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18,000 mile ride...

 
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Jim
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Joined: 17 May 2003
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Location: WHERETHEFUNNEVERENDS

PostPosted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 3:44 pm    Post subject: 18,000 mile ride... Reply with quote

from the Washington Post

An experience that can't be patented

Motorcyclist treks 18,000 miles from Brazil to D.C. to seek recognition for a device he created

By Mike Shepard
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 23, 2009

Paulo Roberto Vieira stumbled into the Brazilian consulate on L Street NW, bedraggled, nearly broke and at the end of his rope.

Dressed in a battered black leather jacket and scuffed black jeans, he told consular officials an almost unbelievable story: He had ridden his motorcycle from his home town in southern Brazil to Washington, an 18,000-mile quest for official recognition of his life's proudest work, an automobile accessory he said he invented.

Vieira's arrival last month ended an odyssey that wound through 11 countries, and it illustrates Washington's enduring power as a magnet for ordinary people who think the answer to their prayers can be found in what's seen as the capital of the free world.

Standing next to his Honda CG150 Titan on L Street several days later, Vieira, gaunt and looking weary, recounted in his native Portuguese the improbable tale of his four-month journey.

He described how he rode for more than 1,900 miles on mostly unpaved roads through the Amazon, narrowly avoiding becoming lunch for a jaguar, one of the rain forest's most feared carnivores. How a delay in obtaining a U.S. visa forced him to traverse Mexico three times before crossing into Texas. How he hoped for sweet justice in the U.S. capital, perhaps even from the president himself.

"I decided to come here because Washington is where things get done," he said. "Barack Obama is already solving so many other problems -- how much more trouble would it be for him to solve mine?"

Vieira, 58, has followed a well-worn pattern of travel to Washington. Over the years, people have traveled to the city to seek redress for grievances great and small, including the Bonus Army encampment of the early 1930s and itinerants who make Lafayette Square their home while they fight their causes.

Washington was not the endpoint Vieira had in mind in June when he left his home town of Campinas, an industrial city of a million people about 60 miles northwest of São Paulo. He said the trip sprang from his decades working as a motorcycle mechanic.

Vieira, a lifelong tinkerer, developed a device in the mid-1990s that detects low tire pressure in vehicles and alerts drivers with an alarm. He registered a patent for it in Brazil in 1999. Since then, he has waged a battle for international validation of his rights as the inventor, particularly in the United States, where a similar accessory is made under a U.S. patent. His goal is to open a factory in Brazil to produce the alarm.

"This is my family's patrimony," said the divorced father of eight adult children, tapping an inch-thick binder of official Brazilian documents that he said back his claim. "It's for my children, my grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

The patent fight led him to leave Campinas on June 25 for Brasília, where he hoped his government could solve his problem. But after several fruitless days sparring with bureaucrats, Vieira decided there was only one place to go: Washington.

From the road, Vieira called his youngest daughter to inform her of his plans. She tried to talk him out of it.

"I cried and begged him for the love of God not to go, but he went anyway," Camila Souza Vieira, 21, said in a telephone interview from Campinas. "When he gets an idea in his head, no one can change his mind."

Hitting a snag in Mexico
Over the course of his trip, Vieira said, he went through two wheel rims and four tires, changed the oil 29 times and burned through 1,000 liters of fuel. The most difficult stretch was in the Amazon in northern Brazil, where he rode for hour upon hour without seeing another soul.

As he continued north, Vieira amassed a collection of passport stamps: in Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico.

The odyssey nearly ended there. When he arrived in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, officials at the U.S. consulate denied him a visa. So Vieira rode more than 1,000 miles back to Guatemala. From there, he caught a flight home to Brazil, where he secured a U.S. visa in a matter of days. He flew back to Guatemala and resumed his ride north, recrossing Mexico again until he entered the United States on Oct. 21.

"There's no greater thrill for me than when you cross a country's border," he said, "and the greatest moment was when I finally entered the United States."

By the time Vieira dismounted in the District on Oct. 28, he was down to his last few dollars. He had gone more than a day without eating.

Knowing no English and having no contacts in the city, he turned to the Brazilian consulate. After leafing through his passport and verifying his story with family members back home, consular officials fed him lunch, spotted Vieira enough money to cover a day or two of living expenses and steered him to a cheap motel in Falls Church.

"His case was a huge surprise for us," said Cyro Cardoso, vice consul of the Brazilian consulate, who is used to dealing with tourists who have lost wallets or passports -- not ridden a motorcycle to the point of exhaustion. "It's one for the history books."

Vieira got a money transfer from home, settling basic survival questions. But a big problem remained: He had no plan for what would come next.

Vieira had not set up any meetings with government officials. He had no one to help him wade through one of the trickiest areas of U.S. business law. And the consulate was neither equipped nor authorized to wade into a battle over intellectual property.

So Vieira made a liberating, yet agonizing, decision: He set aside his patent quest and declared victory, at least temporarily.

"You can't put a price on an experience like this," he said with a smile. "For me, it's the equivalent of going to the moon."

For three weeks, Vieira has enjoyed Washington as other tourists do, riding his Honda downtown, snapping photos and soaking up the sights. He has made near-daily visits to the consulate, drinking coffee with officials and chatting up anyone willing to hear his story.

The motorcycle, parked on L Street and adorned with Brazilian and U.S. flags, has drawn attention from passersby. The local Brazilian community has embraced Vieira. A worker at the consulate let Vieira sleep in a spare room. Another gave him a new set of motorcycle gloves.

A change of scenery
Vieira was laying the groundwork to return to Campinas and planned to leave within days. He said he considered flying to São Paulo and sending his bike by boat, but, emboldened by his achievement, he has decided to return the way he came -- albeit with a different itinerary, tracing the western edge of South America.

He pointed to the bike's odometer. It registered 35,114 kilometers -- 21,819 miles.

"I don't know how many miles it's going to have when I get back," he said. "But it's going to get there well traveled."

And the patent fight? Vieira said that can wait for another day, when he's a bit more prepared.

"I can always come back by plane," he said.
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1997 K1100LTSE 94,000 - has gremlins!
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"We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed."
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Mystic Red
Flying Brick Rider


Joined: 28 Mar 2005
Posts: 2330
Location: Twin Lakes Idaho

PostPosted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 5:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

WOW! Shocked
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drmalacarne
Flying Brick Rider


Joined: 02 Mar 2008
Posts: 762
Location: São Paulo, Brazil

PostPosted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 12:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This guy have guts....
Central America and Venezuela.....on a 150cc bike....
Gui
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Flying Duck
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Joined: 27 Jan 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 1:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Probably would've been cheaper to fly. Laughing
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flybd5
Flying Brick Rider


Joined: 01 Jul 2019
Posts: 371
Location: Massachusetts, USA

PostPosted: Sat Aug 31, 2019 4:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I know a guy who flew an ultralight aircraft with a motorcycle engine from Argentina to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. When he got to Venezuela he realized he didn't have any ditching gear, not even a lifejacket. So he bought a sh*tload of condoms, inflated them and put them inside the wing. When he got to Aruba he was detained, and when he asked why, the customs officer said he wanted to know what were his intentions with Aruban girls.

I sh*t you knot.

So he flew around the island chain and when he got to Cuba he was detained again. The authorities were going to put him in jail, but an Cuban Air Force general saw the plane and went to talk with him. He was so impressed at his craziness they let him go, and even escorted him in a light aircraft to say goodbye when he exited Cuban airspace.
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