In Terms of reliablility you can't go wrong with a Kawasaki W650. I rode one accross europe a couple of summers ago. Even did some light off roading with it.

It depend how far of the beaten track you want to get. It doesn't have a great ground clearance but brilliant fun on mountain roads.

I don't know why people are down on triumph, I have tiger 955i and it doesn't miss a beat, It's a perfect road bike comfortable at any speed and loads of luggage space.

I'm a little bit in love with the triumph scrambler tho so I say get one of those!!

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Hi,

I have a 2002 350 Bullet. Its a genuinely brilliant bike and I love it, but I wouldn't take it round the world. For me its about country lanes and summer days. Touring the highlands and islands - not the third world. Personally, I find long distance riding hard enough work without the extra headache of constant maintenance.

Having said that, plenty of people have done huge journeys on Bullets, I guess they are just made of sterner stuff! The Bullet is certainly capable of what you suggest.

However, if I wanted a 'classicly styled' bike for long distance touring I think I'd get a nice second hand Kawasaki W650. Lovely 'brit' looking bike with Japanese reliability. The best of both worlds!

Matt

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*Disclaimer* - I am not saying my bike is better than your bike. I am not saying my way is better than your way. I am not mocking your religion/politics/other belief system. When reading my post imagine me sitting behind a frothing pint of ale, smiling and offering you a bag of peanuts. This is the sentiment in which my post is made. Please accept it as such!

you could always make a bike look 'classic' if the look is what you want...

DR650 with a round headlight, brown leather luggage and a cheap spray job should do it.

The best suggestion of the thread.

Here's a bike I had for a while. Late 80s/early 90s brazilian cg125 originally with various plastic bits etc etc. Turned it into this with stuff I had lying around just as a weekend project to make something I liked the look of. My vision was a 1960s trial bike.


Stuck a high level steel mudguard on it later.


An idea I came up with whilst travelling on my dr350, was to make a hybrid old/new off road capable bike. I was thinking an old british engine (500cc single?), in a relatively modern chassis (something like the dr350). I'm not sure about the rest, maybe plastics from an older 80s dirt bike or something? Steel is heavy. I was specifically imaging this as a bike for a trip. I decided I would love to travel on a classic bike with some character to it, but that I couldn't compromise on suspension etc as I wouldn't enjoy having to struggle along at slow speed on the bad/none roads.

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UK to Mongolia 2009, on a DR350

I must admit I've been thinking along similar lines for a few years but it's remained an intention rather than actual metal on the ground. Just to add insult to injury though I've wanted to base it round a two stroke - a 1970's enduro bike maybe, for example a PE250 Suzuki or an IT250 Yamaha. An ISDT MZ250 or a Bultaco would be top of the pile but unlikely to fall within my price range.

Then a little bit of reality kicks in and I wonder would I really want to do a 5000 mile trip on a bike that I rejected as unreliable and fragile when they were new and that maybe a 90's CRM250 Honda would be a better starting point.

Many years ago I did make something similar to Nath's bike, but using a CB125 OHC engine, specifically to go to the Elephant rally. A week before we were due to go someone stole it!

Huge MZ fan here, but I think you are right about strokers. By the time you've taken into account the spare plugs, enough smoke oil to get you between places that only have stuff meant for chain saws, postage on spare barrels (which are now getting rare of MZ's) etc., life is a whole lot easier on a 4-stroke.

At this point however, the way MZ engines just hook up to the frame with four bolts, the welding set and cement mixer diesels usually pop into my head

Andy

Yeah, I know all that and I still want to get mixed up with smelly oily things. It's probably just me having a mid winter bike crisis. You're right, the 4Ts are a lot easier and with a bit of care and prep you can get almost anywhere on anything and arrive with a vestige of sanity left.

There's five 4Ts in my garage and with a bit of kicking the tyres / checking the oil I'd go anywhere in Europe on all of them but I wouldn't trust the the only 2T in the bunch past the end of my drive. The "biker's lament" (Please God, don't let me break down - repeat endlessly) accompanies every journey on that bike and just about every other 2smoke I've ever ridden. Your two wheel dumper truck fantasy could use a variant of it - Please God, just let me get there in this lifetime

Metisse Motorcycles - Steve McQueen Desert Racer

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*Disclaimer* - I am not saying my bike is better than your bike. I am not saying my way is better than your way. I am not mocking your religion/politics/other belief system. When reading my post imagine me sitting behind a frothing pint of ale, smiling and offering you a bag of peanuts. This is the sentiment in which my post is made. Please accept it as such!

If you do an RTW on a Vespa you wouldn't be the first... There are many scooter adventurists, of which I am one. Giorgio Bettinelli is a person to look into, he rode more than 254.000 km on a classic Vespa and spendt years and years in the saddle.

Two Vespas even finished in the 1980 Paris-Dakar Rally, and me and two friends will be participating in the Budapest To Bamako in 2012. My wife and I have previously riden from Cape Town to Nairobi on a Vespa. It was a lot of fun, and it was quite easy.

One thing that must be said, although any machine will take you RTW, even a lawn mower, it doesn't meant that any vehicle will give you as much enjoyment. For most, it is high performance and worry free rides that will give them the most enjoyment, for others it is something entirely different - like a Royal Enfield Bullet with plenty of reliability issues, poor performance and handling (compared to newer bikes that is). Who you are only you know, but if you don't have a particular interest in the bike itself, but more the ride - get something newer.

Personally, although I am a hardcore Vespa fanatic. On an RTW, I think I might have gone for a BMW F 800 GS, or a used F650GS Dakar, a Yamaha Tenere, or something similar. I think the novelty of what you are riding will slowly die - then it is all about the riding itself and the places you are going... then again, a classic does give you special status among fans accross the globe.

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If the bike is right for you, it's right for you. I can rebuild an MZ without the aid of a manual, I can tell what's wrong with one by how it feels and I know when it's struggling. The 70 mph performance suits me fine, I feel no need to go any faster but don't feel restricted. This would suit me to go anywhere with the one issue that you can no longer get a lot the parts. The fact it's a stroker and will at some point eat another piston does make it less than suitable as a RTW bike, as does the decline in oil availability and hence range issues.

Compare this to certain standard "adventure" bikes. They tick a lot of paper ideas about range and reliability, but I'd never use the 100+ mph performance and I'd need to think about security more advanced than having a kick starter on the left and too close to the pillion pegs. Now I won't name any specific internet discussion points, but lets imagine there is some sort of "well known" issue with my choice. I'm sure I could diagnose it with the right kit (hand held diagnostic tool etc.), but I be on a learning curve. The biggest issue though would be in my head. I'd constantly think I heard supposed problems and question my ability to deal with them.

I'm sort of lucky that I know Hinckley Bonnevilles almost as well as MZ's and they do solve the parts and pistons thing. If you knew nothing about bikes it would make sense to learn the Tenere/BM GS/KTM etc. If you know Enfields or similar it makes total sense to me to use that knowledge. The fact you can get this technology on bikes still in production and even E-bay common is even better.

Andy

All thanks for the comments so far, it has given me lots to consider.

I think to paraphrase all the comments you all say that it is slightly mad to go around the world on an Enfield, but if its something that i am truely passionate about then i should go for it.

Warthog was spot on when i said "classically styled bike" as obbosed to vintage or classic bike, part of the reason is that as silly as it sounds the look of the bike matters to me, even in the middle of the African dessert.

That being said i dont want to have a suckie trip because i chose the wrong bike. Given that parts of my trip will be in the middle of Africia and central Asia it seems that i will have some rough terrain to come across.

For that reason i am wondering if the Royal Enfield Bullets have the capability to transverse the soft sands of the world or would it be better to switch over to a better suited enduro bike for the sake of the trips enjoyment.

Thanks guys.

Another nice looking option are the Moto Guzzi.

Reliable and classic looks. A twin 750 with 50hp should last forever. Lighter than the Triumph plus has cardan. No chain maintenance
And dont forget nothing beats the sound of a Guzzi



A new scrambler version of it is comming soon:

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mmm, they look nice.

how do you think they would go with off roading and wouldn't Guzzi be just as annoying as say Vespa for sourcing spare parts across the world?

Otherwise a viable contender in my books

Apart from the electrics made of spaghetti and fasteners made of cheese....

Actually for me this one's a no-brainer....if I had to set off one up RTW today I wouldn't hesitate to choose my Vespa PX 150,even if I also have a monolever G/S sitting around....

There's something reassuring about needing just one little special tool to take the whole engine apart (and I really mean, the Whole engine) by the roadside in a worst case scenario. Granted, the stock configuration is pretty much bulletproof but even if you screw up with the premix or something, a change of cylinder and piston takes about 15 minutes to carry out just about anywhere, and you can even carry most of a spare engine in the space under the fuel tank ). A puncture can be fixed in the time it takes to smoke a cigarrette, thanks to the spare wheel stuck to the frame.
Ok, you have to sacrifice some offroad abilities, but the Vespa will get to wherever you want to go and will Chug along quite happily all day at 80 km/h....did I mention the luggage carrying ability? Just get front and rear racks and you can carry tons of stuff with you.

As for spare parts, probably the last thing to worry about in most of Asia...they're a street corner away in most places, even the official stuff is cheap and available from dozens of online retailers, assuming you need something which you can't just carry around with you.....




This guy rode from Italy to Japan, using a dishwasher tray as a luggage rack...

(Percitour.com .: in Vespa dall'Italia al Giappone)