Bike and accessories

Bike and accessories

• Suzuki DR650SE, 2008
  Design of 1996 still unchanged. Conventional bike, no electronics, so almost everything can be fixed on the road. Lighter and more off-road capable than comparable bikes (e.g. KLR). No Faring or wind shield, so speeds above 100 km/h are uncomfy. Seat is good for about 250 miles/day. After that it hurts. Stock suspension is too soft and should be changed to harder springs and fork oil 10W. See /sites/default/files/hu6-images/tstories/bundschuh/2008_11.php for all mods.
• Tank: IMS, 4.9 gal. (20 L)
  Most of this trip could also have been done with the stock tank (13 L). The only areas where the 250 km range would not have been sufficient was Baja California and some Offroad-tracks in Bolivia. Without the 20 L tank we would have had to fill up at really every gas station in Chile and Peru. For crossing the salar and the atacama desert into Chile even the 20 L tank was not sufficient. But there is always the possibility to buy fuel from private houses or other loacals for slightly inflated prices. Although we saw some travellers with 35 or 40 l tanks, there is definitely no need for tanks above 25 L.
• Happy-Trail Teton Boxes 9“ + SU-Rack and Tail-Rack, 2008
  Rigid system, If the fully loaded bike falls onto the boxes, they bend only a little at the inside. Hard crashed tentto bend the rack a bit but much less then comparable racks and boxes.
  The lid can be tilted or removed completely to open the box. Oocking requires two pad-locks per boxes and needs some practice to be able to open/close the boxes fast.
• Pacsafe/Stuffsafe 80:The wire net and locking system protects your stuff-bag while the bike is parked unattended. To transport our complete camping gear we exchanged the original thin stuffsafe-bag for a cheap 80 litre Louis-bag and put the stuffsafe net around it. The other net and bag was used to store our motorcycle gear while walking and leaving the bikes unattended – even for a few days in Belize City and other dodgy places. Great stuff, rigid and well suited for offroad travel.
• Pacsafe/Lidsafe: Lockable, waterproof helmet cover. Protects your helmet not only from views but also from beeing damaged or stolen.

Motorcycling gear

• Helmets: Uvex Boss 3000 double visor anti fog, 2004/2007
  Comfortable. Very good locking system and visor. Absolutely fog-free due to the double glass system. Very rigid visor with quick release button (no tools needed) for cleaning.
• Jacket Ines: Hein-Gericke-Tuareg, detachable inner membrane, 2007
• Jacket Bjoern: Buese-Toledo, membrane, detachable inner lining, 2007
• Jackets in general: Both jackets very well suited for our type of travel. In general a jacket with a detachabe membrane or without any membrane at all seems to be better suited for the warm climate we went through. For rainy days we cary an additional rain suit anyway (see below). Good is, that both jackets have closable air inlets at chest, back and arms to improve air circulation within the jackets.
• Pant: Hein-Gericke-Tuareg Shelltex II, detachable inner membrane, 2008.
  Absolutely perfect rider pants. Very light, comfortable andprotective. Only in Patagonia we put the inner membrane in. All the other time we rode without and had long underwear beneath or our rain pants above the rider pants.
• Boots: Lowe Combat Boots Pro, membrane, 2007.
  Good protection for ancles and feet. They are not as rigid as Moto-X-Boots of course but way better than normal onroad bike-boots or other army boots. Absolutely waterproof till the end. The shoe laces were the only thing breaking from time to time.
• Rain gear Ines: FLM jacket and pant (Polo), membrane, black/yellow, 2008.
• Rain gear Bjoern: Bullson jacket and pant (Hein Gericke), black, 2008.
• Rain gear in general: Additional rain-gear is good for extended periods of rain or strong cold winds. The outer shell of a 100% water-proof jacket will get wet and heavy in proper rain and not dry till the next day. A 2-piece suit is more usefull than an overall. An overall is a pain to put on and take off. In addition, ventialation is worse in an overall. The jacket of a two piece suit can also be worn for walks and hikes. Although the membrane suit was not 100% waterproof it seemed to be better suited for our trip. The plastic-only thing didn't let water through but had lots af water (sweat) condensed on its inside and was very uncomfortable (hot) in light rain.
• Gloves: one pair of Leather gloves and one pair of textile Moto-x glove
  Good choice for warm and moderately cold weather. In Bolivia and South Argentinia we wished to have some warmer gloves.
• Mangas: For the cold in the south, we bought some 'Mangas' in Patagonia. They are 'sleeves' around the handle bar. Good to protect from cold wind and light rain. The patagonian version was not very good. Saw better ones in Europe or further north.
• Scarf: Buff-fleece, 2008, very well suited for motorcycle travel. Doesn't loosen. Almost airtight and a bit water repellent,

Clothing per person

• 1x Trekking pants with detachable legs.
• 1 set of long underwear (Ines) or long bicycle pants (Bjoern)
• 2x T-Shirts, merino-wool, no stink
• 1x Trekking-/sport-sandals: Good for walking in hot weather and in hostals
• 1x Baseball cap: Good for sunny days and even light rain while walking.
• 1x Winter-bonnet: Jack-wolfskin fleece. Good for walks, cold camping nights and when opened also usefull as an additional scarf and water protection for your neck.
• 1x Pullover: long sleeve, cotton
• 1x Fleece jacket: Usefull for very cold rides or cold camping nights as well as walks without motorcycling gear.

Electronics:

• Mobile Phones: 2x Sonim XP5, 2008 + T-Mobile Xtra-Card
  Although the Xtra-Card had limited reception in many countries it was still a better choice than any other US-card. Very good if you loose each other and are further apart than your radio communication range. The Sonim phones are very rigid and sand and water proof – almost inestructible. The set of functions is quite limited though.
• Radio communication: Alan 456R (Set, www.Louis.de), 2008
  Our first trip with a comunicaion system and we'll never go without one again! It is o usefull and entertaining and also makes riding safer.
  Very good sound quality up to 100 km/h, above that very poor. Limited range of 500-1000m max. In cities or mountains less. Although the descriptions claims a range of 5km more than 1km was not possible, not even on the salt flat of Uyuni.
  There were a few problems with the quality of the speak (PTT) button which were resolved by spraying WD40 into them and have them sealed with silicone. The short helm cables got some connection probelms due to cable breakage. This was resolved by exchanging them and having the new ones, and their plug taped to the side of our helmets. This way the cable can't move in the wind and the copper doesn't brake. The spiral cable to the main unit seems to be better.
  The whole system was mounted behind the lamp maks and attached to the electrical system of the bike.
• PDA: Psion 5 classic, 1996
  Good device for pre-writing the text for your blog entries. Saving them in txt-format to the internal flash memory card. Using an USB-card reader you can then upload them in any internet cafe.
  The device is incredibly small but still has a good keyboard to write on. With two AA-batteries it runs 20h (!). We attached a 12V AA-battery chaerger to one of our bikes. So with two sets of AA-batteries the Psion was always on duty. Unfortunately our display cable broke (very common problem for the Psion 5) so we had to buy something else in Mexico (see Asus eeePC).
• Netbook: Asus eeePC 4GB Linux,2009
  Our replacement for the broken Psion 5. Way more versatile. Due to its solid state disk it resists any vibrations of the bike. The Linux systems needs some time to get used to and to figure out how to install additional software (e.g. for GPS and picture editing). Battery life is 4h. Weight below 1kg. Very small, just about double the size of the Psion 5. It comes with all Wifi, internet, word processing and spreadheet calculating software.
  It was not able to connect to all available WiFi networks. Some Routers are not accepted by its internal WiFi-chip set.
• Fuji Finepix f440, 4 Mega-pixel, xD-Memory, 2005
  Very rigit metal case, not many movable parts, just two switches. Small display. xD-Memory is expensive and difficult to get. Unfortunately sand entered into the lense mecanics in the peruvian desert, so it broke.
  Panasonic Lumix Fs5, 10 Mega-pixel, 30mm Wide angle, SD-Memory, 2009
  Extremely good for bike and indoor picutres due to its wide-angle. Several usefull programs. Quite rigid due to few movable parts.
• Garmin GPS60Cx, 2GB, 2008
  Very rigid and very good satellite reception. Routable maps for USA, Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil available. For South America there is a free map set called Mapear which is downloadable free.
• Maps: ReiseKnowHow offers waterproof and almost undestructable maps for each South American country. The infromation quality is much better than on any other map of this size. Many travellers envied us for this map-set.

Camping-Equipment

...to be continued...

Tools and spares: