ABOUT COMPASS EXPEDITIONS
Jerry and Brendan with the first Compass Expeditions Tour group in Torres Del Paine National Park, Patagonia.
For an experience of a lifetime you can’t get much better than a motorcycle ride with Compass Expeditions, be it a weekend training course with Dakar legend Simon Pavey in Australia, a ride with Charley Boorman in Africa, multi week tours around the globe or an epic multi country ride through some of the most remote regions on earth your in good experienced hands. Let your adventure start here!!
In 2005 four amateur bikers rode from London to Vladivostok, Russia, a ride that took 4 months and one that changed the course of our lives; the ride was to raise money and awareness for a rare neurone degenerative disease, Freidriechs Ataxia (F.A). At the completion of the ride it took another two years before Compass Expeditions was created, in 2007. None of us are motorcycle industry “legends” have world records to our names or are even from the biking world and none of us come from the high flying corporate world, we are truck drivers, fireman and tour leaders; in fact none of us ever really contemplated giving up those careers however we wanted to keep raising money for F.A thus Compass was born and to this day Compass donates part proceeds to the little known charity Friedreichs Ataxia Network (F.A.N). For further information on what Friedreichs is and how you can help us support this worthy registered charity please visit www.fan.asn.au
You can read the entire story on the London to Vladivostok ride in Mick McDonald’s, (founder of Compass Expeditions), book titled “The Biggest Mistake of our Lives”, available at the Compass online store, proceeds of this book go to www.fan.asn.au
The End of the Road: Vladivostok
Compass started with five bikes, one old Toyota Landcruiser support vehicle and a huge amount of enthusiasm for motorcycle travel. Today we operate tours in nearly 40 countries across four continents, off road training in Australia, rentals and self-guided itineraries in both Australia and South America with registered offices in Chile, Peru and Australia. We now have a fleet of motorcycles & support vehicles across the globe but one-thing remains the same, a passion for motorcycle touring and the wonderful sense of achievement in providing incredible, fascinating and sometimes life changing travel experiences.
We have received international recognition and have been included by National Geographic among its “Top 50 tours of a lifetime” list making us the only motorcycle tour company in the world, ever, to be included in this most prestigious list. We have also been included in the Adventure travel magazine “Outpost” top 100 travel experiences in the world, again the only motorcycle tour company to be included. We have partnerships with leading brands such as BMW, Triumph & Touratech who see us as a respected operator in motorcycle touring.
We have been asked by Charley Boorman to provide support for all his tours worldwide and Dakar Legend Simon Pavey to provide logistics for his training and touring events in Australia.
Our epic Road of Bones and Cairo to Cape Town expeditions are the subjects of an award winning four part documentary, available from our online store, that has been shown across 50 networks in over 35 countriesand continue to sell to networks across the planet.
Despite these significant achievements Compass Expeditions retains that small company, non-corporate feel because we are a small company. We are Jerry Cook, Brendan Barbetti, Mick McDonald, Ryan Heath and an awesome team of staff based globally and together we have accumulated over twenty five years experience in leading tours in South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. We come from a heritage of tour leading to some of the most diverse, challenging and exciting destinations on earth.
We pride ourselves in offering truly unique biking itineraries and destinations and quite often operate the only itineraries of their kind available. We have worked hard on providing true “value for money” rides and maintain that small group ethos by refusing to turn our rides into “road shows” by having large numbers of bikes, despite some of our rides being “sold out”, years in advance.
Providing you have and open mind, a love of travel and a keen sense of adventure joining a Compass Expeditions tour will be one of the most rewarding things that you could ever do.
Browse our website and let your adventure begin.
Sincerely
Co founders : Jerry Cook, Mick McDonald, Brendan Barbetti and Ryan Heath.
