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International Motorcycle Touring
Call this Working?
Mike Ferris runs a Sydney-based International Motorcycle Touring Company and has the ultimate (bike) job.
Mike and Denise Ferris run Ferris Wheels, a Sydney-based international motorcycle touring company. How did that happen? I asked Mike the tough questions.
Q: How and when did you start riding, Mike?A: I’m a refugee from the hi-tech industry, having spent 17 years in various aspects of computer software production and marketing. At the tender of age of 35, I had a self-induced midlife crisis (man hath but three score year and ten, and 20 would not come again) and | | walked away from it in search of something more personally rewarding.
I found myself in a Base Camp logistics and support role for the 1993 Australian Everest Expedition, the 40th Anniversary Commemorative expedition headed by Tashi Tenzing, grandson of Tenzing Norgay. It was my first introduction to the magnificence of the Himalayas and I was simply blown away by the raw natural beauty of it all. (Our team was successful in putting two men on the summit, although only one of them came back. But that’s another story.)
At the conclusion of the expedition we had media commitments to fulfil back in Australia, then I returned to explore more of the Himalaya and spent many months wandering through Nepal and India. Then one fateful Friday afternoon over a beer in Kathmandu, a fellow traveller was lamenting to me that he was running low on money and would have to sell his motorbike.....
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| | I had, quite literally, never been on a motorcycle before in my life (by now 37), but next thing I know, we’re out on the street examining his Enfield and he’s explaining that it’s similar to a car except the clutch is operated by hand and the gears operated by foot. How difficult can it be?
With a couple of beers already on board bolstering confidence, I was off through the crowded laneways and bazaars of Kathmandu’s chaotic Thamel district. In three minutes I was sold and we rode straight to the bank. I handed over the dollars, he handed over the key and suddenly I was a motorcyclist.
Q: How did the idea of starting the tours occur to you?A: Off I went to continue my explorations on two wheels, without experience, without proper gear, without a clue. Experience came very quickly on the job, so to speak, as I learned, for example (picking pebbles out of bleeding skin on elbow), that it’s not a great idea to grab a big handful of front brake when negotiating a steep downhill gravel corner, having inadvertently selected angel gear.
But every single day my grin was growing wider and I was having the time of my life. I discovered, more or less by accident, that it’s possible to ride a motorbike across the highest road in the world! I was certain that nobody back home in Oz even had a clue as to where the highest road in the world might be found, but here I was riding across it on an Enfield, with socks on my hands (no gloves) and a beanie on my head (no brains).
I decided, rather egotistically, I suppose, that the rest of the world deserved to be let in on the secret and I resolved to return home and enlighten the masses. I bought every motorcycle title on the shelf of my local newsagent, confirmed that nobody else was offering anything similar, and took out a little classified ad in three or four magazines.
“Ride a classic Enfield Bullet across the highest road in the world” was pretty much all it said. I took 47 phone calls in two weeks and put together my first group in about two months — and suddenly I was a Tour Operator.
Q: So the destination actually came before the decision to start running tours?A: I figured if I enjoyed riding a bike in the mountains of India and Nepal, given my lack of experience, then probably others would enjoy those destinations too. Then I turned my attentions to Turkey, which I had thoroughly enjoyed several years earlier, before I started riding. The roads and the scenery and the wide open spaces lend themselves brilliantly to motorcycling and I couldn’t wait to go back there and do it on a bike.
Q: Presumably it didn’t all go smoothly?A: I was a complete novice at pretty much every aspect of what I was doing! I had my licence by now, but I was the worst rider in any of the early groups until I recognised this fact and subsequently undertook a few professional rider courses to bring my skill levels up to the mark. Likewise, I had no experience in running tour groups and I got a lot of things wrong, such as seasonal timings etc.
The first time I tried to take a commercial group to the aforementioned highest road in the world, it was closed because it was under 15 feet of snow! But I must have been doing something right, because several people in that first group have come back and done the same trip again — one guy has done it three times now.
Q: I’ve ridden in India and the one thing I know is it’s not simple.A: In the early days we sometimes used to lose people in the hectic Indian traffic. Usually not for very long, and our corner marking system has now been refined to the stage where this almost never happens any more.
But several years ago on Day One, one of our guys was concentrating hard on keeping up with the next rider in front of him; he even ran a red light to avoid losing sight of the shiny black helmet. He followed that helmet for about 5km before the rider turned into his driveway on his way home for lunch, at which point our man realised he was lost.
But, never mind, he quickly spotted a road sign pointing to Manali, which he remembered was our destination, so off he went at a canter. Manali, however, was our destination for Day Three, not Day One. He proceeded to get himself well and truly lost.
We had our mechanics and other searchers, including me, out looking for him all over northern India. I approached a policeman on “traffic duty” in the centre of a small town and, sure enough, he confirmed he had indeed seen another tourist on an Enfield come through this way, yes.
I asked him how long ago and his face took on a deeply perplexed expression as he pursed his lips and pondered. Indians don’t like to give negative or inaccurate answers. In an attempt to help him I said, “Just approximately? Doesn’t need to be precise. How long ago? Was it one hour? Five minutes?” at which stage he looked greatly relieved and said, “Yes, I believe so, sir. It was one hour and five minutes ago.”
Q: Do you get any ... let’s call them “difficult” customers?A: There was another guy whom we’ll identify only as Grumble Bum because it’s a phrase he actually used to describe himself. He and his (delightful) wife were on our Himalayan tour a few years ago and he was systematically getting himself offside with most of the other clients, and with me.
On about Day Seven, he was seen pushing his food around on his plate without actually eating any of it and one of the guys couldn’t resist saying, “Hey, Grumble Bum. What’s the matter with you?”, to which he replied with a snarl, “I just can’t f...ing stand Indian food, that’s all.”
It seems his wife had booked everything with very little input from him and he was horrified to learn, virtually on his way to the airport, that our Himalayan Heights Motorcycle Safari took place in India.
Q: How do you decide on additional destinations?A: Very selfishly. People are always asking us to do Spain or Vietnam or China or XYZ, but if we have no personal interest in a place, we don’t feel we could sincerely sell it as a destination. Our own enthusiasm is a very tangible part of our successful formulae, together with our hands-on approach to running the actual tours. Denise and I still run each and every tour ourselves, and the fact that we only do destinations we personally enjoy, I think, comes through loud and clear.
Q: How do you research destinations?A: Go there and explore it thoroughly. It’s important to get a personal feel for a destination, to get a handle on it properly. You can’t simply read about a place in the Lonely Planet guidebook and decide to run tours there. You have to do the hard yards yourself; find a bike supplier, check out the hotels, run out of petrol, get food poisoning, break down in the desert, fall off in the creeks, bribe the border officials...
Q: What have the absolute high/low spots been for you?A: It’s an enormously satisfying and personally rewarding profession. Nobody comes back from our tours unaffected. For some, the changes are minor and not so obvious; for others, it’s nothing short of transformational and they go on to make huge changes in their lives, the way Denise and I have done ourselves. We get an extremely high repeat rate among our clients and word of mouth is a big aspect of our marketing. The enthusiasm from our clients and the accolades we receive are our biggest reward.
I think the biggest high I’ve had in years was riding through Bhutan with Denise, becoming the first two people ever to ride a complete traverse of the country. It was particularly special for me because I introduced Denise to motorcycling less than two years ago and, with less than 18 months on her licence, she became the first woman to achieve this remarkable feat.
There is always a potential danger in this line of work and we’ve had to deliver several clients to various hospitals in several countries over the years. The absolutely most horrific accident involved a lady from Tassie a couple of years ago; she was repeating the tour she had already done two years earlier. She was knocked from her bike and fell into the path of an oncoming truck, which ran over her and virtually broke every bone in her body. Neither the car driver nor the truck driver stopped to see if she had survived.
She spent many, many months in surgery and rehab, then two years of physiotherapy before being able to walk again. The fact that she was very nearly killed on one of our tours was a very sobering reality check. But she remains a very enthusiastic advocate and will talk at length about our adventures to anyone who will listen!
Q: So what’s the guiding principle behind Ferris Wheels, apart from bringing the customers back in more or less one piece?A: To be alive and to have fun while we are alive. Stephen Dearnley may not have been the first to say it, but he said, “Everybody dies. But some people never live.” And to not put off until tomorrow what you could do today. Because John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
Q: But why should someone take a tour rather than travel solo?A: Travelling solo is great when you’re young and invincible, have flexible plans and unlimited time on your hands. But if you only have three weeks in which to explore a destination and get the most out of it, it makes sense to take advantage of the accumulated knowledge of someone who has been there many times and has already done the groundwork. A group tour gives you the infrastructure and support to quickly smooth out the wrinkles if something goes wrong. Who wants to fix their own head gasket by torchlight in the hotel car park, when there’s cold beer to be had and a mechanic or three standing by with tools?
Q: What do you offer your customers that nobody else does?A: A challenging and exhilarating experience, with a degree of comfort built in. There are cheaper tours than ours, but you might stay in cheaper hotels and ride inferior bikes. There are more luxurious tours, too, but you probably pay for expensive hotels. We cater for the upper-middle spectrum where the riding can be tough and challenging but you have the comfort of knowing that, at the end of the day, our hotel has your name on their reservation sheet and you can get a cold beer and a hot shower. Or perhaps sometimes the other way around.
Q: What’s the future for Ferris Wheels?A: Ah, where is my crystal ball? I honestly have no real idea where we’ll be in 10 years, Bear. We have no intention of calling it quits as long as we remain fit and capable and in one piece. And we have no desire to hire many tour guides to run the tours for us while we stay anchored at home expanding an empire. We prefer to retain the personal touch, where the guys who run the company run the tours. But if some multinational comes along and offers us $10 million for the business, we might consider taking up sailing. Do you know of anybody?
Want to try it?Contact Ferris Wheels Motorcycle Safaris at
PO Box 503,
Newport Beach NSW 2106
Australia: +61 02 9918 8900
www.ferriswheels.com.au |
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