Motorcycle · Buying
Choose the Bike You Can Pick Up
The most useful specification of a travel motorcycle is not power, range or suspension travel. It is whether you can lift it, loaded, alone, on a slope, at the end of a long day.
Two wheels, long distance
Motorcycle
A motorcycle turns a route into an experience you feel in your forearms. It also removes the walls, the fridge and the option of just sleeping in the vehicle. This department is about the trade that makes, and how to come out of it ahead.
The single biggest decision in motorcycle travel is not the badge on the tank. It is weight: the weight of the bike, the weight you add to it and how high you add it. Everything else, from tyre choice to how tired you are at four in the afternoon, follows from that.
If you are choosing a first travel bike, read the bike choice piece and then the luggage one before you spend anything. If you already have the bike, standing technique will do more for your riding than any part you can bolt on.
All stories in Motorcycle
Motorcycle · Buying
Choose the Bike You Can Pick Up
The most useful specification of a travel motorcycle is not power, range or suspension travel. It is whether you can lift it, loaded, alone, on a slope, at the end of a long day.
Motorcycle · Kit
Soft Bags, Hard Cases and What Goes Where
The luggage argument is really a weight distribution argument. Get the physics right and either system works; get it wrong and the best boxes in the world make the bike worse.
Motorcycle · Technique
Stand Up and the Bike Calms Down
The single technique that transforms riding on gravel, sand and rough tracks costs nothing, needs no parts and takes about an hour to learn badly and a season to learn well.
Motorcycle · Travel
Two Up, and Still Friends in Week Three
Riding two up for weeks is a different sport from riding solo. The bike needs more, the days need to be shorter, and the person behind you needs a say in all of it.
The right size for a travel bike?
Questions we get asked
How big should a first adventure bike be?
Smaller than most people buy. A 400 to 700 cc single or twin carries luggage, cruises at motorway speed and can be picked up in soft sand by one tired person. Large twins are magnificent on tarmac and punishing everywhere else, especially when the trip is your first.
Soft luggage or aluminium boxes?
Soft bags for anything with dirt in it: lighter, forgiving in a fall and much kinder to your legs. Hard cases when you need lockable storage, a stable platform and weather protection for months at a time. Many long riders end up with hard on one side and soft on the other.
Can you travel two up on a middleweight?
Yes, if you accept a lower daily distance, softer routes and a serious look at the load limits. Rear shock, tyres and the rear rack are the parts that fail first. The pillion seat and the pegs decide whether either of you enjoys the second week.
Field notes
One letter a month from the track
New long reads, new routes in the Route Book and the occasional hard-won lesson. No advertising, unsubscribe in one click.