Glen Heggstad

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Glen Heggstad (born May 24, 1952) is an author and adventure motorcycle rider. Previously he was a Judo teacher from Palm Springs, California. He recently toured the world by motorcycle as self-proclaimed goodwill ambassador for the people of the United States.

He rode a modified BMW Motorcycles F 650 GS Dakar, nicknamed the Blue Beast, and used a GPS unit to document his location as well as help with navigational duties. On the Adventure Rider forum he would post updates and keep in contact with fellow adventure motorcycle riders under the username StrikingViking. His signature tagline is "The adventure begins when things stop going as planned."

[edit] Biography

Glen Paul Heggstad was first introduced to motorcycles in early 1964 at the age of 12.

He was a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle club. The youngest member ever to be voted into the club. That was in 1973. He was a member of the San Bernadino Chapter for seven years, the last five of which he was Sergeant-At-Arms.

He lived in Asia for a time in the 1980s.

Heggstad left California on October 1, 2001 on his way ride all the way to the tip of South America. He was kidnapped while riding a Kawasaki KLR650 through Colombia by National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels on November 6, 2001. He was released on December 8, 2001 and refused a ticket home arranging for a new motorcycle instead. His ordeal was documented in an episode of the National Geographic Channel series Locked Up Abroad. Sticking to his original plan, he continued his ride to Patagonia and back home to California. He has since written a book about his experience titled Two Wheels Through Terror.

He sold his house in California in early June of 2004 and prepared for his next great adventure around the world. He would experience several medical delays due to kidney stones before finally getting on with the next major leg of his journey.

On July 5, 2004, Heggstad began his Around the World trip with a flight to Tokyo, Japan. He toured the country before boarding a ferry to Vladivostok, Russia in mid July for a two day ocean trip to continue his journey through Siberia. This was all done with a stent still in place from kidney stones.

The border to Mongolia was crossed the first part of August, 2004 on his way to the capital, Ulaanbaatar. His motorcycle experienced a broken luggage bracket in a spill that also left him bruised and sore at the edge of the Gobi Desert.

By mid September, 2004, Heggstad had arrived in the Czech Republic by way of Moscow, Russia.

Arrived in Cape Town, South Africa by way of Bali, Indonesia on November 11, 2005.

December 1, 2005 placed him on the west coast of Namibia.

February 18, 2006, Glen headed from his last African stop, Ethiopia, for Mexico via Germany for the final leg of his journey back to southern California, where he was scheduled to return to the United States on April 1, 2006.

April 1, 2006 saw Glen triumphantly return to the United States via Mexico.

For the remainder of 2006 Glen toured and gave presentations on his life-altering journey. He has also recently completed a manuscript of his latest journey entitled, "Reshuffling the Deck" which is accompanied by a multimedia slide show.

Glen is getting ready to move to Mexico for Winter 2006-2007. He will also be studying Chinese languages for an extended tour of mainland China in the near future.

Being a true ambassador of good will, Glen proposed and financially funded a plan where an Indian Motorcycle rider named Chanderjeet was flown from India and he rode from Seattle to New York for a month.

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