Can't quite match losing a RTW bike shortly before the off but many years ago I spent 12 months building a bike specifically to do the Elephant rally to have it stolen the first time I tried it in the snow - about three weeks before we were leaving.
I had a friend at the time who used to dabble in buying / selling bikes and he lent me a small Suzuki trail bike that he was having trouble selling. It did the 1500 mile round trip more or less trouble free (although the little ends didn't sound too wonderful at the end). He sold it at a good profit within a week or so though as "it must be reliable, its just been to Germany and back".
My abiding memory of that trip is being boxed in by 4 38 ton trucks - front, rear and both sides when two motorways came together near Frankfurt. It was dark and raining with awful visibility / spray and the little Suzuki (on knobbly tyres) was just about flat out keeping in the middle of the box. Until the trucks moved there was no way out. I started looking skyward (maybe seeking divine assistance - I forget!) to see a 747 come over the top at a few hundred feet on approach to Frankfurt airport.
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