Last weekend we spend a few hours looking over Striking Viking’s trip pictures and reading parts of his ride report on advrider.com. Making mental notes of what is really needed for a world tour. This weekend we watched the Long Way Around DVD, we’re definitely not riding though Mongolia.
A trip of these proportions just boggles my mind. I can’t even fathom how long the planning process will be. I’m such a perfectionist. Every year I do a long trip, long meaning about 7-9 days. To research roads and designations and map out everything takes me about 2 months. This world tour we want to take will probably last a year. A year on the road? There is no way we can map out 365 individual days of riding. So basically, I think we have to pick some destinations, some roads and then just wing it.
I envision this trip very much like the trips I do in the US, good twisty roads, interesting places to see and out of this world breathtaking scenery, just all on other continents. We’re not planning to ride though the Congo on some primitive roads. I’m sure there will be some dirt roads on our route but the the plan is to seek out paved roads. I want to sport-tour the word not adventure tour.
So far this is what we have decided. All 4 riders should ride the same bike so that we can carry minimal spare parts and anyone can use them for their bikes. Since 3 out of 4 people are on the shorter side, that doesn’t really give us too many options for bikes.
Since three of us ride Ducatis, the crazy woman in me things that a Ducati Multistada 620 would be a way cool bike to take around the world, it even does all right on dirt roads. And it sure would be different. Yea, but that can happen only if someone else is paying for the bike and maintenance. Unfortunately, just because it’s a dual-sport, that doesn’t make it a great choice for a trip of this proportion. Riding around the world on Ducati does have a nice ring to it though. The logical choice is a BMW F650GS. It’s light enough, low enough, it can even be lowered some more. It can go dirt if needed. It’s a BMW ‘nuff said.
Now we just have to figure out where to start this trip. I think it would be most economical to fly to Europe, buy some bikes there and start the trip from there. I bought a nice world atlas, so I can thinking of the places we might want to go. The great thing about this group, is that between the four of us, we have a lot of languages covered: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Italian, French, some German, two south Indian languages: Tamil and Telegu and soon Jay is going to learn Chinese for work.
The planning has begun
Jay’s rough route of 60,021 miles around the world
6 comments:
I hope so Rick, I’d love to do it on a Mulistarda. I think it would be great for Ducati too, like you said, Ducs are NOT really known for reliability, high-mileage or the kind of a bike that you want to beat on. I’d love to show everyone that it can be done.
On the other hand I’ve always liked the F650GS, so either way it’s all good.
You know what would be awesome if we got Ducati sponsorship.... do a bit of the tour on a 749 or a 999... hahaha. You old foggies might not be up for it, but if we're doing twisties and sweepers say in Europe, that wouldn't be bad for a few days, then we could jump back on ST4's... Just image the horror on people's faces.
Anna, I like the idea of saying that we're going to be "sport-touring" around the world, not adventure touring. I know there's enough paved roads around the world, but probably not well maintained in some parts.
I think if we do this, we should try for the 6 continents. And like we said on StrikingViking's trip, flying the first part of the trip loses a little bit of the feeling of start the trip. So, I say Chicago, down through South America. Then to balance out riding in developed and underdeveloped countries, ship to Europe, ride down to South Africa, ship to India/Pakistan, ride through Singapore, ship to Australia and NZ, then fly to Alaska, or back to Asia and try China into Russia (Magadan) and then fly to Alaska and ride back home.
Here, put in this URL and it should pop up a map of the rough route that I just described (Note: this is a mapping service between airports of the world):
http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=ORD-MEX-PAC-CCS-FOR-GRU-EZE-LHR%0D%0ALHR-BCN-GVA-FCO-VIE-IST-BEY-CAI-TUN%0D%0ATUN-RBA-DKR-ABV-ADD-LUN-WDH-CPT%0D%0ACPT-MAA-DEL-KTM-SIN-BNE-SYD-DUD-AKL%0D%0AAKL-HKG-PVG-PEK-HRB-GDX-ANC-YVR-RAP-ORD%0D%0A&RANGE=&PATH-COLOR=red&PATH-UNITS=mi&SPEED-GROUND=&SPEED-UNITS=kts&RANGE-STYLE=best&RANGE-COLOR=navy&MAP-STYLE=
I'm starting to like the Multistrada. I say we go for a test ride when it's possible. If you shorties want the 620, can I get the 1000s?
Also, the high mount exhaust might be a good idea so that we dont damage it when the bike get's dropped. It will get dropped.
And we'd have to make sure that we can fit big side panniers with the exhaust.
I'm really digging the single side swingarm. Let's do this.
Ducati had designed a "crash-bar" set up for the MTS1000 I had it on order for 6 months and it never showed so I cancelled it. Hopefully they have this kit available for the baby strada. After watching "Long Way Around" and seeing how much the dropped those heavy beasts it would sill be nice I believe to have your trip.
Also Vivid, sign up on multistrada.net
This is a world wide forum and you will have all the support you need.
Ride safe,
Charlie
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