Filming the experience

A short film from the trip:

https://vimeo.com/153161486

And how to shoot it...

We have 3 gopros with us. Part of every day is planning where and how and using which mounts to get the best footage. We have a bunch of different mounts with us that we have tried around the bikes and the riders. Mika and Mikko already have some experience of different camera views from their previous mc-trips. Trying to get good video can sometimes be a little stressful and cause a lot of breaks to mount, dismount, turn off and on the camera. But the joy of watching at a good clip at dinner after the ride for the day pays for it. After we're done with the trip we're going to have somewhere around 170 gigabytes of gopro video. Editing this to an interesting video will be going to take days and days of work. We have actually thought of using a professional video editor to go through the material. Anyway. The end result is going to be mind-blowing, we can say that already. The scenery here in Patagonia is just so amazing and huge and versatile.

I have about 2-3 years old gopro hero 3 silver and Mika has the same in black edition. Then we also have Mikas friends' hero 3+ black edition. Although my camera is old, both still-photo and video quality are amazing. We have mostly been using the sceleton backdoors with the cameras so that the camera mic would pick up surrounding sound. On very dusty roads and of course shooting in the water we used the waterproof backdoor. The Only complaint from us for the hero 3 model is the feel of function buttons. On a moving motorcycle you can't really see or hear if the camera is on or off and the feel of the buttons is unreliable. Although you press the buttons with full force, you still can't rely on that the camera just turned on or off. If you're riding low speed, you might hear the camera beep but that also depends on the surface you're riding on and the wind speed and the radiotraffic on that spesific moment in your headsets. Using the camera buttons with your other hand disables that hand from controlling the motorcycle and can be a risk factor. Also checking if the camera is recording by looking at it's blinking light on the move is a risk factor. We thing that a wireless remote would be safest and that actually exists. But since it's a wifi remote it would run down the battery very fast.

We have 5 batteries with us for the 3 cameras and about 1,5 to 2 batteries are used daily by Mikko and 1 by Mika. So the batteries are not that long lasting and therefore it's good that we have extra. We can see the videos taken on our phones using the gopro app on our phones. The camera connects to phones by wifi but it runs down the camera battery very fast. Attached are pictures of gopro camera parts, mounts and accessories we use.

Riding day 8: El Calafate - Puerto Natales

We woke up in El Calafate at Hosteria Austral. We didn't know the day before if we'll make it all the way through the desert almost 700 km so we didn't make a reservation for accommodation beforehand, which would have been the best way to get best price-quality ratio. This time we were lucky and managed to get ok quality.

After modest breakfast we started about 10 towards the Perito Moreno glacier. First we headed for refuel and also the chains needed to be tightened.

The weather was pretty cold compared to what we were used to. It was 10,5 celcius and cloudy. The ride was 50 kms straight paved road untill the gate of the national park. From here on the road changed to curvy and more fun. 30 km more and we reached the parking lot from where we took a shuttle up to the glacier.

There were walking ways to get nearer the ice. We took it and went to see the glacier. The ice was beatiful. You could hear every once in a while crackle when the ice broke and splash when it hit the water.

Scenery was magnificient and worth the visit. We ate lunch in the park and started for the next destination.

Our next destination was Torres Del Paine national park and we had to head back to El Calafate to start since the road to glacier was a dead end. We headed back to our earlier hotell to get wifi and plan our next stop. Since we didn't find any accommodation online from Torres Del Paine/Cerro Castillo village, we decided to hit the road and catch it on the go. 

We started the route 40 towards Chile. The road was pretty straight and paved.

 Pretty Boring. Untill. There was a shortcut to the right. About 60 kms gravel. Of course we took this. In my opinion this was top 3 rides on this trip. The road was wide and straight so we could keep 80-120 km/h speed. But there was also challenge since there were big rocks and smoother gravel on the road which you had to avoid. I think we got pretty good GoPro material from here since we could ride quite near to each other.

When we turned back to paved road, there was only a short way to the border. In the end there was again a short fun gravel road. Noman's land was gravel like usually and we arrive to Chilean border and a small village called Torres Del Paine. There's nothing in the village and we have to ride to next town which is Puerto Natales. This is about 60 kms straight and curves in a bit chancing landscapes so this is not so boring. There are hills and dried up trees. Snow covered mountains in the horizon. The pavement is good.

We reached the town, rode around finding a hotell and manage to find a decent priced hotel l with a few bikes in front. More bikers checked in after us. These guys were Italian and had their own bikes and support truck with them!

We went to seek a restaurant and found a good one from the main boulevard at the seaside. We took the hotell for two nights and plan to head for the national park tomorrow.

Route: El Calafate - glacier Perito Moreno -El Calafate - Torres Del Paine/Cerro Castillo - Puerto Natales

Distance: 432 km

Total distance: 2947 km

Weather: 10-12 celcius, cloudy

Riding day 4: Futaleufu-Puyuhuapi

We woke up at Futaleufu Chile. Manu went for a run and Mika cooked us a breakfast: scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, coffee, juice and jogurt. Mika noticed problems with his breaks/ABS system the day before and he made a call to rentall shop. They instructed him to clean the ABS sensor. It doesn't help and Mika still doesn't have ABS.

We had made a deal the previous day with a rafting company PATAGONIA ELEMENTS to go raft in the Futaleufu river and we signed out of our bungalow and rode our bikes a block over to Patagonia Elemements. There were a bunch of other people at the shop and we decided to head for the river before the others on our bikes. We started for the gravel road, had just some sort of oral information where the starting point was going to be. Of course we didn't find it. Drove passed it and had to return. In the end we find the place and strip down to our swimming pants. Head down to the river and find a bunch of guys already pulling on the wetsuits. So we did the same, got chosen to a boat and get some instructions. Then we jumped in a boat and practiced the commands and co-operating together. It was six of us in the boat + the guide. MARCELLO was our guide on the boat and a decent professional. According to Mika's fancy SUUNTO watch the time in the water was 1h40min. Distance in the water was 8,5km. Max velocity 25kph. THIS STUFF WAS AWESOME. All of us really enjoyed this. The route had about 10 rapids. In between we got to jump to water and get pulled back to boat, jump from the rocks, jump to water and go down the rapid swimming! GRAZY AND AWESOME EXPERIENCE! Afterwards we are served light lunch and we get a ride back to our bikes.

We start for PUYUHUAPI. We ride gravel for very long. This is no problem with these tools we ride. BMW 800 GS ADVENTURE is a tool more than a bike. It takes rough terrain with no problem. It's not meant to be beautiful. 

We arrive to RUTA 7 (CARRETERA AUSTRAL) Most of this is gravel (lots of fun) untill LA JUNTA where we refuel. Gravel starts again after La Junta and we arrive to PUYUHUAPI. It's a small village and we note other bikers also. This is old lumber and sheep farming village. This time we haven't booked accommodation beforehand and just go ask around. We find this modest bungalow type thing. The hostess is very friendly. We settle in and go find a restaurant. None of us speaks spanish but we manage to get food. We know some key words. Like CERVEZA and LOMO. After this we crash. The ride was about 200 km.