Few words about electronics and communication on the road

Nowadays the equipment list is full of electronics. And also very important stuff. 

We want to communicate with each other and the outside world and also to search information from the web so we need cell phones and/or pads. 

We want to record the moments for the future and for our close ones si we need cameras. 

We want to navigate easier way than only with traditional paper map so we need some kind of navigator. 

And we also want to communicate with each others while we are riding. That doesn't only enhance the quality of the trip and make things easier but is also a safety factor. 

Of course these are not necessary cause the bike runs with fuel, but these gadgets make things easier, faster, more fun and more safe. So we might find ourselves in a situation where we see lot of electronic equipment in our packing list and we need a plan how to charge them. Or we dont't even know what we need.

Here's our thinking:

We all had our cell phones for personal communication and photoing plus two iPads. Pad is easier for using internet, for example when booking hotels or planning the routes with online/offline maps. We found very useful to download the whole maps to the phones and pads so that its easy and fast to get the city names, routes, hotels, gas stations etc. also when you are in the middle of the desert without any 2G or 3G coverage at all, not to mention wifi networks. We used Nokia Here for this and it worked very well.

For navigation we used paper map and cell phones navigation programs (we didnt have separate GPS gadgets). We also didn't have the navigation voice instructions directed to our helmet speakers, which would of course have been the best way cause then you could keep your eyes on the road and not constantly remove your sight from the road to the phone in the tank bag. But we managed with this way very well.

We didn't bring SLR cameras with us. Instead we had three GoPro's with different mounts, in adition to our phone cameras (still we wished many times that we would have brought a good SLR camera also cause many situations would have deserved a better camera than iPhone or Samsung cameras).

For internal communication between four bikes we decided to use PMR Phones due their long distance functionality. We looked at all the modern intercom and bike-to-bike systems but most of them 

- were designed only for driver-passenger conversation, or

- were designed to be used between 2-3 bikes, or

- had too short operating distance (many Bluetooth and radio freaquency phones have maximum distance of 300-400 meters and we found many times that PMR's even 3km distance functionality was very usefull for us), or

- were too expensive considering our budget (we didn't want to invest much cause only one of us had a bike at the time so those gadgets wouldn't have much usage after the trip).

Naturally it would have been great to get also music and GPS voice directed to helmet speakers but that would have required fansier and more expensive systems. Our main priority was to have well functioning bike-to-bike-communication built with low budget.

We already had Midland PMR phones so we only had to buy the microphone-speakers-tangent-system for Midland which cost about 30€ each in Finland so our communication system cost totally 120€ for four drivers. Good quality PMR phones cost generally about 50-100€/$. 

The speakers and mic were very easy to amount to four different brand helmets. Everyone of us did this by themselves, including the heart surgeon and the economic. Some electricians tape is good for to secure that the wireing stays on the helmet for weeks, also in windy situations. Our system worked perfectly for the whole trip.

Helmet set cable glued to helmet with alot of electricians tape to prevent the wind pulling out the wires.

The speakers amounted inside the helmet. Almost all modern helmets are designed so that you can mount the speakers to a good spot near your ears. They are usually fixed with velcro stickers.

The microphone attached inside the helmet, just in front of the mouth. The closer the microphone is to the lips, the better is the voice quality and the less there is distracting noice.

Also the tangents were easy to amount to the mirror holder. Depending on the bikes grip you could also mount the tanget there but we found out that in BMW, the thumb would be in weird position and so, harder to use. The more easy and natural the tangent is to use, the better cause it is used hundreds of times a day and some times you have to press it suddenly  when for example to warn about something. Thats why this is an important issue. 

Regarding the communication system, we want to emphasize that you can find a lot of great communication and intercom systems on the market but as mentioned, we didn't want to invest alot and we prioritised the bike-to-bike feature the highest. The best brands for communication at the moment we found out to be ScalaRider or AutoCom. ScalaRider was the most used by the fellow riders on the trip, especially un intercoms. Generally it seems that trend goes towards wireless systems, like ScalaRider.

Anyway, our cheap system worked perfectly for the whole trip. The first rider can warn about other vehicles on the road, lamas, sheeps, cows, horses, dogs or emus blocking the way, you can inform to others about something interesting you see, you can give and discuss the route and navigation or you can just chat with each others. So we think that this kind of system is priceless and takes the quality of riding in a group to another level.

About charging:

We bought an international adapter which works all over the globe. To that we mounted extension cord with multiple sockets. We needed many sockets cause charging four PMR phones took four sockets alone. We also bought a good quality USB charger which had eight amperes output power and five ports so we could charge the pads, phones and GoPro batteries simultaniously.

We also had couple external USB batteries to be used to charge USB devices while riding, if needed. 

BMW (and modern bikes generally) have a 12 volt output so that with suitable adapter you can charge all USB devices while riding. This is very important especially for the navigator so that you have GPS every time you need it. 

Of course its easy to take 12 volts straight from the battery but more and more new bikes nowadays have it already as factory assembled. 

If you need to charge small 110/230 volt gadgets, you may be able to use a little inverter which transforms 12 volt direct current (DC) into 110/230 volt alternative current (AC). But here you have to check how much load you can add after the 12 volt output or if you take it straight from a battery, check what is the max outout power of the bikes charger.

If you are not a self made home electrician, we suggest to ask from a skillful pro and if you are renting your bike, you can ask the renter cause they know the specific bike well.

Riding day 7: Perito Moreno - El Calafate

Blasted through the desert

Last night we slept long and well despite that the room wasn't the cousiest one. But, we are here for driving, not for looking for fansiest hotels. Plus the owner family was positive and helpful and it cost only Argentinan 250 pesos per person. 

The main thing of course was that we got well rested cause today was a real bench mark day for us; driving through the windy desert for almost 700km. The original plan had been to drive to Cobernador Gregores and stay for the night there, but we began to calculate that we could save one day if we would drive the two stints in one day and head straight to El Calafate, and so, spend the saved day at some other more interesting location.

The road would be mainly pavement so it didn't sound impossible. So we decided to go for it.

After breakfast we refilled at Benito Moreno's Petrobras station (the gasoline is much cheaper in Argentina, at this point 8,33 pesos per liter) and headed to a perfect condition, new pavement road at about 10:45. 

The first kilometres we had tailwind so the speed was high while the helmet noice and fuel consumption were relatively low. Sun was already high up, temperatature was plus 20 and everything seemed perfect.

But when the road made the first 90 degree turn towards South-West, the reality hit us; the right side wind was very brutal, strong and impulsive. We had to reduce the speed and still watch out for the wind blasts, especially when coming out behind protective terrain formations.

We had decided to keep short brakes after every 50-60 km and at the second one we ate lunch at Bajo Caracoles.

There we also met our new friend Jeff from North Carolina, whom we got known while rafting in Futateufu. He had chosen a different route from Coyhaique (the longer route around the Lago General Carrera) than we and told that it was a beautiful route.

The windy trip continued. We all decided to put up the ear plugs due the high helmet noice. This was a great idea and increased the quality of driving significantly. Still we managed to hear the radio phones suprisingly well. For the breaks we had to find off road places to get at least some shelter from the wind. This gave also a good opportunity to practise the off road skills.

The fuel consumption increased to 7-9 litres per 100km (normally at this speed about 5-6L/100km). We tried to keep 120km/h speed to be able to reach El Calafel before the dark. 

We also saw the most animals today: lot of alpacas, emu-looking birds (which obviously werent emu's) and a couple of some kind of small desert foxes. 

Some alpacas had tested their strength with more massive vehicles with bad results. 

For motorcycler these animals can be dangerous here couse they can jump to the road at any point. Luckily there were no trees beside the road so the alpacas were quite easy to spot. Anyway, dont trust for the protection of the animal fences. 

Mika and cow having eye contact (this picture is not from todays route but between Futaleufu and Puyuhuapi).

We had seen some propability for rain showers at the forecast but we got only few drops, which we only saw on the helmet screen.

When driving through a desert, you automatically start to think what would you do if something happenes, for example the the gets malfunction which you cant repair on the road. The longest distance without gas stations, hotels etc, was about 180km and between that very leg, we met a girl who didnt have the front wheel in her bike. We found out that her husband had taken the flat tire to the next city and the wife was waiting for him with the bike. They were from Switzerland and had been driving around for seven months(!)

Unfortunately some have had to wait a bit longer..

We did the refill at Cobernador Gregores  Between that and El Calafel there was about 75 km gravel road, which was quite easy and fun to drive. We tested different angles with GoPro's and got some very good shoots. Mika's GoPro's cover opened itself by a rock when mounted to shoot the rear wheel and back and the camera falled out. Fortunately Mikko noticed this and they found the camera.

The rest 200km where quite speedy, due the wind wasn't so strong anymore and we were exited to get to the destination.

Temperature falled to 13 and with the wind it got us cooled down a bit. We all addedlong sleeves under the jacket for the first time.

We reached El Calafate at about 21:15 and found a nice accomodation from Hosteleria Austral at the very centrum. Just down the blog we found a cousy restaurant where we celebrated the another great day, enjoyed excellent Patagonian lager and planned the trip to the Benito Moreno glacier next day. 

Few tips from today:

- Dont stay the night in at the middle of desert if possible

- Use the ear plugs or noice reducing head sets during strong wind

- Use a wind proof head cover under the helmet

- At windy conditions, prepare for remarkable increase of fuel consumption if you want to keep the same travel speed

- Keep short breaks more often if needed

- For male drivers (this might also consider the female drivers also, but we don't have personal experience): although its instructed to pee towards the down wind, because of the turbulentic air you will still get piss on your face. Prepare for this!! 

Weather: mostly sunny, strong and turbulentic wind from the West, seven water drops right after Benito Moreno

Temperature: 20 celsius in the beginning and 13 at El Calafate

Distance traveled: 685km

Total distance traveled: 2520km

The arrival

Arrival to Osorno airport. 4th flight. Tired but it it doesn't matter. The airport is small, don't have to look for luggage for long since there's only one belt. Those 3 blue ikea bags show up, which actually suprised us a bit since we had to ask about them in santiago. As we get out at the parking lot We find Moto Aventura Chile cars waiting for us. They take us to rental station. We see 4 bmw:s at the yard and can't hold ourselves and run to reserve our own. The lady asks us in and we sign the papers. There's only traffic insurance. We damage the bikes, we pay the bikes. There's 2 red, khaki and olive and the bikes are dealed out. There are two steel side bags and a tank bag for each bike. We had no information that there would be tank bags so we had our own and 2 of us used their own and 2 used rental. Me myself had just bought a 40 liter bag wich was way too big for this bike. So we gear up the bikes, the rental personnell take our stuff on a pick up and we follow them to our accommodation Hostal Argentino. It's a house with 2 storage and a few rooms to lend out. We ride our fresh bikes in the yard and settle in our 8 square meter room with 4 beds and unload our equipment. We go to a restaurant next door. This is a rural area and the restaurant is just another house and We are the first quests. They put on the music and an old guy comes to see what we want. We spoke only very poco spanish but we managed to order. We learned that lomo is steak! We ate lomo. The food was all right but the company was great. We ordered a few cervezas. This we knew how to do. After these cervezas We walked back to our hostel and fantasized of mounting a big axe to Juha's bike which we found from the yard. After this We crash and fall asleep.

The planning

The planning for the "Project Patagonia" started with deciding the best time for the trip. There were four guys of us, (Mika, Juha, Mikko and Manu) and we had to find the dates which would suit for all of us.

We chosed Christmas day for the start day cause around Christmas and the new year was anyway more holidays. 

The plan was to drive from Osorno, which is located at about 1000km South from Santiago, the capital of Chile, to the very South of South America, an area in Chile called "fire land", originally "Tierra del Fuego" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tierra_del_Fuego)

and more particularly to a city called Ushuaia, which is the capital of the area. 

(Our actual route varies little bit from the picture below and will be updated when the trip is in the final)

Based on the distance from Osorno to Ushuaia (about 3200-3800km depending on the route) and the experiences of earlier travellers and their blogs, we calculated that we would need 14 driving days (with 230-270km a day).

The second phase was to reserve the bikes. Mika had used Compass Expedition at his Australian trip and their operator in Chile was Moto Aventure. We got the best offer from there. They rent BMW GS 800 and 1200 bikes. Mika had had the GS1200 in Australia but we decided to take the 800's due the more predicted rough terrain on our route. GS800 is little bit lighter (229kg vs 260kg) but offers still enough loading capacity and power for our needs.

Moto Aventura Chile had over 100 bikes in Osorno so it was easy to reserve the bikes for the desired dates. They just needed the reservation payment and after that, the copy of passport, national and international driving license.

Third thing after confirming the bikes was to find the best suitable flights. We flew from Finland and changed the plane in Berlin, Madrid and Santiago. The total duration from Helsinki to Osorno was about 29 hours so it was a bit long. But as we know, when you are heading for an adventure like this, you are too exited to complain about the travelling hours. Also the waiting at the airports is good time for some extra planning.

We planned with Moto Aventura that we would leave the bikes to Punta Arenas, which is located about 440km back to North West from Ushuaia. We reserved one-way flights from Punta Arenas back to Santiago where we would departure back to home.

When the bikes and flights were confirmed, it was time to start to focus on planning more detailed route and also building a list of things we would need at the trip. Mika had very good list already from Australia so that was the base for listing the equipment.

(List coming in English)

We gathered together few times to plan the route in more details. These were good times to search interesting destinations from Google. 

We also found out that we needed to make some compromises between what we wanted to see and experience and how much we had time to drive. We noticed that visiting some places would have taken too much time and also some routes were too slow, for example due the road surface.  Travelling in Chile takes more time than in Argentina cause Chile is like a long archipelago when the west of Argentina is main land and therefor the roads are more straight and fast for driving. So the roughly planned route was a comprimise between desired experiences and realistic time to be used.

The final route was decided during the trip. We made the final decissions of the next days route at the night before. We were fortunate cause the weather didnt affect to planning.

Check out the video from our whole trip here