MURRIETA: Four businessmen to mount their motorcycles and head to the Arctic

By NICOLE SACK - Staff Writer | Wednesday, July 9, 2008 12:16 PM PDT ∞

MURRIETA ---- Four Murrieta men plan to embark Thursday on a motorcycle journey north ---- all the way north to the Arctic Circle.

That's right. The Arctic Circle.

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For nearly a month, four middle-aged husbands will leave their duties at work behind and forge ahead on their motorcycles to the top of the world. Nearly 9,000 miles of wilderness, dirt roads, mosquitoes, caribou, bears and the unknown await them. They will carry their gear, deal with any mishaps and see what awaits them on the road.

And this is not a rough crowd of nomadic bikers making this odyssey.

Robert Mitchell, 54, owns an orthodontics practice in Murrieta; Steve Ganz, 48, is a recruiter for the publishing industry; Mark Jones, 50, owns Avalon Management in Canyon Lake, a firm that oversees homeowner associations such as Redhawk's, and Rick Clotworthy, 55, is the owner of RL Clotworthy Construction Inc. in Temecula.

"A lot of people understand why we would do it, but wouldn't do it themselves," Jones said. "It's not the destination, it's about the journey."

The trip took two years to plan, Mitchell said. The goal is to travel approximately 500 miles each day by bike and reach their turnaround point within 14 days of their departure from Murrieta.

Their destination is the unpredictable land of the "midnight sun" where daylight dominates in the summer skies, as the sun never fully sets ---- just hovers over the horizon. The northernmost point of the journey is expected to be Inuvik, located 2 degrees above the Arctic Circle on the scenic Mackenzie River and Delta, in Canada's Northwest Territories ---- where nearby they can dip the tires of their motorcycles or their toes in the Arctic Ocean.

From there, the group will head back south and then split up into two parts.

Throughout the trip they will be either camping or staying in motels. They expect to be on the road from 25 to 30 days. As this isn't their first long-distance trip, they know it's best to give themselves a bit of leeway in their schedule.

"I thought it would be fun," Clotworthy said of his reaction to the idea for the Arctic trip. "And clearly I like the abuse, as you can tell from hanging out with these guys."

Clotworthy, who has been riding off-and-on for 40 years, said he has very few concerns about the trip, but bears top the list.

Besides the four Murrieta men, another motorcyclist who is a dental college friend of Mitchell, plans to meet up with the group as they head north through Nevada.

Each of the guys rides BMW GS 1200 motorcycles, though there are differences between their models. The bikes allow them to navigate the rugged terrain of dirt roads, or areas where the roads have been washed away, as well as ride on paved roads. The men have also adopted the model as the name of their group: GS Riders.

Mitchell said there is an allure to a motorcycle that can't be found while traveling in the insulation of a car.

"The motorcycle allows the rider to be an active participant in their surroundings," he said, referencing his favorite passage from the book, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

While it may be the ultimate male-bonding experience, it is also a time for introspection as the riders do not have communication headsets, and the howl of the wind, roar of the motor and the muffling of a helmet does little for conversation on the road.

"We're together, but for 10 to 12 hours of the day, you're just inside your own head," Ganz said.

And as far as the woes of high gasoline prices, the fuel efficiency puts to shame the typical passenger-car road trip. Ganz said his bike, which has a 8.5 gallon tank, can travel about 420 miles.

This is not the first time the group has gone long distances on their bikes. Their other trips include rides across the Sierra Nevadas, around New Zealand and down through Baja California. Their overall goal is to ride from the Arctic Ocean to Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America.

"Not all this week," Jones joked.

They are so dedicated to marathon adventures that they have their own Web site: gsriders.us, where their journey is tracked by satellite.

The group will be carrying a satellite transponder that will record their location every 10 minutes. That information is tracked on a map, which is available on their Web site. The tracking system is so accurate that their wives "know when we're going to be home for dinner," said Ganz.

Vicki Ganz, who has been married to Steve for 27 years, said that while she gets a thrill of joining her husband on the motorcycle trips, she also enjoys his excitement as he goes out on his own journey.

"It feels like I am sending him off to summer camp," she laughed.

If the idea of a group of middle-aged friends taking to the road on motorcycles is reminiscent of the cheeky movie, "Wild Hogs," it would be better not to mention it to these men. The GS Riders will cringe at the reference.

The friends, some of whom have been acquaintances for 15 years, will point out that they had been doing their long-distance rides long before the release of 2007 movie. And lastly, they say, "Those guys wouldn't even think of doing what we're doing."

It seems to them that the only thing crazier than leaving the comforts of home to ride a motorcycle into the Arctic is not doing it.

"It's only the things you don't do that you regret," said Jones.

Contact staff writer Nicole Sack at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2616, or nsack@californian.com.