It's all about the bike!

This was always going to be a nice bit: choosing a bike that was up to the job. My last bike had been a Honda CBR600, not ideally suited to the sort of trip that I was planning! Something a bit more rugged was called for.

Loads of research led to to the following conclusions:

The BMW GS1200 was nice, but I had seen McGregor and Boorman struggle with the weight of theirs. As I would be alone for a lot of the trip the thought of picking up a fully laden GS1200 was not my idea of fun! Something smaller was called for, but I needed a bike that could stand the long road bits as well. A bike in the 600cc range seemed to be the way ahead.

After a huge amount of research, and a great deal of soul searching, I decided on the BMW 650GS Dakar, a bike that seemed to do it all. I wanted one that was reasonably new to assist with reliability, but decent second hand ones seemed to be like the proverbial "rockin' horse poo". I managed to source a new one at a nearby dealer and took the plunge. A week later I was the proud owner of a shiny new bike (lucky me!).



The problem was that I now had to equip the bike. There was no doubt that the bike in standard form was more suited to road riding, but with a bit of TLC it could be "ruggedised" for the trip.

Loads more surfin' the net looking for equipment suppliers for overlanding lay ahead! Boys and their toys!!