So: Rob and I were in San Francisco, getting a little early shopping in before our corporate conference kicked-off, first and foremost trying to buy most of the contents of the local branch of REI; I had raided the luggage department, the camping stoves, and frisbee section; Rob had purchased for his wife a dehydrated Pad Thai, which is all the funnier when you know they are both hardcore foodies, and that his wife is a professional research chef / flavorist. (sic)

So we exit from the store, past the woman whose car was stolen from the car-park necessitating the arrival of the Police, and emerge blinking into the daylight only for me to stop dead upon sight of this motorcycle:

I have spent enough time reading about, researching, watching, talking-to and drinking-with other long-distance motorcyclists to be able to spot a hardcore could go round the world if it wanted to, third-world-fuel no problem, find me a cattle-track and give me a map bike in an instant.

This was one such – and what one a such it was.

Clearly it had an R80- or R100-something in its distant lineage, and probably a short-ish American rider, given the low seat and extra set of Harleyesque pegs, which… were… attached… to… the… crash… bars…

Hmm. That was novel, as was also the full lighting rig and what looked like the combination of a backend from an older BMW streetbike, softroad tyres, oversize tank, a braided hose that I couldn’t quite identify, and some homebrew pannier mounts. Then the owner arrived, and we had the pleasure of meeting Charles “c.w.d” Clark, a photojournalist and biker.

Further, apart from being a really nice guy, and having a really cool bike, Charles has got possibly the coolest job in the world.

Get this: BMW maintain two of the aforesaid bikes for him – incidentally they are bored-out to 1100cc and have uprated alternators to deal with the 1kW lighting rig – and they get flown from location to location around the world: Turkey, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Mexico, mid-Africa – where he (sponsored by Leica) works for a project following and documenting the movement of migrant workers in economically depressed environments, and recording the impact of AIDS upon those workers and in that highly mobile and poor environment.

Articles subsequently appear in various LIFE-type journals, as well as sponsor-rags like the BMW magazine. The project’s under-construction URL is at [www.groupm35.com] (get the Leica reference?) and various of Charles’ work can be found at: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

So you could get paid to have specialist bike-service on a customised machine, ride around and see the world, recording it as you go and in the process seek to change the world a little for the better.

Doesn’t that sound better than your current job?

I didn’t even have to apologise to Rob for making him stand around for 45 minutes outside REI whilst Charles and I were talking bikes, because he was in on it too – we learned from Charles about the comparatively extortionate costs of satellite phones once you go “over-plan”, whilst he in turn was taken with Rob’s new Treo 650, which opened-up some new potential for him with regard to mobile web-browsing and fast upload in GPRS-capable areas.

The extra braided hose turned-out to be a remote preload that he’d had fitted for ease of use when setting the bike up for heavy loads; I have one similar on my 12GS, but really wish I’d had one for the DRZ400. A few more pictures are at [www.crypticide.com] including one of a vintage BMW that I encountered in Palo Alto.

More, later. Yes, the title of this article is a pun on an old Honda advert.