Overland Journal Fall 2012

A Perfect Shave Thank you so much for the article, The Straight Razor (Summer 2012). I had just purchased some quality shaving products and was looking forward to a nice close shave like the ones I had experienced from my local barber. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by my results. Great products do not guarantee good execution. Dr. Jon to the rescue. I followed the helpful information provided in the article and, wow, my next shave turned out fantastic! I never thought I would learn how to get a great shave from Overland Journal. Todd McLaren 1985 Toyota T100 1,000,000th Land Rover This picture was taken on the One-Millionth Land Rover Discovery drive from Birmingham, U.K. to Beijing, China, on the Tourgat Pass, Kyrgyzstan, a 500-kilometer dirt track heading to the Chinese border at 3,761 meters…

Ara Gureghian and Spirit Ara and his canine friend, Spirit, are vagabonds on three wheels. Raised in France, and with grandparents in Cairo, Ara was exposed to a fair amount of travel in his formative years. After completing culinary school in Switzerland, he owned several restaurants and bakeries, which were more confining than his free spirit could accommodate. Subsequent sojourns included several decades sailing the Mediterranean and North American coast. After the loss of his son, Lance, Ara needed a special type of “therapy.” Spirit understood his needs, adopted him, and the duo have been on the road on a BMW (with a sidecar for Spirit) for the past six years. Jeff Buchanan Before becoming a motorcycle journalist, Jeff was an award-winning television commercial director and independent feature film producer. A lifelong motorcycle…

“The world is like a book. If you don’t travel you only see the first page.” We lost someone dear to Overland Journal this spring: Ingrid Bareuther. In 2009, Ingrid and husband Joerg decided to pursue a life of travel and adventure. After quitting their “respectable” jobs as a journalist and engineer, the duo created a life to which most of us can only aspire—they wanted to, “Get to know the world.” The two worked as dive instructors in the Maldives and Egypt before turning to the great deserts of the Middle East, successfully completing an unsupported 160-mile hike from the Red Sea to the Nile. In 2010, they embarked on a round-the-world trek in their 1300L Unimog. The goal, “to experience and hike the world.” Ingrid shared one of those…

Every significant endeavor shares the same humble beginning—the spark of an idea. How that idea grows and thrives is based upon our collection of experiences, and our ability to act on the minutiae that form the foundation of any worthwhile pursuit. Success is a collective: a framework of ideas, the input of a team, and a well (deep or shallow) of past performances and learning. Expeditions 7 must be approached in the same manner as any complex endeavor, by breaking apart every component into hard-won, yet achievable, milestones. My partner in this endeavor, Greg Miller, CEO of Miller Motorsports Park and the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum (among other ventures), had a personal goal: to drive a Land Cruiser around the world. I shared the around the world goal, and planned to…

Driving across Nevada, or any of the great deserts of the world, provides time for reflection. The hours melt away as I am absorbed and inspired by my surroundings: infinite vistas, clean desert air carrying the scent of sage, and faint two-tracks leading to locales unknown. It is a little over 800 miles from our Northern California office to Mormon Lake Lodge in Northern Arizona. While Yahoo Maps directed me south on the “shortest” and more populated route, I don’t think I’ve ever gone that way. After all, my destination was the Overland Expo. The road less traveled, across the arid expanses of Nevada, was much more appropriate. Overland Expo generates new friends and new ideas for the magazine. It is always a source of anticipation and excitement. The 2012 Expo…

During the past five decades, tire technology has been slow to evolve, the last major innovation being the transition from bias-ply to radial construction. Other than tread patterns, not much has changed since the 1960s. The BFGoodrich AT, which set the radial “all-terrain” standard with its TriGard design and Baja 1000 testing, has seen minimal changes in the last several decades. Today, with developments in CAD design and Finite Element Analysis (FEA), a renaissance of tire design, construction, and innovation is beginning. On a warm day in early June, I drove from San Antonio, Texas, to the Cooper Tire proving grounds. I was there to test the new Discoverer A/T and S/T MAXX in numerous conditions and surfaces, and compare them against the competition. The first test, to evaluate wet surface…