I’ve mentioned my riding buddy Todd Unpronounceable in a few of my recent blog entries. Well, his 40th birthday is in 2006 and for the big Four-Oh he wants a few of us to head out for a little motorcycle adventure. We met up today at lunch to put together a plan and we came up with a week of dual sport riding in Costa Rica. With the average temperature starting to fall and the leaves changing colors, it wasn’t hard to get excited about the idea of spending a week riding motorcycles in a tropical paradise. By the end of lunch, we had a rough outline put together:

The plan, as vague as it is at this point, will be to fly into San Jose in early February. Pick up a few rental Suzuki DR-350s and then spend the next six days doing a loop through the rainforests in the Arenal Volcano National Park, up to the beaches of the Pacific ocean near Tamarindo or La Cruz and then back to San Jose. There are plenty of tour companies that operate in Costa Rica but at this point we’re just planning to wing it on our own with nothing more solid that a few motel reservations and some plane tickets back home at the end of it all.

The primary goal, of course, is to ride some roads and trails (it may be difficult to tell the difference based on my understanding of the condition of the “maintained” roads in Costa Rica) in a beautiful part of the world. My dirt riding skills still suck, so I’m hoping Todd doesn’t drag me down to many bits of knarly single track but otherwise I think this will be a great example of some fly-in adventure touring. In addition to the riding, I’m hoping we find at least a little time to check out the hikes around the volcano, maybe do a canopy tour in the rainforest and drink some tropical drinks on the beach.

Then again, a bunch of sweaty guys on muddy dirt bike probably aren’t supposed to sip fruity foo-foo drinks with little umbrellas, so instead we may sit around in public places drinking beer and scratching ourselves. After all, getting a group of middle aged men together for a week long birthday party will undoubtedly have its share of testosterone floating around…

Anyway, so you may be wondering why I’m bothering to do a blog write-up about a trip that is still five months away? Well, I’m hoping that some of the folks that read my blog will have some experience travelling in Costa Rica or, better yet, riding there. We’re looking some suggestions of places to ride, things to do and places to stay. Since this trip is focused on motorcycle riding, then upscale resorts or multi-hour sight seeing trips aren’t on the itinerary. Instead, places that have descriptions like “quaint”, “motorcycle friendly” and “scenic” are what we’re looking for…

If anyone has any suggestions, please leave a comment. I’ll probably do some more blog postings as the trip comes together in case our plan inspires others to do the same.

[image from the Moto Discovery web site.