Life is risk. Compared to journeys undertaken by those in the past, this trip had an extremely minimal chance of disaster. I mean, the guy had a satellite phone! Unless he literally crashed his bike and died on the side of the road, the worst outcome here was a big bill from emergency services when they had to come rescue him from somewhere.

I rode my bike around Lake Erie back in 2007 without even a smart phone. I didn't have a map of places to stay, I just scoped out surreptitious camping sites mostly if I didn't happen past a campground at the right time of day.