So, where’s that then? Is the thought that immediately springs to mind, especially if like me you have read a few motorcycle travel books and like to think you have a reasonable geographical knowledge.

But Puerto Del Faglioli? never heard of it? Read on…..

Paddy Tyson is one of a slowly growing group of what are termed ‘Adventure Motorcyclists’, which goes beyond mere motorcycle travel and in to the realms of experiencing adventure by motorcycle.  So no guided tours or package holidays here, barely no arrangements save for air travel and freighting the motorbike, let the road and the people along the road provide the adventure.

The book recounts Paddy’s trip from Nova Scotia across Canada and down the Western side of North America, with an excursion to the mid West, and on to Panama in South America.

So not the now typical North to South America trip, although Paddy’s plans did originally incorporate Alaska but the predicted bad weather in the region prevented that happening.

The other thing that is different as well, is that he did not choose the commonplace Beemer GS a la Ewan and Charley for blokes taking a mid life crisis trip, but instead chose an Aprilia Pegaso 650, known as Peggy.  I do like a man who names his motorcycles, in fact I say don’t trust a man who doesn’t!

This book started life as a series of blog entries whilst Paddy was actually on the trip, where he built up a number of followers of his scribblings and from that came the requests to turn it into a fully blown book.

Not one to disappoint his fans, Paddy duly turned it into a book and I for one am glad that he did.

What Paddy manages to achieve is combining his sense of humour and irony about the weather, the crazy road signs and the people and the situations along the way.  This gives lots of laugh out loud moments and also, for me, an insight into the countries he travelled through that I have not encountered before in other motorcycle travel books on the same route through America.

For example, most books would have you believe that the West coast of America is all sunshine and fabulously twisty motorcycle friendly roads.  Whilst those roads do exist, there are vast changes in altitude that mean riding from extremes of cold to hot and dusty, sometimes in the same day, not to mention the rain, happen frequently to Paddy.  Yes, despite popular belief it does rain in other places as well as England and Northern Ireland (Paddy’s home country).  Also Paddy successfully conveys a sense of the sheer vastness of the place where the roads and the heat/cold/rain can go on forever. There was also the shocking story of the conditions that vast acreages of cattle are kept in to service the fast food industry – another good reason to avoid those golden arches.

All this is mixed with some great snippets of information about the history and geography of the places he travels through, mixed with a good dose of irony when officialdom acts in contradiction to the image that the place or country tries to convey.

I for one am most definitely put off the idea of trying to ship my motorcycle out of Panama after the frustrating scenes that Paddy recounts in the final chapter of the book – frustrating officialdom, heat and potholed roads – nice.  I don’t know whether Paddy can laugh at it now but it had me reading it, in amazement, blow for blow to my other half.

Actually that is the mark of a good book, which this indeed is, if you feel that the storytelling is so good that you want to share it with your nearest and dearest.

This is a great book, that provides real insights into an adventure motorcycle journey not often found in books of this kind, I can totally recommend it.

And what about Puerto Del Faglioli?  Well…you’ll just have to read the book to find out.

To buy a book for yourself go to PaddyTyson.com

As Paddy is committed to protecting our right to ride a motorcycle he is giving a donation from each book to the Motorcycle Action Group.