Hello from Yorkshire, England!
 

Hello HUBB Gang!

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John here, from sunny Yorkshire in England. I'm excited about joining the forum. I've come across a fair few posts over the years while searching for other things, and I've already found a lot of inspiration here. I'm looking forward to seeing more of what everyone's up to.

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I'm fairly new to motorbiking. A friend and I did our full motorbike tests at the end of last year after a summer of riding little 125cc machines. We did some camping on the 125's and carried over our enthusiasm to our bigger bikes. We've since done a little bit of touring and camping here in the UK including a little mini tour around Yorkshire, and also a 2100 mile UK and Ireland Tour, which was wet but great fun!

The motorbike bug has really bitten hard and I've found a love for all kinds of bike. My 'big' bike is an old Kawasaki GT750 which coped with the UK and Ireland Tour without any problems. The bike only cost me £1000 and the 'luggage' was £35 all told. The fact that this setup got me all around the country just fine made me realise that you don't need expensive bikes and gear to travel.

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I also have a little Suzuki Address 110, which I bought for getting to work and around town. As it happens I've fallen in love with the thing. It's a brilliant little scooter. It's taken me on loads of daytrips and a few overnight camping trips this summer. I have a vague notion that I'd like to have a little tour on it perhaps next spring or summer.

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I've still got a massive soft spot for small capacity bikes. I enjoy riding them every bit as much as the bigger stuff. I've seen and read plenty of books and articles of people touring the world or their countries on small machines. So to that end, I've set myself the challenge of building a £500 'adventure bike'. So that's the bike, the mods, any work and parts required, and an MOT for a target budget of £500!

With such a low budget it's a big ask I think, but that's all part of the fun. I recently managed to pick up a 'spares/repairs' Honda CG125 for £300, and I've already started stripping it down. Work is going well so far, and it might JUST be possible to come in within the budget, but we'll see. Either way, I'm having fun with the project. Here she is on the day I picked her up last week.

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I'm hoping in the future to venture further afield and do something more akin to real motorbike travelling, but in the meantime I'm happy to get out there closer to home and explore what the UK has to offer.

My buddy and I have a little Youtube channel where we put all our tinkerings and tourings. The £500 adventure bike and all the rest is up on there if anyone's interested.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClx..._as=subscriber

Cheers all! Have a good one :thumbup1:

Ey up lad. Good pictures tha noz.

Andy

Ey Up Andy Lad. Cheers for the welcome! West Yorkshire eh? Where abouts?

[QUOTE=Strife_on_two_wheels;590343 My 'big' bike is an old Kawasaki GT750 which coped with the UK and Ireland Tour without any problems. The bike only cost me £1000 and the 'luggage' was £35 all told. The fact that this setup got me all around the country just fine made me realise that you don't need expensive bikes and gear to travel.

I've still got a massive soft spot for small capacity bikes. I enjoy riding them every bit as much as the bigger stuff. I've seen and read plenty of books and articles of people touring the world or their countries on small machines. So to that end, I've set myself the challenge of building a £500 'adventure bike'. So that's the bike, the mods, any work and parts required, and an MOT for a target budget of £500!

With such a low budget it's a big ask I think, but that's all part of the fun. I recently managed to pick up a 'spares/repairs' Honda CG125 for £300, and I've already started stripping it down. Work is going well so far, and it might JUST be possible to come in within the budget, but we'll see. [/QUOTE]

£35 luggage - luxury! :rofl:

We started with two cardboard ex army suitcases, a groundsheet and a borrowed washing line. This is the nearest picture I have to what it looked like -
(riding over the Brenner Pass in Austria)

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The system even got an upgrade to 'external storage' the following year:
(en route to Rome)

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(Yes, it was a looong time ago! They were new bikes back then)

These days you can get some really good cheap soft luggage from people like Lomo, or if you're not brand sensitive and keep your eye out, from Aldi / Lidl

The blue bag in this picture was £9.95 from Lidl. The tank bag was about the same price but from Aldi -

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Totally waterproof - something you really do need if you live in Yorkshire :rofl::rofl::rofl:

As you can see not a lot has changed in many decades other than upgrading the washing line to a few bungees. :rofl:

Re smaller bikes, you may have read the ongoing threads about their touring merits littering the pages here. There's a few of us here who enjoy the challenge.

And finally something I should have started with - welcome to the HUBB

Appen as tha can go anywhere on any bike if it's on tarmac. There are people who have gone round the world on step-thrus and Fireblades, though more suitable bikes are available. You sure don't need a top of the range Beemer with Touratechs and a new mortgage to tour.

If you start getting out into t'wilds then some offroad ability (for you and the bike) is beneficial, but FFS don't ask "what's the best RTW bike" because with 22,000 members on here you'll get 22,000 different opinions :scooter:

This is a great forum for picking up knowledge and listening to great stories. The big thing is making your own memories :welcome:

:welcome: mate and thx for sharing

Wayne

Thanks for the welcome everyone!

What amazing photographs. I love it! That's definitely the kind of travel I aspire to. I really don't feel like it takes much gear to have an adventure, though it's funny that you mentioned the Lomo rollbag and Aldi tank bag, because I already have both of those things. I used them pottering around the UK this summer and they were great. Like you, I think I enjoy the challenge of making things harder than they perhaps need to be. I think travel is about discovering yourself as much as any destination, and self discovery usually happens the hard way :thumbup1:

Totally agree with you Tomkat. I'm not bothered about finding the perfect bike. It's not about that for me. I'm happy enough to go anywhere on anything, though admittedly I'm not heading off RTW any time soon! I reckon the CG125 would be as good a bike to do it on as any though.

Thanks again for the welcome gang. Hopefully catch you around the forum! :thumbup1: