Choose the Bike You Can Pick Up

Go to any gathering of motorcycle travellers and count the bikes. There will be a row of very large twins, gleaming, with every accessory fitted, belonging to people planning a trip. Then there will be a scattering of battered middleweights and small singles, mismatched panniers, worn tyres, belonging to people who have just come back from one. This is not a coincidence and it is not snobbery. It is weight.

The weight test

Before you buy any travel bike, do this. Load it with the luggage you intend to carry, ride to a quiet place with a slight slope and soft ground, lay it down gently on its side, and pick it up. If you cannot, alone, on the second attempt, with a technique rather than brute force, the bike is too heavy for the trip you are imagining. On a two week tarmac tour that hardly matters. On a gravel route in Patagonia in the wind, it decides everything.

A loaded large adventure twin weighs between 280 and 320 kilograms. A loaded middleweight twin or big single sits between 200 and 240. The difference is not incremental; it is the difference between an inconvenience and an incident, and it repeats every time the surface goes soft.

What capacity actually buys you

Between 250 and 400 cc you get a bike that is light, cheap to run, easy to repair anywhere in the world and slow on motorways. It is the ideal machine for Africa, South America and anywhere the roads are the point. Sustained 120 km/h will be unpleasant.

Between 650 and 800 cc is the sweet spot for most long-distance travel. Enough power to cruise at 120 with luggage and a pillion, light enough to handle off tarmac, and available in both simple single-cylinder form and smoother twins. If somebody asks for one recommendation without describing the trip, this is it.

Above 1,000 cc you get comfort, wind protection, range and a machine that is genuinely wonderful on a long tarmac day. You also get a bike that needs two people to lift, specialist tyres, expensive consumables and, in many countries, no dealer within a thousand kilometres. Choose it knowingly, for a route that suits it.

Nobody has ever finished a long trip wishing their bike had been heavier.

Seat height and the flat foot question

You do not need to plant both feet flat. You do need to be able to get one foot down solidly, quickly, on uneven ground, while the bike is loaded and leaning. If you are on tiptoes at a standstill on tarmac, you will drop the bike on gravel, and dropping the bike is how trips end early. Lowering kits, thinner seats and different suspension links can gain three to five centimetres and are worth doing before departure rather than during.

Serviceability beats specification

Ask two questions about any candidate. Can it be fixed with ordinary tools by an ordinary mechanic, and are the consumables available on the route? A chain and sprocket set, a set of tyres in a common size, a filter and brake pads should all be findable. A proprietary tyre size, a service interval requiring a diagnostic computer or a fuel system intolerant of low-octane petrol will all limit where the bike can go more effectively than any terrain will.

Tube or tubeless is a real decision here. Tubeless tyres on cast wheels can be plugged at the roadside in ten minutes and are ideal for road-biased travel. Spoked wheels with tubes survive impacts that would crack a cast rim, at the cost of a longer puncture repair which you must be able to do yourself. For genuinely rough routes, spokes still win.

The bike you already own

The most underrated travel motorcycle is the one in your garage. If it is reliable, if you can fit luggage to it and if it is not enormous, it will take you further than the ideal machine you are still saving for. Trips are constrained by time and money, and the bike is usually the least important variable in either. Fit good tyres, fix what is worn, load it lightly and go.

Questions we get asked

Is a big twin a mistake for travel?

Not if the route is mostly tarmac and the rider is experienced with the weight. It becomes a mistake when the same bike meets sand, mud or a solo pick-up at altitude. Match the machine to the surface you will actually ride.

New or used for a long trip?

Used, usually. A well-maintained bike two or three years old has had its early faults sorted, costs less to insure and hurts less when it falls over, which it will. Spend the difference on tyres, suspension and a spare parts kit.

How important is fuel range?

Less than most people think in Europe and the Americas, more in central Asia and parts of Africa. Anything over 300 kilometres of usable range is comfortable for the majority of routes; beyond that, a rotopax or a fuel bladder for the few long stretches is lighter than a permanently bigger tank.