Two thoughts;

1. Places are special, but so are times. Best place I ever went was Berlin. Why so special? The wall came down the month before. No point putting that in a book of places, nice as modern Berlin is. There are people too.

2. Based on the above, would you like your favourite place to have a pay-and-display installed so the locals can still get to the shops and all those 15 bike parties from the GS Club/RAT/HOG/Etc. etc. can tick it off in their book?

I really, really prefer people to simply talk. Ask me about a trip, tell me you might be near part of it, then I'll tell you where a good place to eat could be.

Tip of the day (also in two parts):

1; Use water when available, melting snow wastes stove fuel.
2: Never use yellow snow



Andy

Point taken. Scrap that idea.

Keep having the ideas though. While I believe the whole bike travel book thing peaked somewhere between Ted Simon and Chris Scott, there has to be something that'll break the current combined checklist and Toratech catalogue thing, without getting into "what I did on my holidays".

Personally, I'm thinking forget the whole doing the trip idea. I'm going for a Flashman-esque novel about an ex-East German Porn star going RTW on an MZ 250 with his really special friends in tow! After the book I'll do the ride (to the places that'll still let me in).

Andy

"Adventure" is a relative word. An adventure to me may not be an adventure to you. Similarly, I see guys getting all excited and starting websites to chart their progress on a ten day, nine country saunter through Europe. Not an adventure to me but clearly, a big and significant undertaking for them and they're proud of it. Who am I to judge?

Whatever you want to label it is up to you. Being new to "adventure" riding, I found the book quite interesting. Some people's adventures will be a holiday to you. I greatly admire some of the exploits others get up to and aspire to it but I like to minimise some risk through planning and that obviously reduces the level of adventure. It remains, for me, an adventure. Ewan and Charley wannabe? Probably! I honestly don't care but it's frustrating to know that some of the people I admire on this site for their adventures, look down their noses at mine.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

[quote=Wildman;238501 Being new to "adventure" riding, I found the book quite interesting. Some people's adventures will be a holiday to you. ..... Ewan and Charley wannabe? .......it's frustrating to know that some of the people I admire on this site for their adventures, look down their noses at mine.[/quote]

I hope no one looks down on anyone. If they do it's their loss not yours.

You are spot on that an adventure is what you make it. What I struggle with is the formulaic nature. We all take the whatsit out of leather tassled dentists riding cruisers and the one piece power ranger suited sportsbike types with their Black and Deckered knee sliders, but there is a similar trend emerging in "adventure travel". I have no right to say three weeks in Normandy on a Goldwing isn't an adventure. If you've never done it before it could be, but of course I really wouldn't want to see the website if it did just turn out to be your first holiday in France. Take a C90 you bought from a Pizza delivery company the week before instead of the wing and go in January and it is an adventure. That website could be worth a look if written with the sort of humour and bodged repairs you might engage in.

What is true is that you don't need an R1200GS, tin box panniers, a GPS map of the Gobi and a laser cut sidestand thingy that doubles as a spare heliograph if you are going to the North Cape in May. I've been there and done that and was a Ewan and Charlie wannabee before Ewan and Charlie wanted to be. It therefore rather annoys me that writers are selling this copied image rather giving people real pointers towards real adventures. Back when I was doing this there was no general use internet, so information was really limited. We knew Norway had long dirt roads, we knew lots of Germans had done better with Tin boxes than Ted Simon did with with MOD packs and leather satchels. We bought the tin boxes.

If you are going to the Gobi, you read Chris Scotts book and talk to the big trip people on here. Gloss pictures don't help you.

Today, with the net you can link up with the people doing the get-as-far-as-you-can-in-three weeks stuff as well as the RTW trip of a lifetime ones. There is no need to base your guesses on German bike magazines faxed to you from your companys office and badly translated using a school dictionary. There are certainly better uses for the price of a sidestand/heliograph when you work for a living and only get those few weeks a year while you plan and hope for the chance at a really big trip.

Maybe that's the book that'll break the cycle? "100 three week motorcycle adventures that won't break the bank or cause a divorce". Lets have more C90's riding the alps and Harleys going to Moscow and fewer sidestand-Heliographs in Surrey.

Andy

There you go again, Andy!

I'm sorry if my nine day trip through the Pyrenees and on the Route des Grandes Alpes on my brand new GS with a few Touratech farkles harshes your cred as "real" adventurer. Want me to carry a sign saying, "It's really only a holiday"?

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

They help me, I find good glossy pictures rather inspiring.

I have no cred, so it's rather difficult to harsh it . Apologies if my choice of words wasn't as accurate as I'd have liked.

Your trip was an adventure because you'd never done it before or even if only because the weather was different this time, not because your GS has TT kit on it. The bike and kit is just what you prefer. You'd have had a different adventure on a Harley or Ural? Probably, because you'd have spoken to different people, but the rough details could have been the same.

Chris Scott devotes 2 chapters to bikes and equipment. Ted Simon about half a page. This book (and other like it) is a lot about shiney things and less about getting them dirty, which IMHO is where the adventure takes place. Shopping for things is not an adventure (although TT's delivery schedules sometimes made it seem that way!).

Andy