Barr shares his extraordinary adventures on a bike
Hundreds of bikers gathered at the Harley Davidson dealership, in Boksburg recently to listen to a man with two prosthetic legs, who holds two Guinness World Records for the longest distances travelled on a motorbike.
Double amputee Dave Barr, from America, is known for taking on almost unbelievable challenges of circumnavigating the world on his Harley Davidson motorcycle.
Living in Bodfish, California, where he runs a motorcycle tour company, Barr is in South Africa for the Chutzpah Adventure – a motorcycle tour aimed at raising money for the disabled.
At Harley Davidson Gold Rand, bikers were inspired by Barr’s life story.
He joined the US Marine Corps when he was 17. After his discharge from the Marines in 1972, he lived in various locations around the world and served in the armed forces of several countries.
It was while serving in the SADF that he lost both his legs, when his jeep hit a landslide in Angola. At the time he was a machine gunner for Col Jan Breytenbach.
“I recovered and returned to combat duties on prosthetics, but eventually left the army to take on a lifelong quest to help other disabled people come to terms with their disabilities,” he said.
“When I first sat on a Harley Davidson motorbike, I knew from the onset that I wanted to take it around the world.”
Barr first travelled 1 500km from Johannesburg to the Namib Desert and back.
He then embarked on a solo motorcycle journey that took three and a half years to complete, spanned six continents and covered around 132 000km.
What makes it truly remarkable is that Dave made the trip on a 1972 Harley Davidson.
He pushed his way through the Sahara, Namibia and Gobi Desert, slipped through the Andes during avalanche season and braved the unique challenges of riding across China, Russia, Australia and Africa.
Barr later went on to establish a world record for crossing Northern Europe, Russia and Siberia on a motorcycle in the dead of winter.
His most recent adventure earned him a second Guinness World Record. This time he went to Australia on his “Southern Cross” journey.
In just 45 days, he completed the first motorcycle journey ever between the four extreme geographical corners of the Australian continent.
Among his most incredible adventures was travelling through snowstorms in Siberia.
”Most people would suffer cold feet in such a storm, but I couldn’t feel a thing because of my prosthetic legs,” he said, to loud applause.
He urged bikers to ride safely and to ride free.
Barr also signed and auctioned a leather jacket he wore on his 6 000km trip. It was sold for R12 000.
Legendary Dave Barr to give a talk in Boksburg
