It is a rule of life that no matter how long nor how hard you work, when the deadline arrives, you won't be ready.
And so life imitated theory. I purchased my KTM400 2 years ago with the express intention of using it as an adventure bike. It is light, reasonably powerful, road legal (in New Zealand anyway) there are lots of accessories available and they are common. Two years would seem like plenty of time to modify a bike to the task. Purchasing a pre-owned bike over the internet proved not to be one my best decisions. Minutes after receiving it, the magnitude of my error became apparent. A wise man would have packed it up and shipped it right back, but wisdom takes years of disappointment to obtain.

After replacing every bearing in the chassis and replacing the corroded and bent rims and the rusted spokes it was starting to look like an average bike. This was one old hooker. On the bright side, the chances of it being stolen were minimal. The force within the legendary KTM engine was still strong.
Reading up the adventure-riders bible (by Chris Scott), I embarked on building a bike rack. The plan was to keep luggage to a minimum and therefore not to over-engineer the rack. In the interests of weight I chose 1/2" Cr-Mo steel tube in a lattice frame. This proved incredibly difficult to bend even using a good quality bender and I have the biceps (and a hernia?) to prove it. Two months of evenings had a nickel-plated work of art complete. I eventually decided against hanging it in the hallway and attached it to the bike.

Other preparations such as the 26 litre plastic tank, windscreen/GPS mount/power outlets, equipment purchasing and research occupied the following months until I arrived at shipping day minus 1 month with just the engine rebuild to do.

How long can it take to rebuild a single cylinder engine for a common bike? I can answer that question, 3 1/2 weeks! After 2 weeks, I took to cajoling and after 2 1/2 weeks, begging. With under a week to go, I finally had the crank and head back in my hands and could start assembly. The race was on, assembly (1 day), install (1 day), run-in (1 day), crate up (1 day). Finally finished in the dark Sunday night for a pick up on Tuesday morning.

The test run begins. Just a day-pack and a top bag to complete the ensemble

It's amazing what you can make with a few bits of wood and 100 screws!