Newbie looking for advice
 

Greetings,

I'm a guy in my mid-twenties looking to fullfill my dream of exempting myself from the ordinary working life for a while and i am seeking for advice and feedback! I've fantasized about riding around the globe on the back of a motorcycle for several long years now and i've finally decided to make it into reality. While i've travelled a good deal, but only in europe and never really any longer trips. While i think i generally have a decent grasp of how much money and time it'll take and how to do it, i'm still a newb to this and strongly believe that there's much to be learned from the very experienced adventurers on these forums. Here's my plan and resources (sorry if this is a tl;dr):

Route
Starting the trip in fall and hopefully avoid the really, really cold weather (meaning mostly kazakhstan around october).

Because i'm a citizen of the european union thing, the first part of the trip will probably be fairly easy in terms of border crossings, although costly. I have a some friends scattered around europe so there's a possibility of reducing costs by couch surfing.
-Starting point: Tallinn, Estonia
-Mid point: Utrecht, The Netherlands
-End of first part: Svilengrad, Bulgaria
Distance roughly 4600 km, time frame max 2½ weeks.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...s/1st_part.jpg

The second part of this journey seems the most difficult. From what i've read you can only get a 3 day visa for your bike in georgia and apparently the ferry doesn't have a schedule, but instead moves when it's full. The part that i'm not entirely convinced is driving thru Kazakhstan. The other possibility would be to take the southern route thru Türkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Living my life in the arctic circle gives me a good sense of what the weather feels like when nights are below zero celsius. I've camped in some really cold weather and it's not that bad, unless you have to do it every night for a few weeks. The benefits for going fast through the first part would be saving a lot of money and better driving conditions when i hit Western Asia. Weather averages this winter show that october was minor chill(0c - -5c) at nights and fairly warm at days(17c - 5c).

-Start of second (the hardest?)part: Svilengrad, Bulgaria
Ankara, Turkey
Tbilisi, Georgia
-Mid Point: Baku, Azerbaijan
-Ferry to: Aktau, Kazakhstan
-End of second part: Almaty, Kazakhstan
Distance roughly 7000km, time frame max 1 month
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...s/2nd_part.jpg

From what i've read, the third part ought to be the cheapest and thus should be the longest part time-wise. Presumably i will be in New Delhi well before christmass and leisurely drift to Chennai in two-three months or so. Maybe go to nepal and see how far my tar infested smoker's lungs take me upwards. Then continue the next 3-5 months in South-East Asia region.
-Start of part three: Flight from Almaty to New Delhi.
-Mid Point: Over the sea to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
-Circle around Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. (The part about going with your own motorcycle seems to be changing rapidly so this remains to be seen.)
-End of part three: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (or some other significant port town from where i can get my bike shipped to alaska)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...s/3rd_part.jpg

The Fourth part largely depends on how much funds i've still got. I'd hope to hit Alaska in june or july because of the weather and driving conditions.
-Start of part four: Anchorage, Alaska
-Mid point: California
-End of part four: New York City, New York
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...s/4th_part.jpg


Funds
Right now, i'm at USD25k. I've read people doing around the world overlanding trips with way less than that, but i'd like to eat a proper meal every now and then and maybe grab a beer too. Maybe a hotel with a warm shower might do every once in a while. I'm certainly at over 40k when i leave. Possibly closer to 50k once i sell my current bikes and decide to sell some musical gear i've collected over the years. Stretching to maybe 55k if do some extra work during the summer. How much is enough? from that i'd have to purchase:
Bike 2k
Carnet to India 5-6k??
Visas, insurance and other related 2-3k
Camera 3k
Shipping of bike and the driver 4-6k
food, smokes, gas and other living expenses ??
Tragedies on the road, getting robbed, bribes etc. ??
Camping gear ??
bike mods and driving gear ??

Not entirely sure yet how they deal with the carnet stuff, but i'll be in contact with the automotive club that handless that stuff here. Is it possible to claim the bond money before you're back? For example after India? Remains to be seen. I've worked nearly every summer ever since i was 12, full time alongside school after 16 and it has made me generally kinda cautious and reasonable when handling money.

Bike
I find that this is the most difficult part of my trip. In my country the market is
flooded with cheap street bikes and every dual-sport/enduro bike is either old and worn or way too expensive to get a carnet with. If i can score a proper base i will have no problems doing a full inspection and maintenance of the engine, electrical systems and main bearings. During my motorcycle years i've driven various bikes while looking for the bike i bought the last time. This one i also took apart and heavily altered the geometry to suit my taste. I have very little dirt driving experience, except with a yamaha fzr with a completely bald front tire (did go down twice in a 120km stretch. So much fun though with that completely inverted power band when compared to an enduro!). In the past i've been the kind of guy who goes flat out on a public road on a supersport, but lately i've come to enjoy the joy of cruising curvy tarmac and maybe the dual-sport would be another step towards some sensical driving manners. While i dislike the vibrations of a single cylinder bike, i believe they're more suited to this kind of travel and roads. But what i'd really want to find is a Kawasaki kle500 or such at least 2-cylinder bike. From what i understand the kle500 Is mostly the same engine as in gpz500, en500 and er-5? I'm not concerned about the weight/power ratio, since i have a decent amount of patience and time. I have experience of squatting up a fully loaded sport tourer.

I gathered a list of possible bikes to watch out for:
Aprilia Pegaso 650
BMW F650,800
Honda NX650 (Dominator)
Honda XL600V, 650V, 700V Transalp
Honda XRV (africa twin)
Kawasaki KLE500
Kawasaki KLR
Kawasaki KLX450R, 650
Suzuki-DR650, 800
Yamaha XT600
Yamaha XTZ660 Tenere, 750 Super Tenere


Worst case scenarios and fears
Getting badly mugged is my worst fear. The second one would be breaking a bone somewhere that will greatly affect my journey. Bike problems aren't that bad and are likely to happen, so i've mentally prepared for that. Maybe carrying a few extra tubes or even doing the swap to fit a rear rim to the front wheel for similar tube sizes might be good. I have taken a first aid course some years ago, but maybe re-doing one that prepares for cases like this might be helpful. Best weapon against getting robbed might be dressing like a hobo and painting the bike to look like a cheap PoS. You know, one of those ratbike things.

If you cared to read all of this then please share your thoughts!

Hello lanttilantti and welcome,
It looks like you already have something of a plan and have given this trip some thought. I would start by reading other peoples experiences in ride reports and doing some research using the search facility in the top right hand corner of this page to answer individual questions.
If you get the chance attend a HU travellers meeting, a great place to meet people who have already done a trip this this and gather information, a list is usually up on the right hand side of the screen and again in the meetings section.
The merits of individual bikes is widely debated in the bike section, ask 6 different travellers and get 7 different answers, there is no right answer to that one and carrying your money, certainly not all in cash, a couple of bank cards and a small cash reserve in US dollars are favourite, ATM's everywhere.
Have fun planning, there is a lot to learn but it is all here somewhere.
Mark

First of all, I think that 2 1/2 weeks for your EU stretch is very fast, you won't see anything except highways. Why go to Utrecht especially if you have such a small amount of time for EU? I guess there's a reason...

Then you mean the ferry from AZ and not Georgia, as you can enter Georgia without visa being an EU citizen. :thumbup1:

Why O why would you skip the highlight of Central Asia? Please go to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. You won't regret it and I'm pretty sure it will be one of your highlights...

Tubes: if you have one spare front and one spare back you're fine. If you know how to patch them. And buy a new one whenever you have the chance. Put new ones when leaving home, heavy duty, nothing else.

Indeed there are lots of resources, and ultimately no one can tell you what to do or not do, same with the bike thing. I am not going to answer that. Just go with the bike that you want and feel comfortable with.

Moneywise, it all depends, all your flights that you planned are going to cost... 25k is a 'normal' budget, 40k will be easy and will allow you to not have to count every cent along the way.

Vietnam; at this time it is still not possible to do it with your bike, unless you know you way around all the paperwork and speak the language... so forget about VN.

CPD is actually not a few thousand €, as you get that money back once you give the CPD back to whoever issues it in EST. Should be only a few hundred € for the papers. Allright, you'll need to put the money in a separate account or however they work in EST for that matter, but it's not 'lost'. You can get your money without the bike being back in EST. This is how we did it. As long as the papers are all stamped (your CPD) you can send it back. Normally you should present the bike to EST customs, but in Belgium they agreed to giving me my bond back if I send them the CPD with entry and exit stamps of the country. (as I sold my bike later on in a non-CPD country, so I couldn't take her back to Belgium anyway)