In short, my top preferences are:

High budget: BMW F 650 GS Dakar, probably a Bike of 6 years or less. This is my personal dream machine, if it wasn't so expensive. The regular F 650 GS for those that are vertically challenged.

Medium to high budget: Honda Transalp or Africa Twin... though, I know that if I would be willing to stretch myself this far, then I would be willing to stretch myself all the way to the BMW. Besides, these bikes are abit heavy.

Mid budget: Yamaha XTZ 660 Tenere, probably a ten year old bike. This is the king of the 90's, and also by many admired as the most beautiful overlander of all time. Of the older bikes, this is my favourite. Other Tenere options are the the older XT600Z or the XTZ750 super Tenere (which in my opinion is too big). There is also the Honda Africa twin to conscider, but is also a bit on the heavy side.

Medium to low budget: Honda Dominator, probably a ten year old bike. This bike gives a lot of value for money, but I'd probably regret not going for the Tenere.

Low Budget: Yamaha XT 600. Probably a bike 10-15 years. Honda XL would also be concidered if it was cheap enough. With these bikes you will need to strengthen the subframe to carry panniers.

Poor mans bike: Yamaha XT350R or Honda XL350R. As with their big brothers, with these bikes you will need to strengthen the subframe to carry panniers.

My best bet would be the Tenere or the Dominator.


Some short tips:

• The older the bike, the more difficult it will be to get parts.
• Even if it has been just sitting arround, with only a few km on the clock, the engine will still soon need splitting for new oil seals, etc.
• When buying a one cylindered engine, you should really go out of your way finding a bike with less than 50k km on the clock. The reason is that these one sylindered engines often need major work at 100k, and I mean major.
• Try to get a bike which has not been off road a whole lot as offroading often leads to engines running hot (most relevant to air cooled engines), reducing the longivety of the engine innards significantly.
• Go for one that looks good, has all the original stickers, plastics, paint job etc., intact.
• Another thing to consider is that aging offroad bikes, with a lot of kilometers on it, which has done a bit of offroading, will be experiencing metal fatigue in the frame. So, even if you've found an old frame with a new engine, it might not be such a good buy.
• Many tachometers on offroad bikes only run to 100k. If you find a 15 year old bike that looks shabby, but with only 20k km on the clock, I'd be suspicious about it having gone round the clock atleast once (120k). I see a lot of these advertised, and people are getting ripped off.
• Hondas is the number one motorcycle brand accross the world (sales), with both parts and tech know how widely available accross the globe, with Yamaha as a close second. Japs are also reknown for their reliability and value for money.

To sum it up, your rules of thumb: A bike ten year or younger, with less than 50k on it, in original condition (avoid engine tuning), pristine cosmetics, not offroad ridden, preferably japanese, a one cylindered offroader of less than 650 cc, full service history, is optimal.

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Wheelie has some good ideas. Unfortunately here in the US the only bikes currently available are the 650 honda, the 225 yamaha the BMW's, KTM, the suzuki 650 and the KLR 650 kawasaki, plus a few exciting but hard to find others. If you are just starting down this road get a brand new KLR 650 kawasaki and ride the wheels off it. Ride it to alaska then in june ride to the riders meeting in NC then come on out to colorado to the riders meeting in july..... leave a few days extra and come on up to montana and I will show you some neat riding. I gaurantee after talking to some other travelers and looking at their photos you will understand a bit more about this whole motorcycle/traveling experience.

I know that I can't say enough about these bikes, but the truth is, unless you have any experience, you will want to consider one of these to learn on. Since you will most likely go with an adventure tourer for your long trip, look into one of the many Chinese-made 200cc enduros that are available in the US on Ebay and elsewhere. Lifan has one model, the LF200GY-5, that I have seen going for $1399 shipped to your home. These are lightweight, use the standard transmission pattern (one down, 4 up), and as far as the Lifan, are EPA/DOT certified. They can be registered for the road in every state but California. The resale market is soft, and you could probably get maybe half back when you are ready to sell it, but for the price, it is worth it to keep around as a second bike. There are three groups on Yahoo that deal with Chinese bikes; ChinaBikes Group which discusses all kinds of Chinese bikes, Jetmotogroup which discusses the Jetmoto enduro and other brands' enduros, and the LF200GY group which discusses the Lifan branded enduros specifically.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChinaBikes/
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/jetmotogroup/
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/lf200gy/

Join our groups and see if these would be good learning bike alternatives for you.

Bill,

You had mentioned that you dealt with those SA made bikes. Do you still work with those, and would those make good alternatives to Chinese bikes?

Cheap, light, parts easy to get & cheap, easy to work on, love you forever if you know the faults. Not the most comfortable ride I ever had, though.

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How much does a man live, after all?
Does he live a thousand days, or one only?
For a week, or several centuries?
How long does a man spend dying?
What does it mean to say “forever”? - Pablo Neruda

You can't beat the KLR 650. If you ride S.A. it is the ideal machine IMHO. Mine ran 30,000 miles with barely a hiccup to ToF and back.

Lightweight 331 lbs.
Generous 6.1 gal gas tank
$5199 (I think) MSRP, low mileage used models for $3500 or so
Abundance of aftermarket parts

It's a tall bike and ideal for a 6'3" frame.

More info at the www.klr650.net community & in this FAQ http://www.bigcee.com/klr650faq.html

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Get a KLR. I am hiring them to all kinds of people here in Cape Town and even the idiots struggle to break them. Minor problems are very easy and cheap to cure.
Never get a BMW F 650 (any year model / version). They 're crap (my oppinion / my experience).