Riga, Latvia to Tallinn, Estonia - August 1, 2015

Today is our first day of motorcycle riding on the Epic tour.  We begin in Latvia.  We will end in Hong Kong.  To put this in perspective, we start in Europe, and will cross Russia, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Mongolia and China.  Today is August 1.  We plan to arrive in Hong Kong more than two months from now, departing for home on October 7.  However, our plan is to arrive in Beijing, China on September 6, so Beijing is barely more than halfway - the scope of the China portion of this adventure is staggering - AFTER Beijing, we will loop back from east to far western China again and ride things like the famous tunnel roads, see the Terra Cotta Army, Great Wall, Xian, the Yellow River, Silk Road, Mogao Caves, Tibetan manasteries, pandas at Chengdu, the Yangtze, and much more, all after the halfway point!  There is so much to do between now and then - this morning we met in the lobby for a briefing with Janis, lead guide for the day.

The briefing meeting was at 8 - a little earlier than most riding days, because Janis had arranged a permit to get a great photo of us, the bikes and Old Riga in the background in a pedestrian park, but we had to be there between 8 and 9 in the morning.

While waiting for the group shot, a fellow rider snapped this shot of us.  

Then this one with Old Riga in the background.

This is the backside of our group shot.  I'm guessing we'll get a copy of the photo at a later date.

As we went back across the bridge, we saw this helicopter landing on the closed road below - some kind of public/military festival is about to start.

Fellow rider, Andre Lacy, looking pretty good on the road to Tallinn.  Andre is one of our older group members, in his mid-70's.  Andre is from Indianapolis, and is a retired CEO who sold his company and spends a lot of time on motorcycles.

We stopped a couple hours into the ride to get a cappuccino and a delicious honey cake.

John and Mike found a substitute luggage wagon for our group.  Mike is a certified EMT and paramedic in Glendale, CA, and teaches off-road motorcycle riding, and participates in Baja motorcycle races.  He is a VERY big guy, at 6'7".  We hope that he will have an uneventful trip and that the AED and IV's stay in storage!

Janis told us that this is the last time we will see the ocean until reaching Hong Kong 68 days from now.  A moment for meditation.  On the left is Boz Bozarth, a retired investment banking executive, and now an investor and college professor, from Long Beach, CA.  On the right is Randy McClanahan, a corporate litigation attorney in Santa Fe.

  

Soon we are at our first border crossing.  Dave is standing at the sign to the easiest border crossing we will make, since Latvia and Estonia are EU members, a quick picture and we ride right through.

Dave with the Latvian (red and white) and Estonian (blue, black & white) flags in the background.

Janis leads us through a small town to a waterside restaurant for lunch.  What? Waterside? We supposedly left the ocean behind until Hong Kong.  Turns out there there is some disagreement as to whether bays count as part of the ocean.

We continue our ride towards Tallinn into ominous clouds.  Not long after, we hit a patch of rain and stopped for some members to change into rain gear.  I'm glad Dave convinced me to buy a new Klim suit, so neither of us need rain gear - our main suits are waterproof and we stayed dry the whole afternoon.  We got to our hotel late afternoon.  After a quick change, we headed out to explore the town.  Our next post contains the photos from the Tallinn walking tour.