Today is my friend Ted Simon’s 78th birthday.
Ted has ridden motorcycles around the world twice – the first time, a four-year trip begun in 1973 on a Triumph Tiger. The second time was a three-year journey on a BMW R80G/S begun in 2001 a few months before his 70th birthday.
Ted’s first journey was chronicled in “Jupiter’s Travels,” considered by many to be the best motorcycle travel book ever written and the inspiration for Ewan 
McGregor and Charley Boorman’s globe-circling ride that resulted in a book and a TV series named “Long Way Round.”
I last chatted with Ted at the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America national rally last July in Gillette, Wyo. where he looked as youthful and vital as ever.
I’m pleased that I could persuade Webb Bernhardt, the president of the Indianapolis BMW Club, to contribute $500 in club funds to Ted’s 2001 effort. Ted reciprocated by putting an Indianapolis BMW Club sticker on the starboard side of his top box. It can be faintly see in the photo above.
You can read more about this amazing expatriate Brit who now lives in Northern California at his web site: www.jupitalia.com
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