24 January, 2013

A new addition to the family - a dirty little beast!

Well, it has finally happened, I'm now back on an offroad bike. It has been 13 years since I sold the venerable DR250 single and I have now upgraded to a big brother equivalent from Kawasaki - the Killer 650. A big benefit of this beast, compared withe DR, is its electric leg. Since my arthroscopy in July my right knee has deteriorated and is most definitely not up to the strain of kickstarting a big single. So the question, why a Killer? Well the journey to reach this point was quite a long and arduous one. Over a period of a year I sampled a range of offroad oriented machines - some far more offroad oriented than other. These included Suzukis (DR and DL 650s), BMWs (GSes - 1100/1200, 800 and 650 varieties), Triumphs (Tiger 1050 and 800 triples) and Kawasakis (Versys, KLE500 and KLR). Ultimately, the decision came down to buying a multicylinder (more road oriented) or single (more offroad oriented). Given that the reason for buying an offroad bike is so that I could run a reconnaisance mission across the Simpson desert before I attempt it on B1, it makes more sense that I choose a bike more at home riding on sand and this meant a 21" front wheel was mandatory. Thus in one fell swoop I had eliminated the multicylinder bikes and it became a choice between the KLR, DR and GS Sertao. More to come.

A Voyage(r) Down The Murray.

Xmas / New Year 2013 and the thought of Voyag(er)ing down the Murray took my fancy. As part of this journey I planned to do a decent bit of offroading so it would be interesting to see how the 450 kilos and 6 cylinders of the trusty Voyager handled the task. More to come....

Vietnam ... here we come a second time!

Late October and Kimie & I had taken advantage Of Jetstar's birthday 2 for 1 deal to fly over to Thailand. From there our plan was to head to Cambodia and Vietnam to sample the local sights and sounds, and those sights and sounds are best sampled on a motorbike aren't they? :-) More to come.

Goodby Postie Goodbye, don't cry postie ....

Come September and I had decided I really wanted to spend more time riding off road. In order to add a dirt bike to the garage Kimie decreed that I first had to emtpy it of others, and thus the trusty little postie bike became the sacrificial lamb. Before I said my goodbyes, however, it was time for one last fling so off we headed to Murrundindi and the Toolangi state forest. More to come......

Easter 2012 - the Victorian High Country

After a fortnight driving a campervan around New Zealand, over Easter I decided to ride B2 this time - sad to say but B1 has not been ridden since its last journey to Lake Mungo. ... more to come.

New Year 2012 at Lake Mungo

Well, it has been a long time since I last updated this blog so I guess I better bring it up to date with my motorcycling adventures during 2012. The first of these was my annual Xmas / New Year ride. I decided to ride B1 to Pooncarie / Lake Mungo, a place I had bypassed on my previous trips to Broken Hill. .... more to come.