LifeUnloaded RTW

“The key for us with long distance travel is to make it fun. We have a few sponsors, and they ask for a few things from us, so there is some work involved. Mostly this falls on Aida though. She does the pictures, video, and editing. My job is to fly the drone and keep the bikes running. If you’re not having fun most of the time what is the point? We found out early on that we are very different people. Aida is best described as a Tasmanian Devil on speed. I’m more like a walking Quaalude. We both get our work done but at our own pace. On the bikes its the opposite. I think I’m always doing a hard enduro or racing in the Moto GP. Aida, on the other hand, is more Zen in her style of riding. We bump heads once in a while, but there is always respect.” – Paul Arcaria

“I never put much pressure on myself, so not much has been hard for me. If a bike breaks down, I might get a little flustered if I don’t have the right parts to fix it. I’m thankful for Aida’s language skills because I would probably still be stuck at the Guatemalan border trying to figure out what Aduana means. When I crashed in Columbia and broke my hand, it was Aida that after two days convinced me to go to the hospital to check out my grapefruit size palm. I knew it was broken, but I didn’t want a cast because I wanted to keep riding. Of course, the X-rays showed what I had expected but what the doc did next was really cool. He took mercy on me and only put the cast on my hand, ring and pinky finger so I could still squeeze the clutch. I think if I had to stay off the bike for two or three weeks it would have been very hard for me.”

Paul is one half of the traveling duo LifeUnloaded RTW and hails from Long Island New York. “Conceived and refined as they say for my whole life. Although, in my early twenties, I did a short stint in Florida as a fisherman. Having turned forty last year, I’ve never been married or had kids. Well, none that I know of! I love adventure of any kind and the unknown.” Aida, on the other hand, started riding scooters around her native Portugal form the young age of eight after which she got her license when she was sixteen. “I also got my license when I turned sixteen and had been riding ever since. The first official wheels I had was a moped that of which I managed to blow up the motor within in a week while running it on nitromethane small engine fuel intended for radio controlled planes. Then I got a 1981 Kawasaki GPZ 550 when I was eighteen. That bike I blew up within four months after which I bought a brand new 1997 Yamaha R6.”

“Around the time I was 25 or 26 I was racing another R6, just a random rider that pulled up next to me one night. At the green light, we both hit it. It was late, and the roads were empty. Neck and neck we both pulled back as the light ahead was red. Still going about 50 the light turned green, and we both opened the throttles again. I had no idea who I was racing on my left side, but he would be dead in about 3 seconds. A red VW blew the red light, and his R6 went straight into the front right wheel of the car. I just got around the front by not hitting the brakes. In my mirror, I saw him fly over the car. I stopped, dropped my bike and ran over to him. His helmet was nowhere to be seen, and most of his face was gone. I just held him till the police arrived and they pried me off him. Plenty of people saw what happened and my statement was brief and shaky. The last thing I remember was taking the key out of what was left of his bike and putting it in his clenched, lifeless hand. I quit riding the next day…”

However, this self-imposed ban did not last forever. It would be four years before Paul got back into riding. “I was dating a girl who knew what had happened but was also seeing how I was paying attention to bikes again. One day she said; ‘just go buy a f@#king bike and see if it comes back to you!’ The next day I bought a second-hand FZ6 for a good deal and it all came back big time! Within a few months, she was on the FZ6, and I was on a brand new FZ1. Life was good. Until I crashed the FZ1 after being cut off and the bike came out a total loss. By then I was older, and I didn’t need to go 150 anymore. So I bought a Triumph Tiger 800 and started doing long distance. That was when I met Dusty Wessels at the IMS show in New York. He was working the Mosko Moto booth, and we hit it off rather well. He told me to come riding with him in Colorado so he could show me what ‘real ADV riding’ was all about. I didn’t see him for a year, but we kept in touch and the at the next IMS show my Triumph was the demo bike for Mosko. So Dusty and I ended up talking a lot. Dusty was the happiest guy I had ever met. He’d traded a big career in finance to do ADV rider training and tours for a living. That put the spark in me. Over the next two years, I would ride with Dusty in Colorado, take all my vacations days in a row to ride around the country and explore where I could. Then when a request for a leave of absence from work got denied, I decided to quit and ride around the world.”

“I met Aida on a charity ride I did on New Year’s day one year. It was all Harleys, and she was on a brand new Tiger 800. I was interested in how the new model was and started talking to her. In the end, we exchanged numbers and over the next year got into a p%$$ing contest over who was riding to the coolest places. It wasn’t till a year later she would see me working my second IMS show with Dusty that she recognized me. I didn’t recognize her but when she told me her name I felt like an idiot. I told her of my plan to travel around the world, and she jokingly asked if I needed a photographer. I jokingly said why not and thought nothing more about it while I went back to explaining soft luggage to people. The next day I got a text from her. It only said; “I’m coming with you.” Oh boy, sh$t just changed quick. I’d always planned on using the Suzuki DR650 for the ride because it just made sense. The Triumph was too big, and parts would be too hard to get. When I told Aida she’d need to buy a different bike for the ride she didn’t care. She just wanted the experience so bad. So over the next few months, we got to know each other and rode test rides to North Carolina as well as to the overland expo, all the way in Arizona. By now we were farting in front of each other, knew how the other person rode and could share a tent without killing one another over stinky feet. We were almost ready.”

“So I texted Dusty and asked if he was going to do an RTW trip what bike would he take? He gave me three bikes, and first on the list was the DR650. I didn’t even read the rest. It was the bike I wanted him to say. Air cooled, easy to work on, a ton of ways to customize and in the USA you can find used ones everywhere. It took us two weeks to find our bikes. Aida found hers in Connecticut while mine was in upstate New York. I don’t think either cost more than three thousand, and both had less than 14 000 mi / 22 500 km on the odometer. Hers was set up pretty well by the previous owner that had just ridden the Trans American Trail with it. Mine was almost stock besides a really loud DG pipe. The DR hasn’t changed much in twenty years so even though hers is from 2011 and mine is 2002 there’s not much difference. We got the bikes to Aida’s house and went to work in the garage. It was still winter, and I had to get them ready. Drum from Procycle became a good source for everything we needed. This guy turned out to be a saint. Even today he will go out of his way to make sure we have what we need, wherever we are. Another guy, RTWPaul, became a good source of tricks about the bikes little ticks. I could find out the basic ways to get the bikes ready, but he could always take it a step further, and it felt like he was there every time I needed some quick solution.”

Both motorcycles now boast an impressive array of upgrades. New crash bars along with skid plates were installed. “They were not meant to be used together, so I had to cut the skid plates with a plasma cutter to get the crash bars to fit.” Case savers also protect the engines from any broken chain strikes. “We also installed pretty much everything Warp 9 has to offer from engine plugs, starter caps, chain guides to levers.” Acerbis clear 6.6 gal / 25 l tanks fuel both rides while the “ass saving seats” are provided by Procycle. Lithium batteries and carb re-jet kits keep the single cylinders purring while extra control cables run parallel with the old, ready for a quick change over when required. Up front sees steering dampers, windshields, LED headlights, aux lights, and LED blinkers installed. Electrics were also rounded out with new fuse blocks, and a rewire for heated gear and SAE charging plugs. Center stands and lowered foot-pegs help with support while some “extra steel welded to the rear” keeps the subframe carrying its load. “The DR’s have just rolled 30 000 mi / 48 280 km. We always knew we would ride our own bikes. The thought of two up never really even entered our minds.”

“When it comes to ADV riding, I would never use hard cases. If we did our ride would have been over already. Aida crashed pretty bad in Peru. We were at 15 000 ft / 4600 m, and the trail was tough. She hit a water crossing a little hard and fell on her right side. Her leg got pinned between an oven sized rock and her pannier. I was behind her and heard the scream in my Sena. I dropped my bike and lifted her bike off her. She had a lot of bruising and a torn ligament, but nothing broke. If she’d been using hard panniers, she probably would still be having her knee rebuilt. That’s why Mosko Moto’s products are a big deal with us. Personally, I’ve lost count of crashes and falls. The Mosko bags always come out fine. They even kinda say ‘Hey, is that all you got?’ If we had hard cases, I doubt they would be in great shape by now. I’ve been hit by taxi’s, bounced off a truck and fallen more times than Lindsay Lohan leaving a bar. The soft luggage takes the beating way better. As for security, if someone wants to steal your sh$t bad enough they will steal it. Funny enough though, the only thing I do miss about hard luggage is being able to use it as a table when camping!”

“A lot of people are under the impression that ‘you are going to die in Mexico, they are going to kidnap and kill you! Well, we could have died but not from the people. The route was from Mulege to San Juanico. We were both still a little drained from being sick the week before, but according to Google maps, most of the planned ride was on a big highway looking road. Probably four or five hrs. The road was nice for about forty minutes, but then it made a right heading west, and we hit the sand. Oh sh$t sand! About a kilometer of sand, then washboard, then sand, then baby head sized rocks over a dry riverbed. It was a 106 °F / 41 °C, and we were only a third of the way there. Then I saw a small blue arrow on a stick pointing back the way we came. F@%k me; we are on the Baja 1000 route!”

“Aida dropped her bike about ten times on the big rocks since her bike is high and its hard for her to dab. The only way over them was at speed, and I knew she was still a bit sick, and that the heat was killing us. We didn’t want to turn back hoping it would get better the further we went. So now I’m riding my bike over the rocks then coming back to ride her’s over. She was fine on the dirt, and the hill climbs, but it was very slow going. After about five hours of this, we were running out of water and looked for some shade to rest under. As we got back on our bikes, a truck pulled up and said it was going to get easier but that we were still far from where we wanted to go. Luckily the people in the truck handed us a huge jug of water. I opened my mouth and got half in my stomach and half on my stomach. Aida was a little more subtle with how she drank. We kept going, and the river crossings and sand got less over the next few hours. Now the sun was setting nicely in the west, and I was feeling dizzy yet pleased to see the wonderful sight when I lost my line on a downhill and went down a hard. My right forearm was the victim with nice open cuts and a fair bit of gravel hitching a ride. But we were out of water again and had to keep going.”

Two hours later with the sun down, we weren’t even speaking to each other over the Sena’s anymore. We were in bad shape so we just road on and a few clicks more we finally hit what looked like a small town: no signs, streetlights, nothing. I pulled over hoping to find water or die. Either would have been fine at this point. Aida could hardly hold up her bike. We both said, ‘well we are officially fu….. hey who is that?’ A guy popped out of nowhere. ‘Are you ok?’ he asked. ‘No not really.’ I said as I watched blood drip from my arm onto my thigh. ‘You both better come with me’ he said in Spanish. We rode around the block to a mud and brick house that had electricity and a few small kids running around. We dismounted or just kind of fell off our bikes and were brought into the backyard. The man’s wife came out to see what was happening, took one look at my arm and dragged me to the water tank. She cleaned me up, got out most of the embedded trail and gave me a cold beer. Aida’s Spanish is excellent so she was telling the family what had happened to us. By the time I finished the beer and stopped crying like a baby over my arm the wonderful woman brought out two plates of food that I don’t even remember eating. It just disappeared that fast. I love Mexican people!”

Earlier this year Paul and Aida made their way across to Europe and started the next chapter of their adventure. “We rode to Portugal from Madrid. However, the bikes are taking a break there while we are back in NY for a month. When we get back we will ride most of Portugal with a few people that promised to take us around. After that, it’s onto eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan……to Cambodia.”

Follow along on LifeUnloaded RTW’s adventures via their Instagram page or check out their YouTube channel.

All images by Aida Valenti.