ABOUT
Background
Even though I'd only been riding motorcycles for a couple of years when I read Jim Roger's 1995 book "Investment Biker", I knew I wanted to ride a motorcycle across the world, or at least somewhere adventurous like South America or India.
Life goes on and somehow we all get "busy" doing regular stuff. I continued to ride motorbikes. There were a few short tours around New Zealand and Australia, and even a week circumnavigating Bali on scooters with a bunch of mates. But that was about it.
In 28 years I'd never even sat on a dirt bike or "Adventure Bike". I'd passed the age of 50 and it all started to seem very unlikely. Then I found Noraly Shoenmaker on YouTube and everything began in motion.
It has been a lifelong ambition to do a ride like this. However I felt that if I just took off for the other side of the world on the back of a motorcycle I would just be wandering around rather aimlessly, so I decided to give the ride some meaning.
My uncle who is now deceased was intellectually disabled from the age 2 to his passing almost 70 years later. I decided I wanted to to raise money to help look after these members of our community. The heroic people who do do this work are part of an organisation known as the IHC. You can learn more about them by clicking the tab above.
My name is Ray Urlich and I hail from the bottom of the globe - New Zealand. Life up to this point has more or less consisted of regular jobs with some amazing travel sprinkled along the way. At the age of 5 my family took a round the world trip with an extended stop over to the village in what was the Jugoslavia where my father was born and grew up before emigrating to New Zealand at the age of 17. This initial taste of the world left an indelible imprint on my impressionable mind.
Early adult years saw me living in places such as Yokohama and Fukuoka in Japan, London in England, and Sydney Australia. Regular trips back to Europe and further exploration to the USA, Mexico, South East Asia, and India kept fueling my appetite for more travel - and more intrepid travel at that!
"Amateur" would very accurately describe me as a rider. Despite having been on bikes for 30-odd years, they've stayed in the garage over winter and the local mechanics looked after them.
That all needs to change. I have a lot to do before I hit the road...
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