Mondo Enduro: The Ultimate Adventure on Two Wheels - 44,000 Miles in 400 Days [Paperback]

"Adventure motorcycling as it should be."

This fantastically entertaining globetrotting tale is a must for anyone who has ever dreamed of having a go themselves.

This is the motorbike expedition that has inspired hundreds of others. Ewan McGregor certainly learnt from watching the "Mondo Enduro DVD". The classic Discovery Television series "Mondo Enduro" is at last published as a paperback. Here, you can experience first hand the joys and agonies of riding the longest land route around the world, 44,000 miles, in the shortest possible time. Completely unsponsored and without backup, "Mondo Enduro" learnt their mistakes the hard way, because they had no idea what they were doing. Any of the three parts of "Mondo Enduro" would make an exciting book in its own right, but here they are published together for the first time: London to Magadan (Siberia); Alaska to Chile; and South Africa back home to London. Sleeping in mud huts or under the stars; avoiding bandits from the Caucasus to Central America, this is adventure motorcycling as it's meant to be - raw, super low budget and above all - fun.

Mondo Enduro

This is the expedition that has inspired hundreds of others. Ewan McGregor certainly learnt from watching the Mondo Enduro DVD. He avoided the Zilov Gap - the 392 mile section of Siberian tundra and swamp where Mondo Enduro ended up man-hauling their bikes...

The classic Discovery Television series Mondo Enduro is at last published as a paperback. Here you can experience first hand the joys and the agonies of riding the longest land route round the world, 44000 miles, in the shortest possible time. Completely unsponsored and without backup, Mondo Enduro learnt their mistakes the hard way, because they had no idea what they were doing.

Any of the three parts of Mondo Enduro would make an exciting book in its own right, but here they are published together for the first time.

1. London to Magadan (Siberia)
2. Alaska to Chile
3. South Africa back home to London.

Sleeping in mud huts or under the stars; avoiding bandits from the Caucasus to Central America, this is adventure motorcycling as it's meant to be - raw, super low budget and above all fun.

The Mondo Enduro diaries were written on the road by:
Austin Vince, Louis Bloom, Mark Friend, Clive Greenhough, Bill Penty, Charles Penty, Nicholas Stubley, and Gerald Vince.
The final book was edited by Austin Vince.

"The most exciting motorcycle adventure ever, if you were on it."

MONDO ENDURO

At 11.30 p.m. all is quiet in our Mill Hill base, except for the sound of banging and the occasional curse. Gerald's attempts to affix his long-range fuel tank are not going well. The rest of us sit down to try to remember how Mondo Enduro came into being and how we got to this exciting point in our lives.

The reminiscences start to flow amid frequent interruptions, oaths (and corrections) from Gerald who is probing his tank mountings with a pen torch and screwdriver. We all agree that Mondo "began" in the early winter of 1992 when we all met up in a pub in Nottingham. Austin, Gerald and Andy Bell, our doctor friend, had summoned us to discuss another long-range bike trip. What was the bond that joined this diverse group, including Gerald, a British Rail ticket clerk, Austin, a maths teacher, and Clive Greenhough, a dispatch rider, to the East Midlands on a foggy night in November? All were friends or brothers of Austin, Bill, Nick and Andy, colleagues from Bristol University.

We were all inspired by a trip Austin, Gerald and Andy had made to former Soviet Bloc countries in Eastern Europe in 1990. Travelers' tales from behind a newly-rolled-up Iron Curtain had inspired us all. Two schools of thought emerged from our Nottingham pub night with Gerald proposing a journey across Russia and Andy backing a trans-Africa route. Gerald argued that the tentative opening of borders in the former Soviet Central Asian republics presented an opportunity too good to miss. A scenario began to develop in which we'd ride all the way to Vladivostok on the Russian Pacific and then board a ship for Japan.

It was left to Austin to sketch out the more ambitious scheme of riding all around the world, an option that also would neatly resolve the Russia versus Africa dilemma. He reasoned that if we rode to Japan it would take us three months anyway, long enough to force most of us to give up our jobs. The evening ended on a non-committal note but with a preference for the Siberian option and a commitment to make direct debit payments into a shared bank account at the Abbey National.

At this stage of course, we were still in the grip of an escapist fantasy that so easily could have been dashed by a Monday morning at work. Here we are, though, 4 days away from departure and with ferry tickets purchased one-way to Le Havre. Gerald has ditched a 17 year career on the railways, Austin has negotiated a four-term teaching sabbatical and Chas and Mark are "freelancing" and at liberty to spoil their careers if they want to. All of us are in some way "between jobs," unmarried or otherwise freed by circumstances to embark upon this journey.

Undoubtedly Gerald kept the momentum going by immediately immersing himself in the quest to identify the bike best-suited to our needs. "Jupiter's Travels", the classic book by Ted Simon describing his four-year journey around the world on a Triumph Bonneville had been a big inspiration to all of us and we started by weighing up the qualities of modern bikes of a similar size. We checked out the BMW GS series of flat twins before working our way down to Yamaha XTS, the 650 cc Kawasaki KLR and the Honda XL600.

In the end, though, the Vinces, the most mechanically adept among us, surprised us with the proposal that we all buy identical Suzuki DR350s, a small-engined off-road bike. Gerald noted that the DRs could get 300 miles from a custom-built 5 gallon tank. By riding identical machines we could interchange parts and carry fewer spares. He also sold his terraced house in Bournemouth to help fund the trip. Here was a clear statement of resolve on his part on one to make us all focus on the task in hand.

The next raft of thoughts concerned luggage. Austin forged ahead and designed an interchangeable clip together modular system made entirely from plywood. After endless sketches and fruitless demonstrations to the rest of the team he saw sense and the wooden saddlebags have been consigned to the back-burner where they, like most of his improvisations, will eventually catch fire. Gerald picked up the torch and has equipped most of us with a set of tough plastic panniers made by an Italian firm called Givi. They clip on to a neat sub-frame and are interchangeable between bikes. They are basically waterproof and of course secure. We have got hold of most of them second-hand saving a small fortune. Austin remained unconvinced and spent a week making his own saddlebags from thick leather. Clive has the quickest solution with two old rucksacks tied together and thrown over the seat. Time will tell which 'system', if any, is the best.

The rest of us got on with the task of thinking about kit, trying to line up sponsorship and also better understand the route ahead. In the England of 1995, it's still hard to dig out hard facts on countries like Georgia and Turkmenistan, unavoidable obstacles in our path. We know for instance that one possible route through northern Siberia will take us within 100 miles of Oynyakon, the place where, in the winter of 1944, the temperature gauge plunged to -72C. With the Soviet Republics road atlas bought in Zwemmer's bookshop, Charing Cross, we think we've charted a route to take us to the Russian Far East. It's open now in front of us on page 63 and there is NO ROAD between the Siberian settlement of Chernyshevsk and a town called Never. What lies in this strange hiatus or lacuna in Russia's road network that we've nicknamed the "Zilov Gap" we have no idea, though mud and mosquitoes probably feature in some capacity.