R80rt Moderator
Posts : 113 Points : 175 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2011-09-21 Age : 67 Location : Hills of Arkansas
| Subject: Lightweight travel, 7/29/2013, 7:11 am | |
| This was sent to me by a friend, thought I'd pass it along. Lightweight travel: Riding a bike long distances in a manner familiar to our dusty predecessors. Meaning relatively simple equipment and just enough horsepower to get the job done. It means crossing state lines on far less than a 500cc worth of propulsion. It means riding for the sake of riding---almost anything--without worrying about 'keeping up appearances' or having the latest and greatest. It means going places they haven't. It means having a certain amount of grit, ingenuity, and self-reliance. It means doing things that some folks sneer at. It means going places they haven't. It means refining a personal system of travel based on hard experience. It means having a twinkle in your eye. It means being the Gasoline Stranger.
All the 'in front of the bar' posing in the world on a chrome-encrusted-what-have-you, is a sad substitute for surveying a vista you've never seen, or even fixing a decrepit bike in a rainy ditch with a strange forest nearby. Or having to wait overnight for the only gas station to open because it closed at five 5PM.
Lightweight unsupported motorcycle travel means riding a 13 horsepower, 280 pound motorcycle, on a multi-day road trip, without a supply vehicle following behind.
Motorcycles like this encourage a routing bias toward dirt roads and two-lane secondary roads when necessary. In addition to matching their speed capability better, back roads provide a more interesting mile by mile riding environment. | |
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