Some real benefits there. Getting an airhead BMW in and out of hotel rooms was always testing!

Yes, sorry about that should have looked before posting

I agree re 1200s and 800s having less height between the pegs and the seat, this is probably due to trying to get the seat height as low as possible to suit a larger number of people.

I use handlebar raisers to avoid back problems but mainly because my knees aren't what they were.

For serious off road travel a 650 is probably the best compromise weight versus usability on the road.

570 cc in a package weighing the same or less than many 250s is a good option but I'm sure there's a downside.

Anyone here done a 20,000km + trip on a 250cc or less?

Two years ago I rode 11,000 miles to Panama and back on a 250. I'm not good at kilometer math but I think that's close.

I post on these threads more to give encouragement to young folks reading along who think you need a pile of money to travel around the world and meet nice people.
If someone like me with limited funds who isn't too sharp on the uptake can do it, anyone can.

Don't get me wrong. I don't care what other people ride. Not everyone likes riding around on a motorized mountain bike. I'm old and poor and it brings a smile to my face. Cheap to buy, cheap to run, bulletproof motor and it goes 65. Ticks all the boxes for me.

If more young people were encouraged to travel and experience different cultures I believe the world would be a better place.

Cheers,
John Downs

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South America and back on a 250 Super Sherpa Minimalist Adventure http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=831076

If you search you'll find many folks here have. Just off the top of my head:

From Chile to Texas on a Small Motorcycle | Ondrej Jurik 30,000 KM on a CG125 from Chile to Texas.

73-year-old Simon Gandolfi rides through South America | Travel | The Guardian Simon Gandolfi rode from Veracruz to Tierra del Fuego and back north to New York on a Honda 125.

http://www.honda50.cc/ Two Danes ride a pair of Cub 100s from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

http://www.thepostman.org.uk/ The 'Postman' from Australia who rode 35,000 KM on a C110 postie bike from Australia to the UK overland.

Is a sub-250 the ideal bike for a long distance tour? Maybe not, but there are people travelling around the world on bicycles, so why not a small motorcycle?

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Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250

Don't forget purchase price and insurance cost while in the west.

If I could go back 20 years and take the knowledge of how to travel light and on a 5 year old 90-590 cc bike with me I wouldn't be posting this from Leeds. Cash is better spent on petrol and ferries and not minding where the boss shoves his job , not at the bike dealers or shiney panniers catalogue.

Andy

Yes but nothing that doesnt seem work-aroundable ... with the exception that you are never going to be able to bolt 3 huge metal boxes to the back of it - if thats a downside

A good one was EdteamSLR on this forum ... whose previous trip was down Africa on an Africa Twin, then got the weight issue, and switched to a Yamaha WR250R for a 3 month ride from London to Magadan via Mongolia last year, including parts of the BAM Road and Road of Bones. The bike, from memory, had zero problems.

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I think it depends on the countries you travel through, crossing into Thailand from Cambodia and suddenly you can feel under dressed on a 110cc honda, Similarly a 350 Enfield in India can be too fast if you forget where you are.
I prefer small, but if my travels included a large range of countries, up goes the ccs'

For me big starts with the Yamaha XT660 Tenere ,probably more because of its design more than its cubic capacity. It seems to be the first of the adventure bikes, something capable of being both comfortable on the long roads of Europe and capable on the gravel tracks of Africa while still carrying all the gear needed for roughing it in the wilds of Siberia.

Almost everything under that doesn't have the all round capabilities. Its either a trail bike with a seat ill-suited to long hours of tarmac, a road bike built for the abuses of the city (and probably the learner riding it) or a work bike be it delivering pizzas round London or post round Sydney. All-purpose adventure bikes, baby GSes are rare as hens's teeth so it's no wonder that most people ride bigger bikes, there are fewer compromises to make, there are more accessories readily available. There are a few tiny engined all rounders (date I say Derbi Terra Adventure one more time on this forum) but they're almost unknown to the majority of riders and below the radar of the bike media. So a lot of us buy into the dream offered by the manufacturers, big bike, big panniers, big adventure.

Riding small means thinking differently from what we're offered in the Western world. I can't help but wonder if there's a connection between the fact that many of the small engined adventurers listed above bought their bikes in the developing world and their bike choice, and that many of them weren't bikers, seeing the bike as a tool for independent transport, not something to be accessorised, researched, blinged. They bought what was on offer and rode into the unknown.

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[QUOTE=Alexlebrit;375221Riding small means thinking differently from what we're offered in the Western world. I can't help but wonder if there's a connection between the fact that many of the small engined adventurers listed above bought their bikes in the developing world and their bike choice, and that many of them weren't bikers, seeing the bike as a tool for independent transport, not something to be accessorised, researched, blinged. They bought what was on offer and rode into the unknown.[/QUOTE]



Very good point made here, Nathan(postie) was and still is pretty young, but reading Simon Gandolphi's book I got the distinct impression that he was not a biker.

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'He who laughs last, was too slow to get the joke'
Never confuse the map with the journey.

Is there any common theme uniting people who like to explore the world and the types of transport they choose?

Perhaps. And yes, necessity is the mother of invention.

Before I had a motorcycle I relied on bicycles. I wanted to go to Canada so rode with some mates up to Banff and across British Columbia and down the west coast. It was all we could afford and the only transportation we had. Pumping pedals for thousands of miles got old.

The next summer I tried hitchhiking. It meant standing on the side of the road for hours and going up to Canada, down to the Rainbow festival in Colorado, over to Arizona with some hip folks who got me a job for two weeks so I could afford a train down to Mexico. It was fun, but I went where the rides took me and ended up losing all my pesos and using the return train ticket to get back to the border and hitchhiking home with no money.

The next summer I hitch hiked to the east coast and back. Met some really nice people but there were too many sketchy rides.

And then I bought a motorcycle. It was all I could afford. And that started my love affair with riding. It never occurred to me to ride it around the world. Instead I decided to sell everything I owned and travel around the world with a backpack. It seemed daring at the time. Planes, trains, buses, donkey carts, tuk-tuks, taxis, hiking. I started out with a large backpack full of stuff and came back the next year with a small day pack with a toothbrush and the knowledge that less is more. Along the way I rented small motorcycles in Thailand and India and learned how perfect they are in the third world.

But I ended up buying bigger motorcycles when I got home. That was what people were riding. After a few more Hondas I fell in love with air cooled BMW's. I soon was riding to Alaska and down to Guatemala. But those poor bikes took quite a beating slamming over thousands of topes with a load on the back. And blown shocks, cracked sub-frames, etc were expensive to repair. And then sites like this sprung up and I read stories of folks eschewing big bikes and large loads.

So I flew down to Costa Rica and rented a Honda 250 Tornado for two weeks and rode around. What a hoot! Easy on the expensive gas down there. Able to ride the trails up into the cloud forest no problem. Now you're talking! I bought an XR250 when I got it home and rode it to the BMW rally. People thought I was nuts. And bought another 250 Kawasaki and rode it 1600 miles out to Nebraska. Cheap to buy, cheap to insure, cheap to fix. I still have my BMWs. I just don't ride them. If I had the money to buy a new travel bike, it would be a WR250R.

Which is what has brought me to small minimalist travel on a dirtbike. It meant eliminating the excess load like I did while backpacking around the world and cutting my gear to a minimum.

I am writing this more as encouragement to those who can think laterally and avoid the decades it took me to realize there are many ways to solve the problem of traveling with limited funds in third world countries.

Happy trails,
John Downs

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South America and back on a 250 Super Sherpa Minimalist Adventure http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=831076

+ cheaper on all of the paperwork, such as insurance costs and the Carnet de Passage (should the latter be required).
Basically, cheaper running costs all round.

+ by travelling more slowly, one tends to meet more people; conversely, a faster bike gets there faster and the journey is over, faster.

Near enough!


Yes, +1, every riding report I have seen about the WR250R is very positive about the bike and its' performance/durability/reliability.

+1. Simon G comes across, very much, as a traveller and professional book author who happened upon a bike (125cc) as a means of writing about travel in South America.
Nothing wrong with that; those coming to something for the first time can "see the wood from the trees" and can bring a totally new perspective from those who were weaned on bikes.
- perspective makes a difference.

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Dave

To me thats another misconception ... in places like Tajikistan or Mongolia, or Bolivia, a 650 single is going to be a lot faster than a 1200. Like doing 120-140 km/h while a 1200 does 70-100.

In places like the Old Summer Road or the BAM Road in Siberia, the 1200 with its smaller wheels and much higher weight is basically unrideable ... the 650 is therefore infinitely faster.

I cant think of anywhere I have ridden in the past 100,000 km or so where an 800 or 1200 would have been faster, apart from the autobahns of Europe .. and even then, how much faster? I had a 1200 a few years back and my comfortable autobahn cruising speed was about 85-90 mph on the gps ... on my 650 its 80 mph on the GPS. So there is 5-10 mph speed advantage on 5 % of the journey. And a huge speed penalty for 50% of the journey. So for my routes, a big bike is a speed negative.

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I've done about half my travels on a BMW 1200 (two up) and the rest on a Honda Transalp 600 (mostly solo). I would take the 600 just about everytime because of the roads I like to ride (two lane mountain passes some gravel). The 1200's are great for places where you have a long way to go between stopovers...if you're in Canada or the US, you have to spend a lot of time on the Interstates or Trans-Canada so the bigger bike is excellent for that...you don't get overtaken by trucks etc. and the bike is more stable in wind and traffic gusts. The 600 can go all day forever and you just change the countershaft sprocket if you want to get a decent speed in the powerband.
The lighter bikes are real easy to maintain and easy on tires too! I have done a bit of touring on 125's in the Caribbean. (Martinique especially) And that is the way to go down there! Real easy to get around at the speed limit and you can turn around quickly when hitting a dead end or something. Also, easier to hide in the bush when leaving them behind for a hike. South East Asia is also way better on a 125 - 250....no one gives you a second glance so you get around better under the radar than with a big flashy bike.

Well me and Nadsicles are just about to bugger off from London to China on 110 scooters, riding via Russia, The Stans (and the Pamirs of course) and Mongolia. We've both done the big bike thing in Europe and the UK, but also recently ridden C90s down through Africa to The Gambia. It was all fine - and the one huge thing that we both noticed was that apart from the various differences already commented on here re big bike/little bike was how people approached us because we were on bikes that we just like theirs. We not only fitted in, but locals the whole way loved the fact that we were riding so far on such unsuitable machines. Great conversation starter, great way to meet people and get invited to places we would never have otherwise seen, no problems at all with traffic either - which also seemed to find it amusing so slowed down, let us pass, escorted us etc, and they also flew on motorways through the UK, Spain and Morocco. And cheap too -fuel and oil was next to nothing, ditto spares, and we rode them everywhere - up goat tracks, along riverbeds, over ruts, across the desert, across mountains, through deep sand, through thickets, up very steep hillsides and those bikes never let us down once. Fell off a few times, but they were easy to pick up because tehy were so small. Easy!