour in the Alps and attending a two-day off-road riding course at the BMW Enduro Park in Hechlingen, the 58-year-old software engineer returned to America, sold his house and everything he owned, and set off on a voyage of discovery on a BMW F 650 GS Dakar.
The trusty GS has so far taken him all over the world during the past three years and both Chuck and the Dakar are showing no signs of slowing down yet. To date, he has put 92,000 miles on this bike - over 80,000 of them (130,000 kilometres) since leaving his home in Seattle in April 2006. After spending five months travelling around the USA, Canada, Alaska and the Arctic Circle, he entered Latin America and travelled through Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.
In early 2007, Chuck arrived in Bogota, Colombia and then travelled through South America, visiting Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. Following this, he used air transport to travel from Buenos Aires to Cape Town, where he spent around four months exploring South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. Last October, he left southern Africa and travelled the east route up through Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. After arriving in Jordan in mid-February, Chuck rode through Syria and Turkey to Greece, before making his way to Germany, via Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia and Austria.
If the past three years on the bike have taught Chuck anything, it’s to appreciate the freedom that comes from riding and to feel fortunate enough to have at least two more years of adventure riding in front of him.
"I’ve had three years of waking up every morning and saying ‘WOW, where shall I go today!’ I get on my faded BMW riding jacket and see all the people going to work in their suits and ties and I feel extremely lucky that I am doing this trip. At the age I am now, it was a very easy decision to make because I knew that if I didn’t take the plunge and just go for it, then it would never happen. I feel privileged because I know that I’m doing exactly what people all over the world would love to do."
For someone in the midst of such an ambitious trip, Chuck is relatively new to motorcycling. He only started riding motorcycles in 2001 in order to improve his commute to work through the Seattle traffic. In a typical anti-Harley statement, his first bike was the BMW R 1200 C but he bought an R 1150 GS in 2003 which he sold to a friend after buying the mechanically simpler F 650 GS Dakar in April 2004. And although this bike is beginning to feel tired after nearly 100,000 miles of riding under its wheels, it has never let Chuck down or caused him any problems.
"The F 650 GS Dakar has been a fantastic choice for this trip," he said. "The engine and transmission have been trouble-free and apart from one valve adjustment and a few bits of plastic either falling off or being smashed by rocks that I’ve hit on tough trails, the only thing I could possibly criticise is the side stand, which has been temperamental at times. The fact that my only complaint is about a side stand is laughable really, and shows just how well the bike is suited to long-distance travel."
Chuck Quast will be staying in Germany for a while after hearing about BMW Motorrad Days, which he plans to visit on the first weekend in July. After that he plans to cross Asia and Australia at some point depending on his energy levels and finances. As for his eventual return to the USA, that is planned for some time in 2011 although he has no idea of what he would like to do once he gets ‘home’. One thing is sure in his mind though; he doesn’t want to work in computers again, although he does keep an email address open for friends and family to contact him.
Don’t expect a speedy reply from Chuck Quast though; he’s living the dream and gave up carrying a notebook computer a couple of years ago. His ‘out of office’ auto reply simply states ‘On the motorcycle, somewhere’.
