The Jump

Product testing the XOÀI Packs 25L Adventure Pack. The V3 prototype is sitting on the Africa Twin.

I jolt awake. Turbulence off the Tian Shan rattles the fuselage of the Chinese jet like a toy. The captain’s voice pings over the intercom. We’ve started our descent into Bishkek. 

And no—I could not have told you this is the capital of Kyrgyzstan a month ago, could you? 

I know next to nothing about this country. 

I check my watch. Seven thirty in the morning. I’m coming from Xinjiang, in remote western China, where I had spent the past week exploring deserts and grasslands with my partner. Now she’s on her way back to Shenzhen for work. And I’m alone.

The plane shudders again and my brain tinges with sleep deprivation. Last night’s 8-hour taxi ride back to Ürümqi destroyed any hope of recovery before starting this. 

A solo motorcycle trip across Kyrgyzstan. In the early season when snow still lingers in the high places.

Why not just relax, for fucks sake? 

The urge started long ago in Oregon—on those table placemats when I was a kid. World maps marked with strange names that needed to be explored: Ürümqi. Tierra Del Fuego. Phnom Penh. Kamchatka. When I moved to Asia, the world opened up. Often I would wrangle a friend to go with me. Sometimes I would go alone.  

Solo travel is intimidating. Doing it on a rally motorcycle? Downright stupid. And writing about it afterwards? Terrifying. But if you’ve got the chance, you have to try. You have to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is, and what life's about.

Solo travel immerses. We live amongst vivid cultures, vast geographies, and frightening natural forces. I believe our world is meant for us to experience, for us to understand. 

And leaving comfort? Well, that’s the only way we grow, by feeling small again.

In Bishkek there’s no tour group waiting. No pre-planned itinerary. Only a motorbike and a country I know nothing about.