Cultured Travel Guide Books - Obsessions Die Hard: Motorcycling the Pan American Highway's Jungle Gap |
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 918.0439
EAN: 9781884313066
ISBN: 188431306X
Label: Whitehorse Press
Manufacturer: Whitehorse Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: 1996-09-01
Publisher: Whitehorse Press
Studio: Whitehorse Press |
| Spotlight Customer Reviews: |
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great book!
Comment: He is the Tom Sawer of Motorcycling!!! pulling and riding a bike thru the Jungle! What a man! Great Adventure
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Only for the hard core
Comment: I'll read anything about motorcycle travel but I would skip this if that doesn't sound like you. Culberson writes like you might expect a military man to. Fairly dry, straightforward and lacking in stylistic prose. It's not really a bad thing since you probably don't care if what you want to hear is the story of motorcycle adventure.
Personally I ended up a bit disappointed in the actual way in which the trip was done - it almost felt like cheating to me. Being towed halfway through the 80 mile Gap and then going home to rest and repair the bike only to return the following year to complete towing the bike seems like saying you ran a marathon 26 one mile runs a day. He did do it though so hat's off to him. I think the time the book was written was the beginning of the whole "adventure traveler" thing so you'll read this now wondering why the hell he didn't take a bike 200lbs lighter. Oh well.
Customer Rating:
Summary: More about jungle survival than motorcycling
Comment: For me the story really bogged down when he got into the jungle. Got tired of reading about winching the bike up the hill then winching it down the next one, getting caught in bushes, slipping and sliding, etc. If you are into extreme physical effort you might enjoy this.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A great book that makes you feel like you are with him!
Comment: I think this is a story that an adventurist will find gripping, he showed that life is about taking risks and living it to the fullest!
Customer Rating:
Summary: For the die-hard motorcycling adventurer.
Comment: This book definitely is not for the average reader, or traveler. It is an account of one man's life-long obsession to ride a motorcycle through the most impenetrable land mass on the face of the planet. If you have no interest in what endurance motorcycle riders call "adventure touring," skip Mr. Culberson's book. But if you ride, and sometimes ride hard and long, or off-road, and have wondered what it might be like to ride where no man has gone before, you will find this both a riveting adventure story and a practical guide to this exotic and dangerous sport. I myself am a motorcycle adventurer (though definitely not of Ed's stature), author, editor and former friend of Ed Culberson. Ed passed away recently, and the bike he made this monumental journey on, a BMW GS he named "Amigo," now sits in a place of honor in the museum at the BMW manufacturing plant in Greenville, South Carolina. His account of his two-wheeled adventures have inspired many other motorcyclists to follow their dreams, and a national award for the betterment of the sport of motorcycling has been renamed the Ed Culberson Memorial Award in his honor.
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| Editorial Reviews: |
This book chronicles Culberson's determination to fulfil his fascination with the Pan American Highway System, which runs the length of North and South America. Culberson wanted to ride his motorcycle along the Pan American Highway's entire route between Alaska and Argentina, but in eastern Panama and western Colombia's Darien region the road is broken by an 80-mile gap filled with jungles, rain forests, rivers, and swamps, forcing travellers to detour around it by boat or plane. The area is so inhospitable and unexplored that a myth about its impenetrability has evolved over the centuries, and a curse aimed at Darien trespassers shrouds the region. But the Darien Gap, known as "el tapon del Darien" -- the Stopper, didn't stop Culberson's dream. It turned it into an obsession.
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