I'm curious why you say "rent a 250cc bike". I'm used to riding larger bikes, and so are my 3 boys. I think we would find it quite boring to go back to 250cc capacity bikes.

I know we won't be able to see an entire country in 4 weeks, that is not really the aim of of this trip... It's to have an amazing adventure with my sons. I've been to the Atacama once before and really love that. I think my sons will enjoy the desert riding and the incredible scenery. The idea is to go into Southern Bolivia for perhaps a week just to get a taste and a contrast.

BP

Thanks Mark, your response was very helpful. Yes, I have been searching through the forums, and I've been pulling out nuggets of useful information, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to get some dialog going as well.
BP

A generality of course, but 250’s and similar are cheaper to rent (and of course to buy), can be dropped without shedding expensive plastic, and can literally go anywhere you point it.

Unlike a T7 or equivalent.

Something to watch for is that if you do rent, some companies will have in the fine print that if you damage it you must pay for the lost rental time while it is repaired. A friend of mine got burnt big time in Japan when he dropped a CB350 and it took them six weeks to return it to fleet - not covered by the full insurance.

If it were me - I would buy four postie bikes here in oz, watch Ed on C90 adventures how to pack them into bags, and air freight them.
Those four would take up the same room as about 1.5 T7’s

Fix them anywhere, and have a blast.

IMO - it ain’t the bike its the adventure that matters. And if one falls off a cliff, or gets stolen - meh.




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Thanks Homers GSA, I will look at smaller bikes as well as mid-sized bikes, but a Postie bike won't cut it for me... That would be my idea of hell. A significant part of the adventure is going to be the fun of the ride, not just getting from A to B. We are going to try to do as much on dirt as we can.

Yeah its a mind stretch alright LOL.

I wonder what small Oz bikes could be dismantled to fit a small space?

Homers GSA

I'm going through the process of exploring EVERY option for procuring bikes.

1) Getting rental quotes for 4 bikes X 4 weeks
2) Getting shipping quotes to ship from Australia both ways
3) Exploring purchasing and selling bikes locally
and the longshot
4) Talking to a motorcycle vendor to see if they want to work with me.

My adventure videos on youtube get hundreds of thousands of views, so who knows, perhaps a bike manufacturer will sell me new bikes and then buy them back at an agreed value to get their brand featured.

BP

your # 1 x that out, you won't be able to cross borders with a rental
maybe with a company guide representing the company
#3 yes but you may have to give it away when your journey is over
#4 good luck on that one
one month is not enough time to do anything you may have for your agenda that you have posted
Unless money is no object
look up Motodreamer in Cali Colombia
Mike may be able to answer all your questions He's the Man

Ride what you want, but riding a locally available moto vs an exotic one gives you easy access to unexpected repair solutions. 125cc to 250cc motos are the rule in SA. If you want to ride only the PanAm, then bigger is probably better, but 250cc does fine on the parts of the PanAm where I've ridden. Even so, I've gone through bad sections on the PanAm during flooding conditions.

I've ridden 6 months on a 250cc moto in SA, and it has been just fine. The unplanned and unexpected happen, even on the main roads. Imagine crossing a river on a bridge that consists of two logs plus dirt between the logs; would you prefer a 250cc or 650cc moto? Much like this painting to cross a flooding river, but not as deep a canyon, but riding (too narrow to walk it) the moto. The main crossing was washed out and impassible to traffic. I avoided a 100 km backtrack and was not bored crossing that bridge:



Then there are these road sections, main roads or detours. Not too boring either:

Hmm, that is interesting, one of the rental companies I have contacted has said that I could go Chile, Bolivia, Argentina with their rentals.


Yes, it's a longshot, but you never know your luck... I can be persuasive :-)

OK, I'll drop him a note. Thanks

Thanks LD Hack. Yeah, I sure wouldnt' be riding any moto over tree bridges over a canyon like that. I might pull/push one over, but thats about it... and I agree that a 250 would be easier to manhandle than a bigger bike.

Lots of good food for thought.

And what prey tell would identify someone as being an “Aussie”?

We are the most mixed mongrel bred crew on earth.

53% of us have a parent who was born overseas.

28% are first generation.

21% are second generation.

Plus, we no one understands our English anyway, so that’s not a giveaway either.


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Hey Brentbat

Can you link to your YouTube channel. Lockdown needs some entertainment….


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It would be my pleasure... So my youtube channel is a blend of Adventure bike riding and Video production. I used to be a professional cameraman in my prior life.

But if you want to see some good adventure videos, then check out
the Idaho BDR that I rode in July


Or if you prefer to see me abusing my poor GS, then the Victorian High Country ride is probably up your alley

If you are into making motorcyle adventure videos, there is stacks of techy geeky content on the channel as well. Here is a link to the main channel.



Enjoy

you forgot to mention that OZ was a penal colony in the 1800s mostly full of irishmen
they were granted amestry because of some wheeler dealer politician and sailed to the Americas for the goldrush of 1849 San Francisco This was Mexican territory back then
now you know the rest of the story its funny how history repeats itsef

Sounds like you are researching all the bike options and will soon know more than most on that subject. I spent nearly a year in SA on my BMW R1200GSA (trip report here if interested). In the FWIW category, here are my thoughts on your proposed trip in general:

1. Ignore prior posts regarding people not liking people from where-ever. We (wife and I, from USA and on two bikes) rode with people from all over the world, including Australia, and never saw or heard of such. People everywhere were welcoming and friendly.

2. My guess is that for 4 weeks, renting is going to be your best option, curious what you find and finally decide upon. Someone mentioned inability to cross borders in that case - not sure about that, that does limit you somewhat, but see #3. Regarding the "buy" option; from what we saw second hand, is doable but can be dicey. Be careful and do your homework on that one.

3. But regarding borders: From my experience, I'd advise (as others) to concentrate on one country for four weeks. You can easily spend four weeks in Colombia (despite other comments - we spent over a month there and loved it), Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Argentina ... take your pick. If it were me, going back for four weeks after having done the longer trip, I would choose either Peru, for the Andes (NOT the coast!) and some amazing roads and sites, or Chile, where I'd start in Santiago and ride south and ride the Caratera Austral (Rt 17) all the way to Via O'Higgins. It is a bit of an out and back, especially from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins, but between Santiago and Puerto Mont you can take different routes there and back. That's about 3,000 miles total, and one could start further south - there are rental companies operating in or near Puerto Montt and cut that mileage in half.

4. Timing: Peru is close enough to the equator that it is a mostly a matter of wet and dry seasons - we were there from late August into October and it was pretty dry and wonderful. The perfect time for the Carretera Austral is Dec-Jan - early summer. The wildflowers are in full bloom. Wikipedia articles are pretty good about having a climatology section with average temperatures and rainfall by month - I used that, in addition to reading other trip reports, when planning our trip.

5. Which bike. I think you know this, but it depends on you and what you want. I was on a big BMW R1200GSA and the big beemers are pretty ubiquitous in southern Chile and Argentina, in particular, and the BMW F700/800 and R1200's seem to be the most common rentals. But if you are wanting to do hardcore off-road, then a smaller bike would be better; we became good friends with a couple of guys from Canada who were spending as much time off-road on the trip as possible, and they were happy on their DR-650's. KLR's were also prevalent. We road dirt when we had to, and we had to often enough, but we didn't seek it out. And we saw people doing the trip on Harley Davidsons and one couple from Argentina on a Chinese-brand cruiser.

Hope that is of some help - and just do it! You will be so glad you did.

Jim