There seems to be a common assumption that home-made is by definition not as good as bought off the shelf and that comfort is a factor of having paid top-whack for an off the shelf piece of kit. This is not necessarily true.

IMHO a piece of kit made expertly by someone in their garage is likely to be much better than something made to profit/sales tolerances in a factory by someone who doesn't actually have to rely on that piece of kit for months on end.

For example - the powder coated steel rear rack and peli case top box that I made for my XT is IMHO, the best top box for my needs that I have ever seen by several country miles. I quite simply couldn't have bought something as good off t'internet. This is just one example - I bet anyone who makes their own kit could give plenty of similar examples.

Matt

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http://adventure-writing.blogspot.com

http://scotlandnepal.blogspot.com/

*Disclaimer* - I am not saying my bike is better than your bike. I am not saying my way is better than your way. I am not mocking your religion/politics/other belief system. When reading my post imagine me sitting behind a frothing pint of ale, smiling and offering you a bag of peanuts. This is the sentiment in which my post is made. Please accept it as such!

This is a sentiment I can understand, but DIY on kit is great if you have the time or skills. Sometimes though, and especially where you have neither, you have to accept that you're going to have to pay to get your bike and yourself ready. I work long hours in the hope that in two years time I can do my own trip. I've never been much good at making stuff, and as I'm now into my 50s, I'd be surprised if that changed overnight In the meantime I can only plod away at getting both of us ready.

When does one become an adventure traveller/motorcyclist? What are the qualifications?

A few weeks ago I set out from Newcastle upon Tyne and rode 1045 miles over 6 days. It wasn't that far in terms of riders on this Forum, the duration of my trip wasn't that long either, and I didn't even get out of the country. However, for me, who until then only gone on weekend trips to one place and returned, it was the first time I went self sufficient for an "indeterminate time" (I could have stayed away longer were it not for work), I moved at least 100 miles almost every day, I stopped en-route for some of my meals, and spent at least one night under canvas, having taken all that I would need to have camped for a few weeks.

I accept that in terms used by many on this forum, it was peanuts, but, it was a great adventure to me, and has given me some good lessons for when I make my own big trip. And if I really want to cheer myself up I just remember that in those 6 days, and with my trip estimated to take one year, so I spent one 50th of that on the road, and I rode about one 50th of my target mileage

Nicely said. Adventure is a bar set by the individual, not by society.

Before anyone gets cocksure about who does and who doesn't qualify as 'adventurous', they should remember there's very few of us who have done anything that plenty of people haven't done before. And there will always be people who make us look like lightweights!

See:

Fridtjof Nansen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

__________________
http://adventure-writing.blogspot.com

http://scotlandnepal.blogspot.com/

*Disclaimer* - I am not saying my bike is better than your bike. I am not saying my way is better than your way. I am not mocking your religion/politics/other belief system. When reading my post imagine me sitting behind a frothing pint of ale, smiling and offering you a bag of peanuts. This is the sentiment in which my post is made. Please accept it as such!

Well, what a fantastic range of responses here!
Have read hardly anything I'd disagree with, and don't really know where to turn now.

Other than, yes, for Africa, I did FAR too much planning and preparation and took TOO much stuff.
I don't think I'd ever do a 'package organised' tour, but think myself a bit lucky that I had a career as an engineer, so feel no need of such a package. Others may not find themselves in that situation and need an 'escort' or 'backup'. But so what?

On that African trip I did a lot of 'people watching' (it was a slow trip compared to many I read about here). And I found, wherever you go on an 'adventure journey', you meet lots of ordinary local people who are also doing journeys, along the same roads and routes that you are travelling. And to them, it's all workaday routine, how they earn their livelihood. Many of them use simple small motorbikes, Chinese or Japanese, or bicycles, and carry more on them than you'd ever see a car carrying in the west.

So after about 9 months, with another 4 to go, I slowly came to the conclusion, this isn't an adventure at all. I was just mimicking, albeit for longer distances, what many local people do in the places I was travelling through.
But I had much greater freedom than them. I could stop as and when I pleased, go different places as I pleased, buy daily stuff in stalls and shops without worrying if I could afford it. Really, it was the ordinary African people I was meeting who were having the adventure in their lives, not me. I was just travelling, as slowly as I could, through their lands, experiencing through meeting them what an adventure it was to live their everyday lives in these places. Just an observer.

That's the conclusion I'm slowly coming to, although I'm still trying to work out what it really all means.
That is, to experience the adventure that people outside of 'the west' have in their lives, while I ride through, on 21st century machinery, with space-age tent, too many spares, being able to afford as much petrol, food and water as I could possibly want, and a piece of paper that flies me straight out if I fall to some tricky local disease.

Yes, I'll add to that, Cherry-Garrard's "The Worst Journey In The World", which I read in my 20s. (Still in paperback). It left me realising that for ordinary folk like me, the best we can probably do, is go "adventure chasing", in whatever way, and enjoy all it has to offer!

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

For those asking "What's Adventure Motorcyling" how about some possibly twisted logic?

When I go on my holidays I go on my bike/outfit. I say "No I can't go to X on Y, I'm on holiday". When people ask me where I'm going and it used to be East Germany on an MZ, Morocco on the BMW, Nordcapp in the snow, the responses that didn't include the phrase "****ing stupid" would often claim this was "adventurous". I am a total coward and don't do anything that doesn't involve a G&T at the end of the day and a proper breakfast, so this response sort of went over my head. When I turned up at the ferry there would be blokes on sportsbikes going to the GP at Assen, people on Wings going to the Italian lakes for a month, Harleys going to a BBQ in Calais and so forth. The fact we all had luggage made it touring in the terminology of the day.

Given that work, cash family and so forth allow I'll still chuck luggage on my bike, take a couple of weeks holiday and ride as far as I want. I really don't see what's changed. I take a Motorcycle Touring Holiday. If I win the lottery I'll take a really long motorcycle tour. The fact that when I hit sand I carry on while fellow tourers on their Goldwings maybe turn back I guess does make a difference, but we each go to our comfort zones limit.

I think the term Adventure Motorcyling is Chris Scotts doing. The title got people like me to buy the book (and learn a lot) because we expected something more than a list of B&B's in the Black Forest.

It's been changed though. Adventure Motorcycle has become a class of bike like Sportsbike and Cruiser. You won't win the TT on a showroom Honda Fireplace. You'll get laughed at if you enter your 2011 Custom Dyna Badboy Glide in a show and probably thumped if you think you bought the right to call Hells Angels "bro" or something. Likewise we have all these BMW's and KTM's that never go further than a coffee shop claiming the Adventure Rider "class" because they are not sportsbikes or cruisers or mega tourers. If your accountant loves his Wideglide and the kid who sells you your mobile phone wants to dress like Rossi, that's up to them, it's their life to enjoy, I'm not having a go. The Adventure riders are still new.

I think it'll pass over. Racers race race bikes not sportsbikes. Custom builders customise into low riders and street fighters not factory cruisers. Once our phenomena has sorted itself out, I guess the Adventure riders will be happy with their plastic yet silver square boxes and the long distance motor cycle riders will still be kicking about on ex-army rucksack festooned C90's, ten year old Tenere's, Enfields and a thousand other odd and very personal bits of machinery, including the odd tin-boxed GS.

Andy

Very interesting, and very true I think.

My own tale related (a little bit) to this:
When I decided to go on my trip to Mongolia, I was entranced by the thought of travelling through Russia and Kazakhstan et al. How exotic, how adventurous. Some time later and I'm now married to a Russian who grew up in Kazakhstan, and the thought that simply travelling through Russia or Kazakhstan is 'oh so adventurous' now seems laughable.


We noticed that people who travel tend often to show a distorted view of the places they've visited, in their blogs, photos and tales to friends. Making them seem more exotic, more dangerous, more adventurous than they really are And also simply 'more different' to our western way of life than is the reality. Noticed this loads. Even the revered Austin Vince is/was terribly guilty of this in his dvds.

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UK to Mongolia 2009, on a DR350

I can't say I've noticed this but I would add the following two observations:
1. Places become less 'hostile' as you get to know them better
2. I heard an inspirational story last year at Enniskillen (Ireland meeting -sorry can't remember his name) where the guy was travelling alone through Morocco and felt fearful of the locals in the small villages he passed through because they had a menacing look about them. As he travelled on he remembered being told that "you get what you project" and so changed his attitude and noticed a totally different reaction from the locals in the next town. He further observed that as he was chatting merrily with them they stopped talking when more travellers were passing through and had the same hard looks that he found intimidating initially.

I guess my point is that your reaction, and consequently your experience, is subjective and depends on a whole raft of factors -lots of which are within your control -if you are aware of them.

We in the USA get a week or 2 off per year. No time fore nice long trips. And the USA is big and in Canada and Mexico and you are looking a huge area to ride in.

As far as DIY it is alive and well as seen with rtwdoug a basket case bike and a old bag used for RTW.

As for me much of the time a DIY job is not worth time or money, cheaper and faster to go to a store and pay for it. But I have had my share of little DIY for moto trips. But my next bike I am working on is a old oil burning 1978 Yamaha dt125.

That was my thoughts Matt while reading through this thread; for another example anyone could do a lot worse than read "a short walk in the Hindu Kush" by Eric Newby (it is not just about walking).

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Dave