Colombia was beautiful. Freed from the narrow geography of Central America, I took great pleasure in criss crossing the country. The damage kept increasing though— I had a terrible run where I dropped the bike three times in three days, progress enabled only by a skilled neighborhood aluminum welder and one of the few KTM dealers in Colombia. Only after I traversed the sand and gravel of the Tatacoa desert and found myself deep in the Southern mountain jungle where decades of armed conflict had rendered all the roads nearly impassable, did it finally begin to dawn on me that the Swedes might have been right.

I emerged from the jungle that day, physically broken. The useless hard suspension transferred every shock to my joints and my luggage , which also of course broke. The day’s dinner included, for free, the trip’s third bout of food poisoning — damn near breaking me spiritually as well. I crossed the border into Ecuador the next day, struggling to remain conscious, at my lowest point of the trip.

Quitting when you’re behind is for the weak and the prudent, neither of which I have any desire to be. Bandages for my joints, ibuprofen for the food poisoning, zip ties, ratchet straps, duct tape and super glue for the luggage. I crossed Ecuador and headed into Peru. Destination: Huanuco, a small Andean town and home of renowned motorcycle mechanic and Chinese dirt bike vendor Toby Shannon.

By the time I reached Toby’s, the bike was trashed. Two friends flew in from the UK and together we bought a set of dirt bikes, and spent the next two months tearing through the mountains and deserts of Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Argentina — an adventure in itself. Eventually that adventure ended though and I found myself reunited with the RC390 in Huanuco. Although Toby’s team had fixed the bike up somewhat, there was something they couldn’t repair — the magic was gone.

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that familiarity breeds contempt. I have found these sayings to be incorrect. With the mind clouded by beauty and the thrill of the moment, it’s easy to duct tape over serious compatibility issues. Only with distance and time apart can the fog of passion lift, and situations evaluated for how they truly are. I flew the RC390 back to the States and sold it essentially for scrap.

I had loved the bike, but for the wrong reasons. Instead of loving it for what it was, I loved it for what I wanted it to be — something that had never been in its nature. Aside from the aches and pains, this misplaced love resulted in almost complete destruction of the beautiful, innocent bike, and caused a ton of collateral damage on the way. There is another saying, however, which does ring true — it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.