Adventure touring is all the rage.
 

Not quite do-it-yourself, but there may be a nugget of information here.

Budget Adventure Touring - webBikeWorld

Very interesting link HOWEVER -

A 2009 model DR650 isn't my idea of dirt cheap.

An even cheaper (and more bulletproof) method of adventure transport is the venerable Yamaha XT600E. It's still possible to source mint examples for around £1,500 in the UK. The makers Yamaha finally hit the stop button in 2003 after the EU dictated that carb bikes were not green enough...

From what I remember the DR series of bikes (apart from the excellent DR350) were a little fragile (compared to other similar Jap steeds). I used to ride an old DR650 and it was never as useful as the XT's.

The best DR ever made was the superb little DR350. Now hard to find as most have been ridden to destruction.

With respect $5,500 isn't exactly cheap. My mint XT600E (1999) will do everything the DR will do for a third of the price. If I were selling it (which I'm not) I'd be lucky to get £1,600 for it. Remember it's hardly run in (5,000 miles).

Sorry I'd alsp rate a XR650 and KLR650 before a DR everytime.

But I'm sure you know differently.....:(

Helmet on.

People love the 'venerable XT600 here, but the 'ideal' adventure bike is a very very personal matter, as are prices and what you would do with someone elses budegt!

For that amount I would get:
1) A 1985 Elefant 650 with a shot engine - £250
2) A mid 1990's 750 monster engine from ebay - £500 (take off the heads, cylinders, pistons)
3) Engine bearings, gaskets, piston rings, belts etc - £400
4) Rear shock rebuild for the amazingly high-spec Ohlins £250
5) New fork internals £80
6) Some red oxide primer - £20
7) New tyres - £180
8) A wiring loom from 'something japanese' from a breakers - £25
9) bits and bobs £100

Hey presto - £1795 and you have a bike that weighs sub 190kg, has about 80 bhp at the wheel, a kickstart great frame and superb suspension. It's my dream travel bike. Would I recommend it? Not even to my worst enemy! (partly so they don't buy the parts I need, partly because the list above doesn't mention the 200+ hours of labour involved)

For what it is I reckon the DR looks pretty damn good, I'd have one over the KLR any day and maybe over the XT :)
The XT is a very very popular travel bike, but 'magnolia' is a very very popular colour for painting the living room!

The XT is a good bike but not available in N America ,which [from the photos ] appears to be where the writer of the WBW article is from .
So the main choices for a thumper would be KLR ,KTM ,BMW or DR .
They are relatively cheap compared to the BMW 800 AND Triumph 800 and just a couple of thou less than a WeeStrom .
So for somebody not wanting to indulge in an old bike rebuild the DR is just the job .
Kudos to webbikeworld for picking a non mainstream bike and running a series of articles on it .There will be many folks who will learn a lot from this and decide to give "adventure" motorcycling a try .

Wow, I have the XT of living rooms. That is so cool...

:)

So would a KLR be beige ?

Yeah its a personal thing and everyone has a different view on what 'budget' means to them.

funnily enough as per the article I bought a lightly used 2009 DR650 with 7000 kms on the clock last year for $5000 CAD or £3180.

I got a nearly brand new bike for twice the price of a 10 year old Yamaha and after putting another few grand into it, completely new suspension, better seat, 30 litre tank, better electrics, panniers and some engine protection I ended up with what is FOR ME the best overlander around.

Id still call this a budget overlander, I looked at used V Stroms and Honda XR650s, KTMs and used BMWs which would have cost me a lot more money.

The DR has lots of gear available to turn it into a great bike, for less than half the price of buying a new BMW 800 for $14000 + cost of panniers etc.

In stock trim the Yamaha Honda and maybe the KLR are better bikes, Ive had a Yam TTR, Honda XR400, KTM 640 and a mid ninties DR650 before - the DR suspension is made of jelly, its got a tiny tank and the stock seat should be burned its so bad.

I wouldnt call it fragile though, the later DR's have a much stronger frame, Ive been off it at 70 mph, (ish;)) it cartwheeled and I managed to fix it up for a few hundred bucks, its also been nearly driven over by a pick up truck in Colombia, cost to repair, under a hundered bucks in parts, its been dropped a good few times, been banged around on its side on a Bolivian train and ridden around South/North America 2up for 22,000 kms.

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/z...0/P1070782.jpg

Outstanding quote !

Yes the idea of adventure touring on a "budget" is as vague as a piece of string is long. Any motorcycle travel is budget compared to the car guys. Talk to guy who spend 50-70,000 pounds prepping their landrover for a return trip to Mongolia and you realise that a 1200 GSA with the touratech catalogue thrown at it is absolutely budget adventuring in the eyes of the 4 wheeled crowd.

I personally dont get the obsession with doing it dirt cheap. Sure you can spend less, save money on suspension, but then you end up with a less competent bike. You wont get the thrill of hooting across Mongolia at full throttle. To me, the idea of touring on a lesser prepped bike isnt anywhere near as appealing anymore. I have done it before. You do it because you have to, not because its virtuous.

I can understand if you are almost skint and the only way to do a big trip is to do it cheap, but I can say, as someone who has done a lot of touring on the cheap (on a non prepped bike) and doing with a well prepped bike (about the equivalent of 4 grand of prep work) there is no comparison. You still get the same scenery, and you still get the cultural experience, but you miss out on a lot of the riding pleasure. I certainly cant go back to doing it on an unprepped bike.

That's because you're on a bike that NEEDS prep. beer

Says the man who is going nuts with prep.

Why dont you update me Taco, on your current prepping project? :)

Well. It's taking longer than I anticipated. Summer is over and I'm still fiddling with the plugs. I had to take a break, but knowing myself decided the only way I wouldn't work on it over a long easter break was to fly to Hawaii. :Beach:

But you miss breaking down in a small village in the middle of nowhere!
With a less prepared bike, you get the great cultural experience of getting up close with locals as they help to prevent you from becoming their new permanent neighbor.
With a less prepared bike, you get the riding pleasure of 15 hours in the saddle a day after completing repairs as you race to get to the border before your visa expires!
At least it makes for good stories if your objective is to write a book...

To some of us the thrill is not how fast but how far.

Now there's a point ... there is more "jeopardy" in a cheap unprepped bike. Its boring for a reader or viewer if everything works. A good story NEEDS jeopardy. Increase risk of failure, increase tension and therefore increase sales :). And ... If you poorly plan your visas, thus making your schedule unnecessarily tight, you can even further build tension and jeopardy, thus making the stories (and book) even more gripping.

It's like I've always said: Adventure is just another word for poor planning.

I totally agree!
Go with whatever bike that fits your budget. It might help to get a decent paid job between your trips.

This can be true but meeting interesting people and enjoying the scenery at very remote places is more my kind of adventure - even if my expensive bike is working.

A while ago I started to read a blog where two people traveled long distances with bikes that fall apart all the time. In the beginning I found it quite amusing but after a while I found that there are limited interesting ways to describe a welders workshop.

Sure, but without all of the unecessary drama (breakdowns, paperwork problems, no food, no where to stay, etc.), it doesn't really count as an adventure, just a pleasant vacation!

I'm being a bit tongue in cheek of course, but in all seriousness, two people who have done different amounts of prep could do the exact same route, do the exact same things, and for the one who had done less prep, it could be a real "adventure", and for the other, just a pleasant jaunt.

What do you lot mean by 'prep'. Some of you imply that prep is improving the off road ability of the bike and some seem to take the view that prep equals reliability.

Most travellers seem to choose their bike on personal preference and in some cases a degree of inverted snobbery. If you've always ridden Suzuki you'll probably stick with Suzuki. Your budget determines how new a bike you buy (2 year Suzuki or a 10 year old BMW maybe).

Once you have your bike you would do four things by way of prep:

• Set it up to carry your luggage
• Fix/improve any known faults/weaknesses with the particular model
• Improve things to your taste - seat, suspension, screen, fuel tank etc.
• Thouroughly service the bike replacing all wearing parts with new to give you the best chance of completing the trip without trouble

The adventure comes from going to new places not knowing what to expect but, in my experience, if you have an unforeseen mishap you will end up meeting some interesting people and whilst it may be a PITA at the time it is all part of the adventure and it would be a shame if it all went smoothly but, for me, keeeping the bike going shouldn't be a major part of the trip.

If you choose to 'simplify' your life and embark on a trip with no prep then at the end of the day your bike will bankrupt you and your trip will be much shorter and less adventurous than intended.

I agree that reading books/blogs that just list an ongoing list of breakdowns and bodge repairs until the bike becomes unserviceable is not very interesting.

By "planning" I mean all of those things, but also all of the non-bike related issues such as where you'll go for how long, where you'll stay, the exact roads you take, all local sights noted and ranked for visits, etc.

To me, if you do all of this to the nth degree (ie plan exact routes, book hotels in advance, know exactly when you'll be in what city, etc.) you are basically squeezing all of the adventure out of a trip, no matter where you're going, which is undesirable. The key is to plan enough, but not too much, so that you can have an "adventure" but not necessarily an "ADVENTURE!!!".

Isn't that the thing though? How do you know what your taste is unless you try first? Numerous fellow Bonneville riders are shocked (excuse the pun) that I still have the stock suspension and silencers. I've ridden bikes with the "standard upgrade" IKONs and can't tell the difference. I bought the floating disc conversion when my OEM disc wore out, it's marginally better, certainly not worth binning the stock one before you've had serious miles out of it. I've ridden bikes with loud exhausts and that's all they do, turn petrol into noise. I replaced my battered and rusty silencers with a pair from e-bay that a guy was selling because he'd had loud ones fitted at the 600 mile oil change. I paid £30, he was paying over £300. £270 is a lot of petrol and while I see that a bloke who wants to ride his Bonneville to a coffee shop and think about Steve McQueen might want noise, I can't understand why everyone tells me this is what I "need". I did upgrade the seat because after a 3000 mile trip my wife was sliding into me. Same goes for a centre stand, I won't own a bike without one as I do go places where I get the odd puncture.

It does worry me that the net and literature is full of other peoples shopping lists that seem to be taken as must haves, but hey it's your money. When I first started I did the shopping list thing, F650 with every Touratech bit I could cram on. It died in North Africa because I didn't know that Rotax were idiots when it came to understanding waterpump seals. My close to stock Bonneville lightly breathed on with bits like a well greased up coil has made up home every time for the last 7 years. I think prep is items 1 and 2, not shopping and if that's taken as inverse snobbery by guys with different experiences so be it.

Andy

For most people, with a new to them bike, taste is found in the Touratech catalogue. I'm all for a comfy seat but the rest of it seems to me to be just styling. Some OEM parts have to be replaced if they are known to be unreliable (BMW rear shocks, for example)

If you've owned the bike for some time then you can improve it intelligently but best avoid too many non standard parts if travelling far afield.

'Planning' - what's that! All you need is a destination and a vague idea of a route. It can, however, be cheaper and quicker to get visas for some places before you go and you should know how you're are going to get cash in the countries you're visiting - see, learnt that from a lack of planning.

My approach is to sort out the bike to minimise the hassle and time wasted fixing it on the journey, find out about the paperwork and do as much as you can before you go. Test your equipment, especially if you're camping, on a shakedown trip but leave the route, accommodation etc. until you're moving (and in a perfect world - don't have a schedule or time limit).

LOL ! Priceless

Interesting comments regarding swapping stock parts for "improved" after market components. In my experience it is usually the non-standard after market parts that are the weak link in the chain and are the cause of most failures.

Like 3WB says can you really tell the difference with after market suspension? I have two Burgmen - a 3 yeard old one with IKON rear replacement shocks and YSS emulators up front, while the other 9 year old one is stock.

There is a marginal improvement (on road) with the after market kit but it is always the stock bike I take off road riding (e.g up the Oodnadatta track over easter) rather than the modded one.

On this last ride I covered 4,000kms of which 800km were dirt including a lot of sand, deep loose gravel and heavily corrugated most of the time. Hardest part of the ride was having to push the bike for close to 1km through a deep soft sand/pebbles creek bed (which was the road) enroute to the painted desert. It was a real adventure even though the bike ran perfectly the whole way.

Things like fuel capacity mods do not need to be expensive. Usually I strap an empty 5 or 10 litre oil container to the rear seat but this time I knew I didn't need that much extra fuel capacity. So for the one leg of the ride where I did I scrounged around in the rubbish bin at the fuel stop, found 2 empty 1.5 littre coke bottles which I rinsed, filled with fuel and strapped to my seat. 60 kms down the road I poured them in my tank and carried the empties to my destination.

adventure
 

hi guys my first post, so forgive the naievety, lol ok here goes, whats the best standard,ie unprepped bike for adventure travel, hoping to do a little light off tarmac work, unsurfaced roads ect, so in standard trim, with a budget of about £3,500 for the bike, i was thinking of a gs1150 perhaps,all replies and ideas welcome, oh yea starting with uk, then european hoping to go further as and when time and the evil stuff permits, so uk first for weekends to start?????
top 5 bikes pls folks within the budget,,,,:cool4:

Adventure?
 

Looking for an Adventure...:D

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Then just take inappropriate equipment with you and get lost somewhere along the way.

Head for the "What bike" section, you'll get more answers. As there is no such thing as a standard trip or a standard rider, there can't really be a best standard bike. The best bike is actually the one that fits you that you understand. If you are 6 foot 7, feel the urge the break the motorway speed limit and happen acoss a bike the previous owner understood and kept up to, the R1150GS can work. If your £3500 gets you a bike someone else no longer wants due to the noise coming out of the final drive or the odd reactions of the ring piece antenna on wet Tuesdays, you are better buying five MZ's, a Cagiva Elefant and a years RAC membership.

Andy

My bike is a ten year old 1150GS that I've owned from new, Ive done 47000 miles on it.
If I were contemplating a RTW type trip I'd service it myself, and go... (no 'ring piece antenna' on 1150's) just the same as when I have set out on a 3000 mile trip round Spain.
Still running on standard shocks and final drive etc... you'd get a good one for £3500 or even an 1100.
You keep your five MZ's etc, I'll take my GS any day...:thumbup1:

Well...... in light of that......

Shouldn't that read 'Inappropriate people' taking equipment to out-of-the-way-places?....:cool4: