Long Way Round

I have a huge man crush on Ewan McGregor.  I'm a massive motorcycle freak, and bought this on DVD.  The best stuff he did for motorcycles was "Faster,"  a documentary on the MotoGP race circuit.

www.fastermovie.com

Fantastic.

I try to do at least one major motorcycle trip a year.  I live in Seattle, and I've done Glacier National Park, Eureka and the Avenue of the Giants, and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.  I've ridden motorcycles across the country in each direction (north south, east west) and have been somewhat of a nut about it for 20 years.

Read Long Way Down and Long Way Round. Those books and a week off in a tropical country are a bad combination-they put crazy ideas in your head.

I'm much more of an off-road guy and I only really want a street-legal dirtbike so I don't have to trailer it, but a big trip like this is getting more and more tempting...

Even better, my grandfather is still around and still riding and ideally I'd like to do a trip with him and my Dad. Probably 30 years ago now, Dad did a 30-day trip around the U.S and Canada with a few friends on a then-new '77 Suzuki GS750. I think that's what we'll do to start with, that's probably plenty for my first real trip.

KLR is not to be-I can't afford it yet and Dad's got his heart set on a BMW F650GS twin. That's Ewan's doing too, of course. .

I apologize if this a thread high-jacking, I sincerely hope it is not looked upon as such.....
        I can't resist..... I gotta tell my most memorable motorcycle story.....
          The year was 1983, I was 17, my Grandfather, Atchoo we affectionately called him, was 71. He rode a fully eqiupped Honda Gold Wing, I rode a VF500F Honda Interceptor with a tank bag...........
           We left from our homes in southwest Virginia and headed north on a 3 day road trip. We rode like the wind through the tunnels of West Virginia, over the picturesque bridges and rivers of Ohio, into the mormon communities of Pennsylvania. All wonderful on the drive up, we made great time, my hot-headed, right-winged, highly opinionated grandfather showed me a laid back cool dude that I had never seen. He even bought me a quart of beer for me to guzzle down with him and his vodka and tonic as we rested up for the next step of our trek......
          The ride back was going just as good as the ride up until we passed through this little town called Gaulley Bridge, West Virginia. The roads were a little damp, the weather a bit windy, and railroad tracks crossed our main travelling road often. My good-ole Granddad always had to take the lead and look back often to see if I was still with him. He looked back once too often and lost control of his black, shiny Gold-Wing and hit the ground hard. I parked my bike and ran over to him as fast as i could. Before I could get to him he popped up and grabbed his badly cut right knee. He had a horse-shoe sized gash that caused his patella knee flesh to fall downward towards his shin. He looked at his ripped polyester pants, grabbed his knee, patted the torn flesh back where it was supposed to go and said, " Toney, I think I need to go to the hospital."....
    Luckily for us there were some good samaritans who drove him to a nearby hospital and our relatives made the 5 hour drive with a pick-up truck to transport my badly banged-up Grandfather and his motorcycle back to our home.............
       My Grandfather recovered from his injuries relatively quickly but didn't do much cycling after our trip. His health began to decline and he died 18 months later from cancer. I think he knew all the while something was wrong and wanted to go for one last ride. I'm glad he chose me as his travelin' buddy............

I can't afford the KLR, Dad can. He's set on the BMW, though, wanted one since the Adventure series were new. The new 650's are the same engines as the new 800's, just mildly detuned, so they're a twin. We looked at the R1200, which is the replacement for the 1150, but it's just too heavy.

Southpaw, that's a great story. I really hope I get the chance to do a trip with my grandfather before he sells his Volusia.

Always was. Not now. The 650 single now resides in the G650X, which is a standard street legal dirt bike. The 800 twin is in the 650 with a different camshaft and a milder state of tune, as well as chain drive. Also lighter and a lower standover. We did a fair bit of research into everything from KTM's to Suzuki's to Yamaha's and everything else. This is a new change for 08.