Doug Wothke, World-Traveller

We met Doug several places over the years, first I think was at the Barber Vintage Motorcycle Museum show in Birmingham, Alabama a few years back, and then we ran into him again at V-Twin Expo and also The Horse Smokeout, I think. You may recognize Doug from The Horse Backstreet Choppers in his series of articles of riding all over the world on H-D choppers. He is currently in Siberia, and has recently gone through Croatia, Austria, Bosnia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan. And I mean recently as in the last couple of months.


Below is a map showing Doug's route, and here is a bit about his trip in his own words:

"So I wanna go to Magadan. Why? well why not? No Harley has attempted this road before. The last 2500 miles or so is unpaved, not really 'chopper friendly' with many missing bridges, water crossings, sand, swamp, mug, gravel, & all kinds of fun terrain. Its known as the 'Road of Bones' because of all the prisoners that died when sent here to make the road back during the Stalin/Gulag era. They just put the bodies in the roadbed, & kept up with the progress.
As I've ridden across Russia already, I'm gonna take a more southern route. A lot of these places I haven't been to before, & am really looking forward to it. The big variation of the route as of now, is whether I can get a visa to cross Iran, or if I will have to go around it. I hope to get one, but not so easy for an American. From Magadan, I'll head south by boat to Vladivostok, then ride back to europe, so this will be about equal to 2 RTW trips in one summer. Should be fun!"


Look closely for the Lowbrow Weirdo sticker on Doug's bike. Thanks for representing, Doug! Check out more of his world travels and up to date photos and writeups (look under the forum section) of his crazy travels at his website motosapiens.org.