Revisiting Ruta 40

Ruta 40 is somehow sort of famous amongst those who ride in South America. The road showcases the remote beauty of Argentina, and in the south it provides the only link between such mind-blowing places as the Perito Morneo glacier, El Chalten and others. If it didn't link such special places, I don't think I would go looking for the road just to ride it as it seems many do. But then I grew up in Australia, and have maybe lost my interest in riding dirt for the sake of it.

Ruta 40 in Patagonia is a long, lonely dirt road. There are some special challenges to it - it´s remote, there's not a lot of water, and mechanical or medical help, should it be necessary, is absent. You need a good fuel range - or a collection of coke bottles - and even then luck plays a part as petrol can be unavailable in the few service stations. The road itself is also located down in the thin end of the south american wedge, meaning that in summer, you share it with other biker travellers.

The surface can be difficult to ride, varying from fine sand through deep, loose gravel to round, tennis-ball-sized rocks. Football-sized rocks lie on and protrude from the surface all over the place. Heavily rutted in parts, with high ridges between wheel tracks, the surface changes frequently and suddenly. You are often on a patch less than 10 cm wide, just enough for the tyres, and just as regularly you have to dodge and zigzag to avoid the bigger and sharper rocks, or steer to counter the wind. Dry river crossings can mean long stretches of quite large rocks, and are the parts of the road that provide the most nerve-tinged excitement. For much of Ruta 40, the surface shifts under the bike as you move across it - for non-motorcyclists, imagine riding a bicycle across a waterbed! For kilometres in a row, at times. the wind can also be scarily strong, especially in the afternoons, and when we were there it was bloody hot, too.

Of our motorcycle traveller mates, it seems most had some or other difficulty - fellow Aussies Ken and Carol were blown off the road with their bike and ended up sore and looking for a welder. Ted had to return along the most remote stretch in search of a lost bumbag and documents, and had a hard crash in the process. Peter and Carol's old BMW dumped all its oil after rock damage, and they had to buy a coke-bottle of oil from a bloke in a truck. Uschi used discretion well, getting off and pushing her tall and light bike at times when the wheelrut she was following went off-piste or just ended. Lucky with the wind, we got off pretty lightly with just a couple of punctures to repair (and a good kit to do it with: www.tyrepliers.com.au), besides Emily's stomach cramps which she toughly ignored as we stood, sat, stood, sat along the road. Besides the broken shock absorber, that is. We teamed up and rode with Uschi for a day or two, and it was good to know that Peter and Carol were somewhere around.

Riding a motorcycle is a confidence game at any time. If you don't think you can, you don't. This is even more true when your bike is your house, weighs several times more than you do yourself, and is carrying not just one but two precious lives through a harsh, threatening environment. It's a matter of trusting yourself, your tyres, your bike, and importantly in our case, my passenger. Any little hole in bike maintenance, rider concentration, fitness, planning, or even in the way luggage is attached to the bike can make a very big difference out this way.

So when you need to cross that ugly-looking ridge of gravel to change lanes (ruts), you accelerate. Yep, searching if you can for a gap or a low place in the ridge, you stand up, set the bike up, maybe give a dab on the brakes, then gently squeeze the throttle to lighten the front wheel, and cross. Hands and arms relaxed on the handlebars, let the front wheel and then the whole bike wobble underneath you as it crosses the obstacle, let it all settle on the new path, then repeat. Or sit down for a few hundred metres, if you are lucky. And when a grotty patch of deep, loose and round river rocks makes your eyes boggle, stay calm, back yourself and your tyres again to brake and lose some speed. Lean back a bit, lightly on the throttle, let the bike weave, wag and carry on beneath you, keep your head steady and just ride with confidence.