Glen Heggstad Recounts Adventures At MAX BMW

Between fall of 2001 and 2006, Glen Heggstad rode a motorcycle through 57 countries around the globe. He rode from Cape Town, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt. He rode six thousand miles across Russia. He visited Pakistan and Thailand, Mongolia, and the islands of Java, Sumatra and Borneo. He went from California to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina.

Riding solo, he encountered extreme heat, mud, and countless challenges, while taking 7,000 pictures along the way. He faced imminent death when taken hostage by Marxist rebels and tortured for five weeks in Colombia. Through ingenuity, he lived to tell about it and his book “Two Wheels Through Terror” tells that story. A second book, “One More Day Everywhere,” chronicles his subsequent less threatening adventures.

Since his trips, this highly-accomplished martial arts instructor known as the “Striking Viking” has become a motivational speaker. He appeared Saturday (Feb. 17) at MAX BMW in South Windsor, CT offering “a spirited narration of a journey around the world.” A meet and greet preceded Heggstad’s “Earth Ride” presentation, which was followed by a question and answer period.

The formal presentation lasted about 75 minutes and included a video. Heggstad explained when we chatted prior to his arrival over a crackly cell phone connection from his place on Palomar Mountain in southern California that being held hostage “launched a career I didn’t intend.” He added that now “I have the world’s best job.”

While his ordeal in the jungle outside of Medellín and his release by cleverly feigning prostate cancer is but a small portion of his presentation, it provided a starting point for our conversation. He recalled starting the trip on a Kawasaki KLR 650 shortly after the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

“All my friends and family had tears in their eyes begging me not to go,” Heggstad said. “Remember that uncertainty? We didn’t know if we were on the verge of World War III.”

What motivated him was the desire of terrorists to frighten us. “I thought the best way for me to fight back against terrorists was to show that I was not afraid. My last words to my friends were, it’s all funny now, ‘Hey I’m heading to South America. What can go wrong?’ Five weeks later I was chained to a tree.”

After being released by the rebels to the Red Cross, Heggstad surprisingly opted to continue his South American journey rather than return home to recover. He made it to the southern tip of Argentina, then came back up the east side of the continent, which included a barge trip up the Amazon River.

Upon returning home, Heggstad decided he wanted the adventure to continue, so he struck a deal with a BMW dealer group in the area and switched to riding a BMW F 650 GS Dakar. He prepared by getting rid of much of what he owned; putting his pickup truck and personal belongings, such as letters and pictures, into storage.

“I’m a dedicated athlete so I was prepared physically. I sold everything I owned. I didn’t want anything to look back at,’ he said.

Armed with a sense of curiosity, he set out again. Arriving places, he often discovered, “it’s nothing like I imagined.”

Dozens of pictures on his website show the terrain he encountered and the people that he met. Several photos show the Dakar on its side on muddy tracks. While a rider since youth, Heggstad said modestly, “I don’’t have that many riding skills. I didn’t take knobby tires. I went with my dual sport tires. You’re on wet clay, you’re going down. I would drop the bike numerous times per day.”

He recalled the natives of the rugged country of Ethiopia in Africa. “It was us as human beings in our starkest form. Human beings stripped of everything. They were basically naked natives with spears. I wouldn’t do it again, but I highly recommend it. You’re going back 10,000 years,” he said.

What has stuck with him overall was the openness and generosity of people everywhere. “It was the incredible, overwhelming amount of hospitality; the people with the least that shared the most,” he said, noting that his one regret along the way was “that I didn’t spend one more day everywhere.”

Except maybe Colombia.

When he was captured and held, and forced to endure mock executions, Heggstad said his thoughts were about his daughter and how he “would die in the jungle and nobody would find the body.” He was bolstered by knowledge that friends and authorities were trying to find him. “I knew they would find me – dead or alive, one way or another,” he said.

He compared the trauma to spending five weeks with a finger in a light socket, but he didn’t come out of it seeking revenge. “I never had a negative emotion when I came out of the jungle. I didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole,” Heggstad said.

Still, there were after effects. “When you come out, you can’t talk. It took four months for me to talk,” he said. The effects linger, too. “Of course. A tremendous amount of emotion that has to resurface and work it’s way out,” Heggstad said.

Heggstad’s current ride is a 2015 BMW R 1200 GS, and there are still countries out there left to conquer if the right situation were possible. “I’d love to go to Tibet. I’d love to ride China,” he said.

Travel photos courtesy of Glen Heggstad