See the Planet on Two Wheels with Edelweiss

Renowned Austrian motorcycle tours company Edelweiss will be celebrating its 30th anniversary next year so it has planned a tour of the entire globe, a motorcycle expedition that it has never been done before. According to Edelweiss Bike Travel that’s "only" 40,000 miles in 248 days.

The tour will include all the five continents. It starts on November 14, 2010 at the company's headquarters in Mieming, Tyrol’s Alps. From there, the riders will head to Paris, France and then south to Dakar, Senegal. This first section runs for 5 weeks and crosses the Sahara (on paved roads).

This is when the riders will go to Buenos Aires, Argentina, by air, from where the second section starts, running through most of South America, ending in Bogota, Columbia after 9 weeks. After crossing the Panama Canal the third section heads up to Los Angeles, taking only 5 weeks to complete.

After the flight across the Pacific Ocean, the team will ride 7,000 miles in 4 weeks through Australia. The fifth and last section from Beijing, China to Mieming, Austria covers most of Asia from east to west and a large part of Europe. Finally, on July 20, 2011 the expedition team will return in the Alps.

“We’ll take about 10 times longer and will enjoy this expedition all the way. Our aim is to see the gigantic differences in the cultures of the different nations, to experience the societies at close range, and witness the super fast development of our 'earth community,'” said company founder Werner Wachter.

“When we first presented this extraordinary tour idea to some fellow riders, of course their reaction was, “Wow, it looks great, I would like to do it, but I cannot because…,” he added.