Is This Doable?

[doctorleggs]

Hi all,

First time posting on this community; from what I've seen of the website so far it seems to be the best place to ask. I'm 17 years old on the East Coast of the USA, and I'm planning a gap year trip across Eurasia next year before I head off to college. When I first cooked up the plan for the trip I was thinking I'd do it entirely via trains, buses, hitchhiking and solo trekking: my general route plan was to start from Western Europe (Portugal? Gibraltar?), through Central Europe into the Balkans, through Ukraine or Turkey into the Caucasus, to Kazakhstan and all of the Central Asian countries, into Northwest China to Mongolia, through Mongolia to Siberia, out east to the coast of Russia and then down south through China and Indochina to end up in Singapore.

My initial plan has been to allot myself 8-10 months for this trip, given my proposed travel methodology. But over lunch with a friend the other day, I began to consider the idea of doing this trip on a motorcycle! There are obviously a whole different host of stipulations doing the trip on a bike, but overall it seems to me that it would be cheaper and allow me a much greater degree of freedom on the trip; both of which greatly appeal to me.

So! My question to you all; is this a feasible way of doing the trip? I have no experience whatsoever with motorcycles. Never ridden, never maintained, anything like that. The earliest I would leave for this trip would probably be next September or October. Would I be able to generally stick to this route on a motorcycle? Is it worth the time that I have and the money it would require to learn how to ride one and take the trip that way? I'm not wedded to any specific ways of doing this trip yet, but cycling it seems like it would have a huge range of benefits. Let me know what you think; any advice is appreciated.

Thanks!