Hello!

[ardler_dan]

Hi,

I found your site whilst looking around the net and have been lurking for some time now. I'm really sold on the idea of doing some traveling next year... maybe never to return home!

I'm a 20 year old, self employed auto electrician, I've got a full UK car and bike license (un-restricted) and have had a couple of bikes. I fancy traveling on a bike and really like the look of italy, turkey, north africa (libya) but also the more eastern places like kazakhstan, mongolia etc, eastern china etc.

I plan to sell off the business in may next year and hopefully release a bit of equity to do some traveling whilst still young. As much as I'd love to battle my way across the worlds most demanding surfaces, the reality is that I will probably stay to paved roads, with a little offroading and even then not heavy. Say something like a 80/20 split between the two. Of course, if I can take a small winding back road instead of a motorway I will...

I'll probably be traveling two up for part of my travels and as such have no idea where to look for a bike.

Originally I was looking at the DRZ400, but then I thought somethign like a XT660, then I ended up looking bigger still. I then thought about the pillion riding and the mix of roads/off road... The BMW GS range fell to mind, but I'm a little wary of them not matter how good charlie and ewan made them look.

I hope you guys can lend me a small amount of your knowledge for my trip and that I can help you out with my electrical knowledge. Safe riding everyone, keep it rubber side down.