Back lites

To enhance the safety of the ride , and to make sure the guy behind me stops in time I have installed LED lights on the rear of the bike that are on as running lights and flash for 5 seconds when I apply the brakes, you can go to http://www.hyperlites.com/ to see the different products. Click here to see a video demonstration.



As you can see it was installed on a license plate bracket, and does not interfere with the panniers, the wiring was connected to the rear brake and running lights of the bike, and since they are LEDs they don't take much current, and did not effect the GS electrical system.

Handlebar Extenders

One of the first Modifications I did was to extend the handlebar, however I mad a grave mistake when I purchased the extensions. These handlebar extensions are sold on ebay for 289.99 US $ however if you go to www.nippynormans.com you will find the same pair for 69 GBP which come to around 89.91 US $, which means I payed 200 $ more than it is worth.

Although I have see bidders on ebay pay for things thay can get directly for less, I didn't search this particular item to know that I could have baught it for much less. So the lesson of the day is always make a check on the net of the price of an item before you place your bid on ebay.


This extension looks like it is part of the bike and brings the handlebar 20 mm higher and 40 mm close, in the picture you can compare the original with the extension.

Round and Round

OK OK OK , I haven't written any thing for a while, and the reason is that I have been spending my time planning my Round the World Trip, yes my friends I finally intend to circumnavigate the globe and have been planning this for the past 3 months, with plenty left to do.

The trip is expected to take between 110 and 120 days starting on the 2nd of MAY 2009 (Inshalla) this is the amount of time I can afford at the moment. So far I have two friends who stated that they will be joining me on this trip, which helps with distributing the planning activities amongst all of us. I have purchased a new 2008 R1200GS adventure for the trip although now I think it would have been a better idea to have bought my friend's used 2004 R1200GS, for about half the price I would have more money for the trip. Oh well you can't plan everything and now since I have already spent the money for the new bike, and the fact that the resale value for an adventure here is low, I have decided to stay with it, especially that it has many good features for traveling and not much should go wrong with a new bike.

I will be mentionening in future posts what I am doing to prepare for the trip including what I am doing to the Motorcycle to get it prepared for that journey of a lifetime.

The List Part Three

Well before I start this final list as part of THE LIST series I would like to mention the recent purchase of a brand new R 1200 GS Adventure, yes I did trade-in the 1150 GS, and I sold the Harley. So all I have now is the Goldwing and the GS.

My Final list is for you the traveler, things I believe that one should do before embarking on a long trip.

1-Get into shape; no round is not the shape I was thinking about. Riding for hours on end concentrating on the road takes a lot of effort, and sitting in front of the computer all day at a desk job doesn't increase your stamina. Depending on how often you exercise this may not be an issue, however for most of the riders that I have met this is required. If you really want to enjoy the trip and not feel tired all the time then a healthy exercise plan at least two weeks before the event is required.

2-Get insured; the worst thing to happen on a trip is to get sick and can't afford the medical treatment of another country, or survive an accident and not be able to get your self and the bike home. There are several types of insurance that one must have like health insurance, motorcycle insurance, travel insurance, I have even heard of an insurance to ship you and your bike home if any thing happened.

3-Go to the Dentist; you do not want to spend time getting over a root canal in another country because your tooth cracked due to the fact that your lat dental checkup was two year ago.

4-Learn the language and culture; when traveling to foreign countries I believe it makes things more enjoyable and easier when a few words of the language have been learnt and maybe a custom or two. I am not saying you need to be know every language of every country that you visit , I just mean the normal "Hello", "goodbye", "thank you", " please", and "where is the bathroom" kind of words that show that you are visiting the country for the people as well as the land.

This concludes my list series for traveling long distance, please expand on this as you see fit I am sure I missed some thing here or there, and know that there will come a time when you had wished you had packed that extra tool or part which would have made your trip easier. In fact it is at this time that you should stop and notice that if we wanted to travel with ease we could have stayed home and watched the travel channel.