MOTORCYCLE TOURS

Documenting his travels, Pedersen’s photographic passion celebrates the diversity of life on earth, focusing on human culture, wildlife and scenic vistas.

His photo-essays have appeared worldwide in dozens of motorcycle and outdoor-enthusiast magazines, as well as publications such as National Geographic, TIME and The New York Times. Helge’s journey has also been featured on Discovery’s Travel Channel and other broadcasts around the world.

In 1998, Pedersen began sharing his experiences with others and founded GlobeRiders, LLC. GlobeRiders specializes in long-duration, adventure motorcycle travel throughout parts of the world neither easily accessible nor commonly visited.

GlobeRiders tours visit 40 countries throughout southern Africa, Eurasia and S.E. Asia. Collectively, Pedersen has traveled through over 100 countries on six continents, and has logged more miles on the seat of a motorcycle than he cares to count.

In addition to organizing and leading motorcycle adventure tours, Helge produces instructional and adventure DVDs designed to prepare the avid motorcyclist for world travel and inspire a desire to take to the open road.

He also gives multimedia presentations that offer breathtaking photography and inspiring stories from his adventures. Pedersen develops and presents travel related seminars, teaching participants motorcycle maintenance and repair, GPS navigation, and other insider tips for the savvy traveler.

Pedersen speaks four languages: Norwegian, English, Spanish and German. He currently lives with his wife in Seattle, Washington.

Mike Paull
Mike Paull has journeyed to over 40 countries in the course of business and personal travel. He spent most of his formative years taking things apart to see how they worked and only later in life, realized the value of putting them back together again.

An avid motorcyclist, his first "motorcycle love" was a friend’s Sears mini-bike, powered by a 3-1/2HP Briggs & Stratton, cord-start, lawn mower engine. Driving this single-speed wonder earned him a dreaded session with Sister Dorothea and her paddle after a Sunday morning ride inside the school’s auditorium. He spent three years as an amateur six-hour endurance racer in his early 20s, and owned a wide variety of motorcycles over the years, his current favorites being the BMW "GS" series of adventure touring bikes.

Mike’s working career spanned such diverse occupations as motorcycle parts specialist, bartender, biomedical electronics technician, medical equipment designer and engineer. He serviced, then later designed, a wide variety of medical devices for Olympic Medical. He designed patient monitors for Spacelabs and cardiac defibrillators for Physio-Control. Somewhere in there was a three-year stint in military air defense thrown in for good measure. He retired from Microsoft in 2002 after a ten-year career in design, business development and product group management.

Realizing that ten years in high-tech had resulted in almost zero "downtime", Mike retired and joined Helge on the GlobeRiders World Tour in 2002. The sheer joy of adventuring lured him onto the GlobeRiders team, where he pre-ran the African Adventure with Helge in 2003. He now joins Helge in the planning, logistics and guiding of GlobeRiders tours, and authors this website.

Mike and his wife, Aillene, have homes in Cainta Rizal, Philippines, and Seattle, Washington.

Dan Townsley
Dan's six years in the US Navy spanned Special Operations training to Advanced Electronics and Computers.

After the military it was back to school to study Wildlife Ecology.

In 1978, Dan started his own Defense Systems Engineering business and although successful, in 1980 he was recruited by the IBM Corporation. For six years Dan designed and programmed advanced automation systems (Robots), and in 1986 he moved to Seattle where he worked in Technical Sales and Consulting until his retirement from IBM in 2007.

These various occupations provided Dan the opportunity to travel to many countries around the world, exploring them by motorcycle and backpacking.

His love of riding motorcycles really took hold in 1969 with the purchase of a new Royal Enfield 750 Interceptor. Four years ago, and many bikes later, he discovered the joys and challenges of off-road riding on his 2004 BMW R1150GS Adventure - way off road.

Dan has long been interested in motorsports, and has competed in both SCCA Auto and AMA Motorcycle Amateur Road Racing. Other interests include photography, cooking, and nature. Dan brings four decades of riding, mechanical, and technology skills to the GlobeRiders team.

Dan and his wife Mary live in Seattle, Washington.

Sterling Noren
Sterling Noren has worked his way around the world several times as an adventure travel filmmaker.

He began his career as a student employee for West Michigan Public Broadcasting where he wrote, filmed, and edited his first television documentary at age 21.

During the 90s, he was a freelance video editor and producer for Microsoft Corporation, and a video journalist for Expedia’s "Mungo Park". His assignments included documenting the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis with guest Tom Clancy, and producing live Internet video dispatches from the rainforests of Costa Rica with actress Shari Belafonte.

Since then, he has traveled through more than 30 countries as a cameraman, editor, and producer of documentary programming for clients as diverse as Microsoft, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and GlobeRiders.

Sterling met Helge Pedersen in 1998. They produced a short documentary program about Helge’s journeys around the world for Public Broadcast Station KCTS Channel 9 in Seattle. In 2001, he rode with Helge on the GlobeRiders Iceland Adventure. During the summer of 2002, he accompanied the GlobeRiders World Tour across Eurasia and produced a series of videos documenting that tour that were broadcast over a ten-week period on the Speed TV cable network.

Immediately following the World Tour, he went to Montevideo, Uruguay, where he and his girlfriend Mariana were married in August 2002. They currently live in Seattle.

John Wehman
John’s love of adventure, exploring and the outdoors has drawn him to GlobeRiders. Although John isn’t an active motorcyclist, he’s an avid runner, hiker and kayaker. He enjoys the challenge of climbing Mt. Rainier as well as the calmness of paddling with seals when kayaking the San Juans. This love of seeking adventure is universally shared with others whether on land, on the water or climbing to the sky.

John’s professional background has revolved around film and video. He has been active with Northwest media companies in marketing and sales, development, operations management, and video production for over 30 years.

In 1987, John founded Wehman Video Distribution in Seattle, which specialized in national and international distribution of special interest video programs with emphasis in cultural, environmental, travel and outdoor sports topics. John expanded the company to represent over 120 independent video producers, distribute more than 800 special interest video titles, and was one of the first independent distributors to market video programs via the internet in the early 1990s.

As Producer and Director for his production company MoonRae Productions during the 1990s, John created award-winning cultural documentaries including: “Filipino Americans – Discovering Their Past for the Future” and “Bhutan – A Himalayan Cultural Diary”. John has also produced award-winning children’s nature and environmental programs including “Spirit of the Eagle” and “Winter Wolf”. These programs were nationally broadcast on PBS and Discovery Channel.

For five years, starting in 2002, John developed and coordinated major national marketing, sales and sponsorship funding campaigns for the award-winning High Definition (HD) TV series Discoveries America (51 60-minute travel and cultural documentary series), as well as an 82 30-minute TV series on international travel and adventure fly fishing destinations throughout the world.

John joins GlobeRiders as Director of Marketing and Special Projects to help develop exposure of GlobeRiders to the motorcycle industry as well as to establish new markets beyond. Projects include promotions and establishing sponsorships for GlobeRiders new video documentaries on motorcycle tours and world cultures, and new motorcycle maintenance instructional video programs.

John and his wife Heather currently live in Seattle, Washington.