[quote=Wildman;238501 Being new to "adventure" riding, I found the book quite interesting. Some people's adventures will be a holiday to you. ..... Ewan and Charley wannabe? .......it's frustrating to know that some of the people I admire on this site for their adventures, look down their noses at mine.[/quote]

I hope no one looks down on anyone. If they do it's their loss not yours.

You are spot on that an adventure is what you make it. What I struggle with is the formulaic nature. We all take the whatsit out of leather tassled dentists riding cruisers and the one piece power ranger suited sportsbike types with their Black and Deckered knee sliders, but there is a similar trend emerging in "adventure travel". I have no right to say three weeks in Normandy on a Goldwing isn't an adventure. If you've never done it before it could be, but of course I really wouldn't want to see the website if it did just turn out to be your first holiday in France. Take a C90 you bought from a Pizza delivery company the week before instead of the wing and go in January and it is an adventure. That website could be worth a look if written with the sort of humour and bodged repairs you might engage in.

What is true is that you don't need an R1200GS, tin box panniers, a GPS map of the Gobi and a laser cut sidestand thingy that doubles as a spare heliograph if you are going to the North Cape in May. I've been there and done that and was a Ewan and Charlie wannabee before Ewan and Charlie wanted to be. It therefore rather annoys me that writers are selling this copied image rather giving people real pointers towards real adventures. Back when I was doing this there was no general use internet, so information was really limited. We knew Norway had long dirt roads, we knew lots of Germans had done better with Tin boxes than Ted Simon did with with MOD packs and leather satchels. We bought the tin boxes.

If you are going to the Gobi, you read Chris Scotts book and talk to the big trip people on here. Gloss pictures don't help you.

Today, with the net you can link up with the people doing the get-as-far-as-you-can-in-three weeks stuff as well as the RTW trip of a lifetime ones. There is no need to base your guesses on German bike magazines faxed to you from your companys office and badly translated using a school dictionary. There are certainly better uses for the price of a sidestand/heliograph when you work for a living and only get those few weeks a year while you plan and hope for the chance at a really big trip.

Maybe that's the book that'll break the cycle? "100 three week motorcycle adventures that won't break the bank or cause a divorce". Lets have more C90's riding the alps and Harleys going to Moscow and fewer sidestand-Heliographs in Surrey.

Andy