UK > RTW Bike Suggestions
Hi everyone,
I'm planning a RTW trip starting in the spring from the UK, heading to Vladivostok via for a ferry to Japan, and then freighting the bike to cross North America starting on the west coast, perhaps as much as 20k miles total. I will be taking very few highways (mostly B roads), and doing some dirt and gravel, but nothing seriously gnarly or off road.
I'm looking for bike recommendations, nothing too huge and heavy, so 650cc and below.
My bike budget is about £3000, including some of the usual overland mods I might need to do, so this means I'll be having to buy a bike with a fair few miles on it. I'm not really worried about performance, just reliability. The problem is as I'm sure a lot of you know is many of the usual ADV / RTW bikes used in the rest of the world are really rare / have not been sold in the UK for ages.
Here are the ones I've come up with so far, unfortunately many / all of them are really rare and expensive in the UK now.
Suzuki DRZ400 (probably an S OR SM only since it has to be legal in the US)
Suzuki DR650 or DR650SE
Honda NX650 Dominator
Honda XR400
Honda XR650L
Suzuki Freewind XF650 (very rare)
BMW F650 Dakar (Reliable enough? Don't want to start any fights...)
Yamaha XT600E
What would you do with £3k for a RTW bike bought in the UK?
Thanks for any and all advice and help you can offer.
Cheers!
Mark
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