Do you need an Adventure Bike to ride around the world? No you don’t. RTW Roxy is travelling the world on her Fireblade. Matt & Reece aka Sidecarguys circumnavigated the globe on a scooter with a sidecar. Violeta aka Holy Moto rides around the world on a Harley-Davidson. It’s even been done on a Yamaha R1 before. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!
I never had a particular love for Adventure Bikes. Living in London you didn’t see many of them and I mostly thought they were unnecessarily big and ugly and I certainly had very little use for them living in the city and just needing a bike to get around whilst being able to cut through traffic. When I chose to buy my first Adventure Bike it wasn’t for looks but rather practically and functionality. I wanted the most suitable bike for long-distance travel. After owning and putting so many miles on my Adventure Bike I couldn’t imagine riding anything else any more. The comfort and freedom it offers you to truly get lost off-road is simply priceless to me.
I wrote this blogpost for people pondering about which Adventure Bike they might want to consider for a round-the-world trip. With Adventure (ADV) Riding being one of the fastest growing segments of motorcycling and so many fantastic bikes out there we are truly spoilt for choice these days. By far, the single best way to determine what suits you best is to ride as many bikes as possible and figure out what works best for you. But often we don’t have the luxury of doing just that, so here are a few questions you can ask yourself to help you make the right decision when choosing the right bike for your adventure.
1. What is Your Budget?
It sounds like a no brainer. Of course, you are only ever going to buy what you can afford. But is that thought alone enough? Most of us have limited financial resources and planning long-term travels will most likely mean sticking to a particular budget. Buying your motorbike and gear will probably eat up a considerable chunk of it. You will also be riding through countries where most of the time you will not have the option of buying fully comprehensive insurance including theft. What would happen if your bike got stolen or even worse, you had to write it off in a crash? Could you afford to buy yourself a new bike and keep travelling or would losing your bike signal the end of your travels? If my budget would be 10k GBP then I’d probably be more comfortable buying a bike in the range of 5-6k GBP, knowing that if worse comes to worse, I could buy something similar, if need be a little older, but I’d be able to stay on the road. Secondly, don’t underestimate that it can be very expensive to kit your bike out for a round-the-world adventure. Click here to find out more about all the customisations we currently have on our BMW F800 GS. It all adds up: footpegs, bashplate, crash bars, luggage rack etc. Make sure you factor all these things into your budget. Also consider that maintenance costs of a bike can vary quite a bit so given the on-going costs throughout your travels you may want to keep this in mind when selecting a bike. If money is not an issue and you can afford to buy yourself the latest model of the adventure bike you really want, one last thought should be, is it too flashy? Our bike is from 2013 and we’ve put so many miles on it and dropped it so often that it looks a bit like a warhorse now, compared to when we first got it. But even though that’s how we perceive it, even our old bike draws a lot of attention in third world countries. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be on a brand-new, shiny Adventure Bike. It’s something to keep in mind.
2. Are you Riding Solo or Two Up?
Let’s say you are planning a round-the-world trip and eyeing up the Ténéré 700. This might seem like a fantastic choice when travelling solo but would most likely be unsuitable and not comfortable at all when riding two up. We are riding the BMW F800 GS two up and we feel extremely comfortable on it. We know quite a few couples who rode this bike two up across the world too. We have often encountered people advising us to upgrade to 1200 cc for maximum comfort. I’m tall, not very heavy and Fiona is much shorter, weighing even less. We don’t need to upgrade for comfort. Granted, for two people that are bigger and heavier our bike may not be comfortable enough, but don’t assume you need a 1200cc bike just because you are riding two up. I think we could have even felt comfortable on the BMW F700 GS (although I prefer the ground clearance of the 800cc) but the 650cc for sure would not be comfortable for us riding two up at all. So dual sports bikes and small Adventure Bikes are great for solo travellers but riding two up you will most likely need to be looking at a 800cc Adventure Bike and upwards.
3. How Important is Comfort to You?
We already addressed comfort when riding two up but just because you are riding solo doesn’t mean all bikes will offer you the same amount of comfort. Sure, you can customise pretty much any bike to a comfier seat that suits your height but some bikes will inevitably be more comfortable for long-distance riding than others. And yes, the bigger the bike the more comfortable it tends to get, which doesn’t mean you need to go for the biggest bike out there. Consider the customisation upgrades available on the market and weigh up your priorities. People are generally happy to compromise on comfort in return for a smaller and lighter bike. Are you? I find myself somewhat in the middle. I could benefit from a lighter bike as I’m not the best off-road rider out there and riding fully loaded through sand or mud is a challenging for me. So likewise upgrading to a heavier bike is not an option. We have downsized in an effort to travel lighter and decided to get rid of our super-heavy Jesse Luggage panniers but I would not want to downsize to a smaller Adventure Bike because I do value my comfort. So I feel the middleweight Adventure Bikes are best for me.
4. What about Carrying Capacity?
The carrying capacity you require will depend not only on whether you are riding solo or two up but also on your travelling style. Have you mastered the art of travelling light and make do with few things on the road? Are you going to stay in hostels or do you require space to fit all your camping gear? If you are travelling light and solo you might be able to make do with a reckless system (check this one out from Mosko Moto) that you can easily throw on pretty much any bike you choose. However, if you are going to travel two up with camping gear and electronics for photography, filming etc. you will certainly need to install luggage racks and find the appropriate luggage set up to suit your needs. You need a bike that can handle the weight of your luggage, especially if you are not going to travel light. Check out Lukasz and Marta from LATG … see the amount of luggage they have? Now clearly they couldn’t be riding any smaller Adventure Bike as they completely maxed out their carrying capacity. Not every luggage solution will work on every bike. Fitting hard panniers on your Honda XR250L would be a terrible idea (soft luggage works better for small bikes and is always safer for off-road riding in general) but just because you are riding a big bike doesn’t mean you should use its entire loading capacity, or even overload it. Yes, big bikes can handle an incredible amount of cargo and we sure fell down the rabbit hole of adding more and more luggage to our bike surprised just how much more would fit on it and how useful Rock Straps are. We were so impressed by just how much we could fit on the bike that it took us a while to own up to the fact that we were carrying way too much and needed to downsize. The bike was much more difficult to handle off-road and it was a pain to carry all the stuff in and out of places we were staying at day in and day out. Load distribution is equally important to bike handling and rider safety and should be given some serious thought. The biggest favour you can do yourself for a round-the-world trip is to travel as lightly as possible. But whatever you do, make sure the bike can handle the weight safely.
4. Where Will You Be Riding?
Of course if we are talking about a round-the-world trip then there should be the assumption that you should be able to ride everywhere and anywhere with your Adventure Bike. But doing a round-the-world trip can mean a lot of things. It can mean truly riding through every single country on each continent which would take you many years or simply doing a few stretches of long-distance riding across the world and shipping your bike from continent to continent. If you are going to ride your motorbike across the US, then ship it to Australia to ride the East Coast, followed by a roadtrip through Europe you could get away with riding no off-road at all. If you are going to ride from Alaska to Patagonia and stick to the Pan-American highway you’ll no doubt encounter less off road then someone riding from Alaska to Patagonia not sticking to the Pan-American highway and instead exploring each country in more detail. So first of all, you should consider where you will be riding and what the conditions are like. How much off-road are you likely to encounter? You can spend 3 months in the USA and not even get close to exploring all the off-road it has to offer. But you can also spend a year riding across the US and avoid off-road altogether if you wanted to. Some other countries won’t afford you the luxury of having a choice. Hit South America and the further south you go the more sand you’ll encounter. The same is true for riding across Africa. With so many ADV Riders out there and great forums online (be it a Facebook group or simply asking someone who’s currently out riding a few questions) it’s ever so easy to get information on road conditions and know what to expect. But where you will be riding will also be important for other aspects like availability of spare parts and other things we will explore in more detail below.
5. How much off-road will you be riding?
Do you live for off-road adventure? Will you be searching for the toughest off-road routes wherever you go? Or is your motorbike simply meant to get you from A to B and you accept that one day it will be on tarmac, the next it will be a dirt road? When we first took off my idea of our adventure was not to do any off-road at all. I just wanted a bike that could handle a gravel road, the occasional dirt road and perhaps some muddy patches if we ran into rainy weather. But that soon changed. I started enjoying going off-road and it felt very rewarding to have the freedom of reaching some very remote places by bike. It changed our travelling style completely, for the better. In the beginning I was quite nervous about riding on gravel or dirt roads but one year into our trip this became second nature to me and I became more anxious about riding in deep sand or volcanic ash, both something I had never dreamt I would ever consider riding through. These days off-road riding has become as enjoyable as the travelling itself for us. And as we embrace it more and more we have started thinking about how we can travel lighter, potentially downsizing to a lighter bike and train to improve our off-road riding skills. Despite the fact that we now really enjoy off-road riding, I am not quite able to give up the comfort that comes with a middleweight Adventure bike. Sure, a little dirt bike or dual sports bike would make for some pretty awesome off-road riding. However, we still do long-distance riding on tarmac, sometimes 6 hours a day to get to our next destination and I can’t imagine doing that on a smaller bike. But we met plenty of people who do and love it. It means you can drop the bike countless times and it’s a breeze to pick it up. They are super fun off-road and most of them much easier to fix as they don’t have all the electronics that come with the heavier Adventure Bikes these days. I’ve rented dirt bikes before on holiday to have some fun, but for a long round-the-world trip I personally prefer a middleweight adventure bike. The key question to ask yourself is if you are just riding to get from place to place or if you will be actively looking for off road adventure.
6. Can you Pick it Up?
When I first decided to buy my BMW F800 GS I never asked myself if I would be able to pick it up. The answer is, I can’t. We are riding two up so it has never been an issue but if I was riding it by myself I do believe that I would have gotten myself a lighter bike by now. The Yamaha Ténéré 700 dry weight lies at 187kg whereas the BMW R 1250 GS Adventure weighs 249kg. Sure, it has the benefit that it never lies entirely flat due to its boxer engine and generally has a lower centre of gravity but do you need, and most importantly, can you handle the extra weight? If you are setting off to ride around the world I strongly believe that if you can’t pick it up by yourself then you shouldn’t be riding it. Our friend Tracy once dropped her bike in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains of Mexico. She’s riding a BMW F 700 GS and couldn’t pick it up even after she removed all her luggage. After 3 hours and no one passing by she started to get worried and hit the S.O.S. button on her Spot Satellite Tracker. A couple of hours later someone came to her rescue. When I heard Tracy’s story I realised for the first time that if we weren’t travelling together I wouldn’t want to be riding my BMW F800 GS, because I can’t pick it up either and wouldn’t want to have that worry at the back of my mind, as it would most likely deter me from doing too much off road in remote locations. There are certainly techniques that will make picking up a bike much easier and they are very easy to learn. But it doesn’t mean that everyone will be able to pick up any bike they want. Personally, I have very little strength in my arms and coupled with my pelvis that I have fractured in numerous places and my bad right knee that I’ve had a couple of surgeries on, I don’t appreciate when I’m told it’s “all about the technique”. Believe me, I tried many times. I really do want to pick that bike up but as it turns out, it also has to do with your strength. Fiona at 1.63 meters is able to pick our bike up without any difficulties, fully loaded. I’m very grateful for that! Are you able to pick up yours?
7. How Easy will it be to Fix Your Motorcycle If You Break Down?
Again, this will depend greatly on where you will be riding but it’s a very important question to ask yourself. If you are going to break down on the Yamaha Ténéré 700 or the XT660 in the middle of Africa, anyone will be able to help you out. Rock up on a BMW like we ride and it will be more complicated as it may require a diagnostics tool to read fault codes which needs to be connected to a laptop. This makes fixing Adventure Bikes with advanced electronics much more complicated, as it may not always be easy to get hold of the diagnostic tools required to fix your bike. Advanced Electronics on Adventure Bikes like Traction Control, Opitmised Cornering ABS, Tyre Pressure Monitoring systems, automatic suspension adjustment and so on are all fantastic features designed to improve your riding experience and most importantly rider safety but going back to basics and knowing that you can fix your bike almost anywhere in the world is also a huge benefit. Which is more important for you? In our case, we know that we have a super reliable bike and we keep on top of the maintenance religiously to keep it that way. We also don’t have a tight time schedule so if worse comes to worse and we need to order some spare parts and delay our travels then we’ll be able to cope with it. Perhaps if I was travelling alone I would be more drawn to going with a bike that can be fixed just about anywhere.
8. Availability of Spare Parts
It does make sense to carry some spare parts with you like a clutch and spare brake pads for example. But of course you won’t be able to travel with all spare parts your bike might possibly require so do consider how easy it will be to source spare parts on the road. If you are riding a simple no-frills adventure bike you might be able to fix it easily just about anywhere. But rock up on a BMW and parts may not be as easy to come by, potentially requiring you to have them shipped to you and delaying your journey. Fiona and I sailed from Panama to Colombia together with our BMW F800 GS. We tried to take every precaution we could to protect the bike from the salt water. As soon as we reached land we took it for a good clean to rinse all the salt of it. Suddenly steam was coming out from under the seat. We quickly removed it to find the fuse box and surrounding cables were melting away. Luckily we had the tools to hand to quickly remove the battery. We were in a major big city and required a fuse box but there was absolutely nowhere we could buy it. We would have needed to ship it from the BMW dealership in Bogota. We didn’t have the time to wait (sadly, because Cartagenia is a beautiful city I could have spent much more time in). Instead we settled for a questionable quick fix. The mechanic told us that with any luck it would get us to Bogota but that it needed to be replaced there immediately. As you can imagine we were pretty nervous throughout the 18 hour ride through the mountains of Colombia, though luckily we made it.
9. Your Off-Road Skills
To ride big Adventure Bikes off-road requires some skills, strength and stamina. Sure, it’s all about technique and if you enjoy riding off-road and aren’t too scared of falling off too many times whilst learning you can get your levels of skills up fairly fast. But without any off road skills why not make your life easier and get a small or middleweight adventure bike that’s a little lighter and easier to handle. Or perhaps you can handle a big, heavy Adventure Bike just fine but going for something smaller may actually be more enjoyable and less physically challenging. Picking your bike up fully loaded whilst wearing motorcycle gear in extremely hot weather conditions can tire you out quickly. It’s pretty impressive what people can do on big Adventure Bikes and I love seeing a big bike in super technical terrain on my Instagram feed. But riding a big bike in technical terrain is obviously harder than riding a lighter bike. If you are new to off-road riding ask yourself if you can handle the bike you are contemplating on taking around the world. Ideally, see if you can book an off-road training and rent the bike you are considering riding to test it out first.
10. What Do You Really Need VS What You Really Want?
Some people will tell you that the best bike to take around the world is the bike you already own. That wasn’t the case for me. I dread to imagine myself in South America on my old Suzuki Gladius. Perhaps it might be for you. It’s certainly tempting to think that way since it’s possible to customise pretty much any bike in so many ways. But is it really? Whenever I speak to people who have ridden their motorcycle around the world one common answer I get when I ask what they wish they did differently is this: many wish they had done it on a lighter bike. You might already have your heart set on a particular bike but don’t let your emotions take over. Is your dream bike actually the right fit for you? There are so many strong opinions on the subject of which motorbike is best to go around the world on. However, I strongly believe that there isn’t one motorcycle that will suit all and the only person able to determine what works best for you, is YOU.
How to Prepare for a Round-the-World Motorcycle Trip?
Hopefully the questions above have helped you a little in knowing what to look out for and perhaps even prioritise what the most important criteria is for you. Leave a comment and let me know what bike you are travelling the world on (or would want to travel the world on) and why you feel this bike is best for you – I’d love to hear your comments!
