I have no cred, so it's rather difficult to harsh it . Apologies if my choice of words wasn't as accurate as I'd have liked.

Your trip was an adventure because you'd never done it before or even if only because the weather was different this time, not because your GS has TT kit on it. The bike and kit is just what you prefer. You'd have had a different adventure on a Harley or Ural? Probably, because you'd have spoken to different people, but the rough details could have been the same.

Chris Scott devotes 2 chapters to bikes and equipment. Ted Simon about half a page. This book (and other like it) is a lot about shiney things and less about getting them dirty, which IMHO is where the adventure takes place. Shopping for things is not an adventure (although TT's delivery schedules sometimes made it seem that way!).

Andy

Now ain't that a fact!

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

Nope.. the shopping bit is as much of the whole thing as the riding is for me.

I love the planning, the shopping, the looking through catalogs and magazines to see what's new. I love going through the maps in Stanford's, tweaking my gear and bike until I think I've got it spot on.

Then I get on the bike and 'have the adventure'. Actually I think the whole thing is the 'adventure'. But you know what, this thread is about as much use as an argument about why we use the word Innovation now instead of Research & Development.

m

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You've obviously never gone looking for shoes on a Saturday afternoon with Woman. That puts a whole new meaning on the word "endurance".

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I look at it this way, When out riding my bike every day is a ADVENTURE !!!!!!
Ron&Rocket Ride Free

alexebrit.

Shopping is definately an adventure to be done solo.

Live and let live is what i say.

I'm just about to start a trip, yes on a shinny BMW F800 GS, from the UK to Oz and I chose the bike i thought would be the best tool for my trip.

I'm meeting up with a few others to share the cost of getting through China and in that group is a guy travelling the world on a 125 vespa.
I applaud what he's doing and will be very interested to see how he gets on and what his experiences have been like travelling on a scooter.

I guess what i'm saying is that it takes all sorts of people to make this world the diverse and interesting place it is. The most important things are to travel with a smile on your face and be open to meeting new people and having new experiences. How you do this and what vehicle you choose to do it on doesn't matter one iota.

Wise words my friend, but...!
I'd love a BMW GS! I'd love a supermodel wife, a lifetime tab and a khazi that wiped my arse and lowered the seat...it ain't gonna happen. We ride what we have because it's all we have. A Bmw makes sense if you are touring, i wish I could afford one, what I like about the Hubb is the diversity of machines ridden.
You are quite correct. It's the experience that matters, whether that be trading stories with farmers, bodging your electrics at the roadside or sharing lunch with some street girls. It's a wonderful world and any pocket is deep enough.
Pete

I thought the book was fine. For chrissake it even recommends the HUBB! I can't see why any rational person would want to criticise its existence. Okay, it's a touratech (I won't say touratwat, I don't share the need to sneer) catalogue with lots of perfect photos of perfect GS1200s and KTMs. I don't want a GS (certain GS riders: feel free to interpret this statement as evidence of envy if it makes you feel good). I quite fancy the look of the KTM Adventures (mine would be a 950 with an RVAqualine Safari tank) but couldn't afford one without selling one of my three bikes. Which I love, so I won't. Besides, I enjoy taking a bike that wasn't meant for off-roading off-road.

Me too. I can (and do) spend hours and hours poring over kit catalogues, guide-books, maps.

Absolutely. Planning is fun, but you don't need to go mad with it. I set out for what to me was a huge adventure having only decided the night before that I would be going. And even then I was umming and ahhing the next morning. Did I have the full touratech list of essential items (including a waterproof toilet paper holder FFS)? Did I fack. I didn't even have a sleeping bag - and yes, I was camping.

If we are so inclined, we can all choose to sneer at someone whose "adventure" is less than what we ourselves consider an adventure. The trouble with that philosophy is that unless your name is Glen Heggstad / Robert Fulton / Ted Simon /~ there's always someone who has had more of an adventure than you.

As others have said, it's a big planet. There's room for us all.

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Seek Truth

15 countries in 40 days. Tanks, crashes, minefields and Kalashnikovs

I only had a quick look at display copy, so I'll word these as open questions as I might have missed something:

Does the book have a section on rat bikes?
Any mention of C90's/postie bikes, Harleys or Enfield Bullets?
Anything on ammo boxes for panniers, making bash plates..?

Even just looking at a shopping list, to me a decision on buy/make/bodge/do without is way more important to having YOUR adventure than going with the BMW inside the TT catalogues front cover and trying to have Ewan McGregors. Not to say the TT-BMW is in any way bad, it might suit you, it just seems an incomplete work that only presents that option.

I'm glad HUBB got a mention, there is never any shortage of options presented here

Andy

I reckon it's simply a case of some people getting enjoyment out of shopping for bits for their bike, or researching what modifications to get done; with other people getting enjoyment out of making/doing stuff to their bike themself. Neither is more "right" than the other, but I would rather read and hear about the latter because it's more relevant to me (in that I could not afford, nor would I want, to get kitted out in the latest Touratech etc gear).


A classic situation is people not working on bikes themselves, because the time they'd spend doing it could be spent doing their Job and earn more than enough money to pay somebody else to do it. Maybe I'm just a pauper in denial, but even if this were the situation for me I'd still rather work on my bike myself. Both for the enjoyment I get out of it, and for the reassurance that I know exactly what I've done.

I also think the pride and satisfaction to be had from say, completing a trip one a bike you've made/modified yourself is great feeling in its own right.

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UK to Mongolia 2009, on a DR350

Great thread Motoedde, with several very heady replies. This morning, I feel like I am on the Left Bank (Rive Gauche) flowing along with the Seine as it heads toward the sea. Perhaps the HU Bar can be found somewhere on Boulevard Saint Germain des Prés, Saint Michel, or Rue d'Ulm, where a past generation of *adventure writers gathered, they were the adventure writers of life.

The mandate of the cultural anthropologist is objective participatory observation, this in order to gain experiences of comparable magnitude, because the observed descriptions of differences and similarities between cultures is necessary for understanding each culture.

I invite each of you who read here to review the following page of a blog entitled: "Big balls ferry pilot" written by pilots who ferry airplanes around the world.

Big Balled Ferry Pilot - PPRuNe Bulletin Board

Generally, I follow the example of another guy born in Oklahoma, Will Rogers, who would have fit in very well with the writers who hung out on the Left Bank, but didn't because he "refused to join any club that would have him as a member," but, I do not have the strength of conviction that he had when it comes to motorcycle adventuring.

So, the ferry pilots earn their living by flying airplanes from one airport to another. These are brave men and women who often fly brand new airplanes from the manufacturing plant to the buyer. Sometimes they fly single engine planes from one continent to another. Then, some of them blog about their experiences.

It is my observation that motorcycle adventurers and motorcycle adventure writers lie somewhere between the *Left Bank gang of Paris ...of old, and the "big balls ferry pilots."

The future of adventure motorcycling is positively correlated with the number of adventure motorcyclists, some will be more like the "big balls ferry pilots" and others will be more like the adventure writers of life, who gather here.

If the adventure motorcycle writers cannot accept and even help the new, the novice, the uninitiated adventure motorcyclist, the very key to the future of adventure motorcycling, to that extent we are not contributing to the survival of adventure motorcycling. Some will evolve beyond the best of us.

xfiltrate


*Life's adventure writers/ Left Bank gang ...... Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway,Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir , Richard Wright, Saul Bellow and a young, and relatively unknown and impoverished James Baldwin, as well as George Orwell, and john Dos Passos. Their words fiction and/or non fiction influenced millions and are still influencing millions of people all over the world.

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Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina
www.xfiltrate.com

One problem I've noticed here in the state is that many people want to be seen as living the lifestyle. That was evident with the SUV binge from the past 10 years. Why did folks need an SUV? I have no clue except that hey did look cool.

I mean, I have a truck. It hauls my bikes when I need it to. It's practicle.

Now with the bike market... geez... hate to drop a bomb here but I give kudos to BMW for convincing every Tom, Dick, and Harry that they too can be an Adventure Rider if they bought a GS! From my experiences, 90% of all GS's are still on the road. Tarmac. Asphalt. Whatever you wish to call it.

Another point is on how lazy, and lack of dreaming, folks have. There are gaggles of morons want to ride the exact same route you have if you post it somewhere on the web. They don't want to do the research, they don't want to follow a dream, they don't want an adventure. They want someone elses.

To me it's always been about a dream. A dream of far away places. Where books read in childhood come to life. Where exotic places you've seen in National Geographic are tangible.

Adventure is a state of mind, be it a weekend or a longtrip. It's what you find along the way. Today's society is more concerned with the end result (destination) than the process which gets us there (travel). The adventure isn't in the destination. It's what you did on your way to where you are. It's the ultimate metaphor on life itself.

Too many riders today don't understand that.

That's a shame.

"The adventure isn't in the destination. It's what you did on your way to where you are. It's the ultimate metaphor on life itself."
posted by FloridaRider


And, when you finally arrive at that final destination the question is - did you help others along the way? posted by xfiltrate

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Motorcycle Parking Buenos Aires, Argentina
www.xfiltrate.com