Newbie here and not sure if I am placing this trhead in the right place but if not, I apoligize in advance, I have been riding most f my life starting at age 14 , but have never undertaken such long trips as i see posted here,,Indeed my hats off to all of you that have the time and finances to do a RTW trip or even just a month or two in your home country, m short excursions have been limited to at the most 500 mi and never over a few days at the time.,,for me the most unusual thing I noticed was teh small size of the bikes used,,being from USA I have always been caught up in the bigger is better syndrome, I ride a honda vtx 1800 and have a kaw 750,,needless to say I am impressed by the size bikes I see used here,,makes me wonder why such big bikes here are so common,,,anyway just wanted to say hi and let all of you know I enjoy reading teh stories of your travels,,keep it safe, Rick

Hey Rick, and ! I think it's great that you question the "bigger is better" culture you're esconsed in. Check out this thread (it follows yours) http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...sh-to-go-39954
and enjoy the lunacy, he, he!

If you read my first post then you are aware that I have bitten into the bigger is better bug, let me give you a short story about that. I have been riding since I was 14, my first bike was a honda 150 dream, I have had several bikes since then, now having 2, the honda vtx 1800 and a kaw 750, well in all those years, I had been hardheaded and had never gotten my motorcycle endorsment on my drivers liscence, as luck would have it I had never been stopped, call it luck if you will,

well last year I took 2 weeks off to run down to a nearby bike rally only about 100 mi away, I was there for maybe 4 days,on the last morning before heading out to return home I ran into a roadblock,,,yep,,,I got a ticket for not having the motorcycle endorsment on my licence.

Afterwards I made my way home and early the next day I made my way to teh troopers office and got my endorsment. as luck would have it my wife and I were to go with another couple that night, we made our way to our friends house without problems,,only 3-4 blocks anyway,,but soon as we were loading up, I went to drive mt bike out of their yard to the roadway where it was level before loading my wife aboard,,thats where the fun began,,as I said earlier,,my bike is a monster and I am short legged guy to start with, I can reach teh ground easy enough but it is a job handling the big bike in close quarters.

I had to manuver my bike between a truck and a deep ditch over loose gravel,,for some reason I felt as if I were going to hit the truck so I swerved left a bit and in doing so I felt teh bike leaning too far towards the ditch, I put my short stubby leg down to keep my balance, but was too close to the ditch and down we went,,the 800 plus pound bike and my own 300 pounds. We fell app 6ft,,when I landed I felt a tremendous pain to my left hip area, the bike even though it did land on me did not harm me, the crash bars had done its job well, they were bent but they kepy the weight of the bike off of me, at first I could not move me left leg,,but after a few moments I was able to slide out from under the bike and sit up. My wife who (thank god) had not been on the bike yet called my oldest son and a few friends to help get the bike out of the ditch,,they also helped me to my feet,,I was able to stand and limp around with lots of pain, it was then I noticed my right shoulder hurting,,I could hardly move it , that concerned me far more than my hip.

I made a trip to the hospital to be checked out , just to be sure, it turned out my hip was just badly bruised, which I figured anyway, but after a MRI , it was determined I had a torn rotator cuff on my right shoulder. That was on 9-30-08, I am still out of work, but hopefully I will go back next month, the bike has been repaired good as new but I am not able to ride it at this point, though I hope to ride it again soon.

Point being is, had I been on a lighter bike perhaps I could have handled it better and not fallen, who knows, but I will always wonder, keep it safe gang, Rick