Riding off the Edge of the Map (Paperback)

Riding off the Edge of the Map is a true account of the author and two fellow motorcyclists on an adventure-tour into Mexico's rugged and stunning Copper Canyon. They follow an errant map until they have traveled so far into danger that returning is deemed more precarious than continuing. Struggling with nearly impassible roads, injury, terror, and broken equipment, the three men were eventually forced to independently find their way back to civilization from the most remote part of the Canyon. The quest begins in the heart of Central Mexico's Sierra Madre Mountains and traces their journey up the Pacific Coast and into the largest canyon system in North America, 1700 feet deeper and four times the size of Arizona's Grand Canyon. Bryen, a career psychotherapist and motorcycle safety instructor, integrates his lifelong zeal for motorcycle riding and his passionate commitment to the life of the soul, and weaves the events into an odyssey that pulls the reader into an exterior and interior exploration of what it takes to venture into the heart of the Canyon. The trip required a crash course in new motorcycling riding skills, adjusting to rural customs and new language in a foreign culture, settling the stress-created conflicts among the riders, and finding the courage to face and deal with personal limitations. Eventually stripped of everything familiar where old maps, old rules, and old understandings no longer applied, this life-changing journey becomes an examination into fundamental questions of how to ride and how to live. The book describes being caught between the allure of beauty and the repulsion of terror, and explores how to access the deeper powers that become available to us when life seems most challenging. The author turns this motorcycle adventure tour into an opportunity to contemplate the longings, the fears, and the misapplied maps that govern our lives.