I'll join you part way on that one. Can't be bothered with endless border hassle and I do eventually feel the urge to do something anti-social to trinket salesman and people offering to "guard" my bike. Basically I have no urge what so ever to ride in certain parts of the world having tried a few similar places. Give me Alpine pass or the outback and you'll get a different answer and different again if you rent me the bike (which is a what you'd call a holiday BTW not Extreme Adventure or whatever). I'd score badly on the wanabee/hardcore meter.

I'll hold my hands up the eliteist thing if you mean I have less respect for guys who think owning a certain bit of kit makes them special than guys who've done things or even got plans. When some nutter takes hostages they don't call for a Regiment who owns black balaclavas they send for an elite one. Inverse snob doesn't worry me either, it's a lot more interesting getting a rat of a C90 somewhere than a new R1200GS simply because more happens. If that upsets the shoppers who want congratulating for owning certain bits of kit we should agree to differ simply because we have different insights into similar things.

The label and wanabee/hardcore thing is a bit mad to me. People call me hardcore for camping in the snow. If you do it wrong it's ****, if you do it right it's fun. I don't get why anyone would want to do it the hard way so they can talk about, or just buy the stuff and say they are thinking about doing it.

Andy