The Presumptive Beast of Burden...

Here it is, in all its splendour - my 2006 Kawasaki KLR650.


The motorcycle of choice for the US Marine Corps, this workhorse of a bike will carry me across asphalt, dirt, rock, sand, mud, and everything in between. If it does so inelegantly, at least it does so.

I actually purchased this bike back in November 2007 - just a few short weeks after I received my M2 license - from a Suzuki of Newmarket. What a chore it was getting the thing back to Toronto. Tyson and I had braved flurries and -15 degree temperatures to make our way up ther, in the hopes that I would drive my new bike off the lot. However, it turns out that being a dealer sale the license had expired, and so it could not be driven back to Toronto. The ride back was disappointing to say the least.

In any case, we managed to get it sipped back to Toronto a few days later, and the work began in earnest. You would think that a fairly new bike might be more-or-less good to go - especially one so well-designed for dual sport use. Alas, this was not the case. Well over $2,000 of aftermarket parts were ordered to forestall known issues on the KLR650 (the infamous doohickey being one), upgrade components we felt to be lacking (footpegs, subframe, braided brake lines, shock and fork springs, locking motor mount, axle, and shroud nuts, centre-stand, magnetic drain plug, monster tubes), and generally armour the bike up (skid plate, engine and crash guards, acerbis hand guards, master cylinder guard, shift lever upgrade). Tyson, being the lanky man that he is, generously traded his aftermarket seat (which was about an inch-and-a-half shorter than stock) for mine (which was an inch-and-a-half taller). The end result is that I can now touch the ground with my toes, while he remains firmly flatfooted. Bah. In addition, we ordered up some Pelican 1550 cases, and pannier racks from Happy Trails to put them on. This is actually quite a story, with plenty of Sturm und Drang. For those of you who want to know more, I direct you to Tyson's blog (see link in sidebar), which will in trun direct you to the AdvRider forum in which the drama takes place.

I should say that all this work was only completed on Sunday, May 11th (or rather, Monday, May 12th) at 4:30 am. Yep, that's right. I stayed up until 4:30 just to say my bike was finally complete. Of course, this wasn't entirely true - a few wires had to be soldered for the installation of a 12 V plug (since completed), and the carb mod remains to be done. But what the hell, at least my hands will have time to heal.

As it turns out, Tyson still has work to do on his bike. Fortunately, he noticed a blown gasket in time to have it fixed. One more trip to T.O. Cylce awaits...

Oh yeah, one more thing. This experience, if it has taught me anything, has taught me to respect red Lock-Tite. After liberally soaking bolts and nuts hither and yon in the stuff (despite Tyson's warnings I might add - after all symmetry is important, right?), I was faced with having to remove a few to replace the washers mounting my Pelican case. What a gong show that was - after stripping one bolt completely, I had to have it decapitated with a dremel, and the knobs are only now (a week later) loose enough to turn by hand.

And so it begins...

And so, it is with no small degree of trepidation that I put fingers to keyboard (at last) and take just a few minutes more away from my studies to write this, my inaugural post on a blog. Some would see this as a sign of impending doom - I prefer to see it as the Ludite joining the fifth column. Who knows what mischief I can wreak from within the machine?

But enough about that.

The real reason this blog exists is as a vehicle to disseminate my perspective on perhaps the most insane thing I have ever done (and there is plenty of stiff competition, I assure you) - a cross-continental journey by motorcycle from London, UK, to Cape Town, South Africa. In between, we will be visiting no less than 22 countries, spanning 3 continents, for a total distance of 24,000 km. Give or take a few. Below is a a map which illustrates the proposed route quite nicely:

As you can see, this trip is no small undertaking... never mind the fact that my experience riding motorcycles, before this year, was measured in days. And those on an an old Honda Trail 90, something like the one shown here:

This is quite a different machine from the one I'll be fused to over the next 3 months (give or take). But more on that later.

I'll be embarking from London with 3 other fine, upstanding your men: Tyson Brust, Ted Macher (both fellow medical students at U of T), and Tom Smith (representing the UK on this multinational expedition). All are veterans from last year's Tour of the Americas, and some even have the scars to prove it. Ted, however, is not so much going with us as flying on ahead and waiting for us to catch up. This, because while the rest of us will be riding the stolid, dependable Kawasaki KLR650, Ted has settled on a Honda CBR 900RR:

This puppy tops out at somewhere near 300 kph vs. 140 kph for the mules. It also has the mules beat in the looks department (although most things on God's Green Earth can claim the same). I've been parking my clunker next to varous and sundry sport bikes over the past week to aclimatize myself to this state of affairs. Moreover, Ted will be leaving us come Turkey, ostensibly to rocket back to the UK and sell the CBR before flying home. We shall see.