Which bike?
This subject/conversation always facinates me, How much time do you have available to tour? Is a smaller bike more managable offroad for you? Is the shipping costs better for a small bike?, small, often but NOT always means cheaper to purchase/run. I use a BMW R80gs but would definately consider doing a trip on something smaller, The BMW is certainly not my idea of a great offroad managable bike but I ride in the knowledge that it is pretty straight forward to fix if need be. The UK has many good spares dealers both for new and secondhand parts that could ship to you. And as for taking spares and 'mountains' of tools...why bother? In the long run a mobile phone/access to the internet/credit card get you out of 99.99% of situations.
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