Why I'm starting a Motorcycle Rental in NYC.

In the summer of 2006 I spent over a month traveling alone across China by motorcycle. My only companion was a book by Ted Simon called “Jupiter’s Travels.” Mr. Ted Simon traveled around the world alone by motorcycle long before the adventure bikers of today set out to do the same. He wrote of his adventures and how he acquired his name. He was told by a friend “You have a determined soul. This is reflected in your mind. You are Jupiter…” he said.

To which Mr. Simon thought “Why not? I like the sound of that.”

The mission of my trip was very much the same as Jupiter’s as he said: “The goal was comprehension, and the only way to comprehend the world was by making myself vulnerable to it so that I could change me. The challenge was to lay myself open to everybody and everything that came my way. The prize was to change and grow big enough to feel one with the whole world.”

In China I travelled without being able to speak or read the language and used only a map and compass to navigate. Each day my priorities were to find food, a place to stay and make it as far as I could along the 3500 miles between Beijing, Xian and Shanghi I needed to get home. I spent one night out under the stars on the ground next to some old abandoned portion of the great wall–vulnerable in way that I had never known nor can I describe; in search of that oneness with the world Jupiter talked about.

“It surprised me to discover that this sense of rightness does not appear naturally in people, even though they live in the heart of nature,” Jupiter wrote. To which I agree. It was not my environs that needed to change but me. How do we change? I have come to believe that change happens through action.

This business is not just a business; its my attempt to help bring about the change in ourselves we all seek. That feeling of one with the world through action. Traveling helps me do that. Traveling by motorcycle brings me closer to the heart of nature both within myself and I find with others.

So, the way I see it, in a way were are all Jupiter. Or as another great traveler once wrote: "On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."