KLR mania

I know this section is supposed to be about the bikes but first I have to preface it with a little background that Spice conveniently left out. This is the one section I get to do. For years I have dreamed of taking a big BMW GS into the jungles of Brazil, the deserts of Africa and the villages of Tibet. I managed to track down a few books authored by otherwise normal everyday folks that had done this very thing. Everyone was doing it and I had to too. I didn't know how or when but I knew it was going to happen. That was about five years ago. The books were the inspiration but I knew nothing about the actual execution. I had ridden for years but no real touring experience to speak of and certainly nothing even remotely close to this. Oh did I have a lot to learn.

I did some more research on sites like Horizons Unlimited(an absolute must!) and sort of set the plan in motion. Up until only a couple years ago it was going to be a solo trip. No room for a passenger. Besides, this was going to be the adventure of a lifetime and a girl simply was not in the plan. Did I have a lot to learn, Part II.

I sort of set a tentative leave date of August '01 then I met Spice. Small change of plans but not by much. I figured, "alright, if there WAS going to be a woman on the trip then Spice would certainly be a perfect candidate". We had the conversation about my dreams and the trip that I had to take. I asked her like a big tough guy if she would like to ride around the world thinking, of course, that she would think I was a tough guy and secondly she would say 'no'. I was both surprised and elated when she agreed. It was a little hard to take at first considering her lack of emotion about the whole thing. Little did I know Spice was going to turn out to be about the toughest person I had ever met despite her calm demeanor, sweet disposition and calculating intellect. Not only did she not know how to ride but we were leaving in a year and that was going to be a challenge. I had hoped more than ever she was going to see this thing through but I was prepared for her to abandon the plan after realizing just how foolish it would be to leave a very good job, our entire families and the city we grew up in to trade it in for a life on two wheels. A lot to learn Part III. She was actually going to do it.

The plan was set and now we needed bikes. I bought a big GS just like the dream said but quickly realized it may not be the most practical thing in the world. The weight, cost and sophistication may overwhelm my feeble abilities. Next we started to check out the F650 Dakar. We both rode a few but no matter what we weren't sold on the BMW. Around this time I flipped through a few old issues of Motorcycle Consumer News and came on a series written by the renowned world tourer Greg Frazier. He bought and built an adventure touring dual-sport bike, a Kawisaki KLR 650 ready to go for less than ten grand. Eventually we found two young KLRs with not very many miles on them in Alabama. Mine was an '02 model with zero modifications and we found an '01 model for Spice with a few little mods here and there. Now we had to build them.

I knew this was going to be a challenge but I figured if we were going to ride these around the world I needed to know the bike inside and out. Greg Frazier mentioned a number of venders in his articles but one that seemed to come up again and again was Dual Star. I put a little list together of all the things I wanted to order for the trip and put in a call to Dual Star. At this point we were slated to leave in month. I got ahold of Jeff and let him know the plan. After I let him know I wanted all this and I wanted to leave in a month he was silent for a few seconds and then he said, " Hold on, I am going to let you talk to Mike." Mike, I find out later, is the owner and also develops every product they sell there at Dual Star. Phonecall after phonecall revealed to me I found our best resource yet as he has ridden just about everything there is to ride in every condition. A veritable encyclopedia of information about dual-sport riding and international motorcycle travel. Mike, knowing fully well I was a little ambitious to try to get out of town in a month, said nothing but," I'll do whatever I can". We refined the list over weeks of converations about what we hoped to accomplish. I basically ordered two of everything in the Dual Star catalog. I would call up and ask something like, "Do I really need the billet rear brake mount?" And Mike would respond with a resounding" I wouldn't even leave my driveway with the stock one". It was obvious at that point that a month was not going to be enough time to get all this together. The following list is what transpired over the next 8 weeks: