Is there much of a difference? Biker or traveller? What's a biker and what's a traveller? To most question, you have to understand the question to get a half decent answer.


I'm a summer rider. Ride six month's of the year. SORN for the winter month's. They sit in my garage with cover's over them. Come April re new the insurance, tax, and MOT. A MOT is something all UK vehicles have to have done each year. Once they are over three year's old. It's to make sure that they are fit for the road. When the MOT first came out 20/30 year's ago. It was a case of if nout fell off it passed. Now day's it's getting harder and harder to get a crap vehicle through, Must be a good thing. Any way I'm off on a tangent. When the weather is good I'll get the bike out and have a local day ride round. Then put it back. But then I plan twice a year to travel. Each time putting round 5k miles on the bike. So when I'm not traveling, I'm a rider.


John933

__________________
To buy petrol in Europe. Pull up at station. Wait. Get out a 20 Euro note, then ask someone to fill up the bike. Give person money. Ride away. Simple.

This topic does seem to have run and run. I had to look back at what I said a couple of years ago to check I'm not about to contradict myself :confused1:

I have wondered many times over the years if I'd bother with bikes if it wasn't for the travel. I'm most definately not into pirate garb Harley cruising or power ranger fastest kids on the block or the hangin' out together tats n trikes "bikers".

I'm not even sure the fast appreciating old clunker scene holds much appeal these days since they changed from being engineering jigsaw puzzles to stalwarts of the fine art market along with Premier Cru wine and Chippendale furniture. As a rule of thumb it's time to move on when something's being sold at an auction with a printed catalogue and a description of its "provenance and patina" rather than a list of previous owners and which bits are too rusty to use.

So bikes are tied up almost inextricably with going somewhere for me. They're transport but they're more than that, they're an approach to travel. I would have used the word "adventure" had it not been completely debased over the last five or ten years by corporate marketing. In the old sense of the word going somewhere on a bike is adventurous. In the new sense of the word promising or selling "adventure" seems to be merely another method of separating the gullible from their money.

As the years have gone on though the margins have narrowed. Years ago I would just load the bike up and head off somewhere. I'd camp or just sleep at the side of the road because it was cheaper but tell myself that when I was older and richer (somehow the two always went together - now I know better ) I'd book into decent hotels. These days, (in my 60's) sleeping at the side of the road just makes me look like a vagrant so I'm forced into hotels whether I like it or not. I've even noticed some campsites giving me quizzical looks when I arrive on my own as if to say there's something not quite right if someone your age is staying here alone. Strangely I don't get that if I turn up in a classic car!

I tend to divide what I'm doing into one of three catagories - it'll either be:

Excursion - a day trip somewhere or maybe a weekend and probably within the UK to somewhere I either know or have some experience of. No real degree of preparation needed, particularly in the summer.

Exploration - A longer multi day or multi week trip. If it's in the UK it'll be to somewhere obscure that I don't now well or in Europe it'll be to what would have been (pre 89) Western Europe.

Expedition - Anywhere out of western Europe, where planning / paperwork is a significant part of the process and where bike choice and prep may mean I have to start from scratch. May include significant winter bike travel in Europe.

So I have a minimum requirement for owning a bike and I own what I do because it enables me to plan and execute those plans. In some respects my travel plans and my bike riding are opposite sides of the same coin. It's hard to have one without the other.

Could it just be that when you ride a bike you go somewhere ??

Of course a long ride would mean that you go further

I like riding my bike(s)--to and from work, around town, up to the mountains or out to the deserts and seashore.... But I was traveling long before I learned to ride: hitchhiking, walking, using pushbikes and freight trains, then finally cars and trucks.

Overland motorcycling has been a blast, and has taken me a lot of worthy places. But for me, it's been a part of my aging process, in which I pay increasing amounts of money to travel in more and more luxury, fending off most of the real adventure by application of even more money. As a scruffy backpacker I got lost in the minefields of Mozambique as the war wound down, then hopped a freight as the only option save walking and potentially starving. I rode the tops of old buses all over Asia and Central America, discussing sex, politics and the intricacies of personal finance with bright-eyed young men. I hung with deserters, thieves, forgers and violent offenders when they, unlike the folks with more to lose, invited me in. And I traveled way up-river in any number of places--off the maps, where concepts like streets and highways were hardly more than vague fantasies.

None of that ever happens any more, because I carry cash, plastic cards, and proper papers. I ride well-maintained machines, purchase insurance policies, and I research all up and down the internet. Little goes seriously wrong anymore, and when it does I've generally got an out.

The other key piece here is that I'm getting old, stiff, and fragile. For me, overland motorbiking was a means to continue adventurous traveling without most of the risks and discomfort of my backpacking prime. Riding a bike is first and foremost easy. But with comfort and convenience comes predictability and control. I can more or less know where I'll be from day to day, and I'm far less susceptible to the kinds of life-threatening glitches which used to provide me with the real adventures. It's like carrying a cell phone (or a tracking device or satellite communications), like studying up on the HUBB before leaving home--it sure is convenient, but that doesn't equate to rugged, resilient, or "adventure."

Standard caveat: The above is about me, not you. It may apply more broadly, or not. Mileage varies, sometimes notably.

Mark

Edit to add: I'm not entering the poll, which gives polarized choices--either this or that, but not in between. Life is a dialectical process, not a series of hard, categorical definitions.

I like to travel around on my bike but I have never tried long distance travelling. It doesn't feel safe but I also envy the people with the courage to roam the globe on their motorcycles. Who knows maybe one day if I buy a decent bike, I might take my wife on a long journey.

Cycling season is upon us, and while the U.S. may not be the most well-known biking destination, there are many places across the nation that are perfect for pedaling. For a cycling-centric weekend outdoor getaway to remember, pick one (or more) of these.

It's real simple, If you go and ride your bike, even if you have no where to go, just for the sheer fun of it, you're a biker. If you also travel on it, you are, a Biker who travels.

If you are someone who ravels overland using whatever method available, you are a traveler. If you decide that a bike is a good mode of transport, you are a traveler who rides a bike.

If you are both of the above, you are, like me, a Biker and a Traveler.

1. 81R80GS just because
2. 13DR650 for anywhere far ... and everywhere close ... Alaska YT and NWT (my home range)
3. 13Yamaha 250XT for single track and old age
4. 15R9T for the twisties and town
5. 10R1200RT for sweepers/iron butt on the hiway

Riding on four continents in the last 50 years makes me traveler who rides ... or a rider who travels. Can't imagine travel that doesn't include "a ride." If just one ride ... it's the DR650 ... and i don't own a harley ... so i can't be a biker (8->}

__________________
There is no path. You make the path as you ride.

I like to travel and prefer to do so by bike. But I only travel a few times a year, whereas I ride everyday. So I guess it'll be more accurate to say I'm a biker who travels.

Bikes I regularly used in the past 15 years (in order of longevity of use/distance covered):

1. XRV750 Africa Twin
2. XL1000V
3. CRF1000L Africa Twin (current - replaced the 750AT)
4. XT600 Tenere (x2 and x1 current)
5. 1100 GS
6. 955 Tiger
7. XR600R (current)
8. NXR350L
9. VFR800 (current)
10. XR650L
11. ZXR750-H2
12. FZR1000
13. 640 LC4
14. Super Tenere 1000
15. XT500
16. XLV600 Transalp (current)
17. 950 LC8
18. 990 LC8
19. XT550 (current)

__________________
Squily

Hmm, this is a hard question to answer. I started out traveling without a bike, but that very desire to explore is what drove me to see other means of transportation. Guess it happens that on a bike is my favorite mode of all... but I would have traveled without it anyway. Besides, I am still about to embark on that long journey... perhaps my answer will be different by then.

It has changed over the years.
Life is a journey with several phases.

1: I started as a biker. Fun tool to ride on gravel roads (illegal)

2: Than I bought a Moto Guzzi 850T. To become a traveller.
My girlfriend and I used it to discover" the world.
Trips in Sweden. Down to and around in France. And Norway-Finland.North cap. Very low budget. Cheap tent that was not waterproof, rain "suit" from a gas station. Hard life. But best time of my life. We were such a a tight couple. And did everything together.

3: Than I was drinking to much during some years to be neither. Only an active alcoholic.
But now sober since decades...

4:With work, family, kids: back to biker. Driving to and from office. And tours on Saturdays. "All in" biker. Full patch holder. Officer in MC, driving chopper. ...And I spent a lot of time restoring and building bikes. Maybe "builder" should be separate category.

5: Now back to traveller. I have no family, no work and life is in small scale. I have the time and possibility to discover the world. So now the bike is used as a tool to discover the world. The bike exposes you to the world, people, environment, culture... as almost nothing else. I am not interested to take the bike to major tourist attractions. and meet up with buses full of tourists. Nio, the bike is perfect to get behind the curtain. And see the real world.

6 But I still drive around from time to time on a 2-stroke or side valve bike.
Just for fan. So then I am a ??

Attached Thumbnails

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Know what you mean about rubbish tents and starvation level biking. This was one I used for a couple of years at the start of my 'travelling career' when it was all I could afford -



This was the last night of a trip back from Italy. Black and White so it's either 'arty' or a very long time ago.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU!!!!

Well, traveller in DNA, but freedom of motorcycle is something extraordinary, so special, so free, so awesome....

Not sure which answer is right, but all I know is that, biker or not I feel so caged, to the pain, not being able to travel.

Just hope and wish, that all is back to some sort of normal, that we can get out of cage, and spread the wings once again and travel free, on motorcycle or not but just go....


one love, people!!

Yes things have changed due to covid
I am normally out on my motorbikes 3/4 times a week . but due to lockdowns this has not been posable ..... but my saving grace is my new E bike which i ride 3/4 times a week near to me . Have done nearly 2.000 miles in 6 months and enjoyed it as much as my Motor bikes .

There seems to be two major reasons.

Some persons want to achieve something.
To ride from A to B, or ride the route... or.
And they will try to achive this by any means.
When done, the tick in the box is the end.
"I have driven from A to B. Or drive around... "


For others, the journey is the goal.
They travel becouse they want to see things, experience things, learn from other cultures and people. Collect memories.
And they have no urge to "achive" a certain driving.


What description fits you best ?