Hello everyone!

I have been researching and reading through these forums for the last few months and have gained so much knowledge. So thank you already!

Heres the story:

Myself and two friends (Canadian female and 2 Australian males), will be travelling from somewhere in the north western U.S (portland etc.) to Panama. Hopefully all on motorcycles. Us two males are competent riders while our female companion is sound although were not looking at doing to much hardcore off roading. Although we'd like to get off the beaten track everywhere necessary.

We dont have an exact route yet, but we know we want to spend most of our time in C.A. We will be leaving aproximately september and hope to reach panama by mid december.

My main question is about the bikes we should be looking to pick up. There are a few issues. Seeing as we are all quite young 18-23, we dont have a plentiful supply of paper in our wallets, so we were hoping to have the bikes bought and set up fairly cheaply. Were also not looking at doing to much crazy off road riding.

Based on this, would it be possible to take a bike such as a GS500 or the like on this trip. Say a road bike with fairly nice suspension and ground clearance. The canadian has a yamaha virago 250 that she would also like to enquire as to its potential to happily complete this journey.

We will be travelling very light so carrying capacity isnt an issue, mainly just the off road handling and how much off road we can expect given our circumstances above.

Thanks for any help, we're all too keen

I don't think it should be a problem, I am currently travelling in India where I expect conditions are similar to Central America and am having no problem on Honda 150 road bike. The GS should be fine and the only thing with the 250 are road speeds in the US but it should cruise at 60 mph and fuel range, she might need to carry a spare gallon of petrol in a container outside of the US, apart from that go for it.

you will be fine on the 500's and 250, though you will be limited to rough gravel/mud roads and wont be really 'off road'. The crappiest bit on road in CA used to be between the Honduras and Nicaragua borders, broken, potholed asphalt which was tough on suspension - far worse than most off road riding, just watch the ground clearance and avoid hitting the engine on the endless Topes!


Have a good trip

__________________
Cheers
Grif

'11 KTM 450 EXC
'09 Suzuki DR650
'00 Discovery Series 2 V8
'95 Defender 90 300 Tdi Overlander
http://gipperstravels.blogspot.ca

Locals use China 125's and go all over the place, lightweight, reliable and basic are qualities which go far in Central and most of South America. Personally I think something like a Yamaha YBR 125, Suzuki GN125 even the very basic Honda CGL125 or any sort of Japanese 250 would be perfect for Central America. Honda now manufacture a XR 150 which is like a scaled down enduro - that would be great too. Anything more would be overpowered and not worth the weight in my opinion.

Central America is fine on a street bike. Everyone there has street bikes. I'm in Peru after crossing Central America on a Street bike. You know what they have a lot of in Central America? Streets.

Just for the sake of being contrary...of course there are limitless off-road, dirt-road, mud-road, sand-road, plus boulder, bedrock and gravel-road possibilities throughout Central America. Same is true between Portland and the Mexican border. You need to decide where you're going to be going, then choose your bikes accordingly.

If you're staying on streets and main highways, any old bike will do fine. If you'll be poking around a bit you'll want something suited to off-road at times. Personally, with three months to do the trip I'd want something at least nominally off-roadable. There's too much to see and experience to limit yourself to main highways.

And really: "the crappiest bit of road in CA" is as crappy as any road anywhere--and it's not part of the PanAm highway. Should you find such a road, potholes will be the least of your worries. You'll be traveling during rainy season, when backroads that started out abysmal will be overlain with bottomless, snot-slick mud. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Again: decide where you want to go, therefore what sort of roads you'll be traveling. Choose bikes, suspensions, aftermarket protection, and tires accordingly.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark