The guy I met in Laos carries 65 kilogram of luggage, despite leaving a “reasonable amount” behind in Bangkok. 65 kilogram, KTM-wise that’s more than half a motorcycle. Personally my goal was to be lighter than 200 Kilogram in total, which means including motorcycle and me as the driver. For the last transport, everything was weighed, so I have the detail figures now. I miss my goal by about 10 kilos. That’s the motorcycle, all the luggage, tools, riding gear, helmet, tent, sleeping bag, kitchen, about eight liter of gasoline and myself.

When I first started motorcycle travelling, I carried spare parts like crazy. Most probably I will hate myself tomorrow for what I’m telling you now. I’m convinced that it makes no sense to schlepp around spare parts at all and I don’t do now. Well, that’s not entirely true, I have a tube for the front tire with me together with a tube repair kit. (The front tube will fit the rear tire in an emergency). Sure, I take maintenance parts with me. In some countries it’s hard to get oil filters. But all the rest, why you take it with you? I mean, if you know that it will break, replace it before you go. Here in America, as well as in Australia, it doesn’t even make sense to have maintenance parts on you. Duct tape and, er, let me think, chain lube and a little bit of engine- and air-filter- oil. Oh, yes, there’s a small can of anti-corrosion spray, somewhere on the bottom of the bags. Replace sprockets? There’s no place in this world anymore that I’m aware of with more than 15,000 kilometers of roads and NOT a single motorcycle shop. It might be a burden for you to visit a bigger city from time to time, fair enough. For my taste I prefer to go to a bigger city once in a while than load and unload 50 kilos overweight every day. Apart from increased gasoline consumption, tire usage and chain and sprocket abrasion due to higher weight. To wait for a spare part for, let’s say a week, that is a phone call back home and an express courier in the worst case, that’s bad if you are on a three weeks holiday. If it’s on a one year trip, a week is nothing to get upset about. The probability that something severe happens on a three weeks holiday is close to nothing if your vehicle is well maintained and perfectly in shape before you go.

Just like to support my theory, guess what broke on my motorcycle recently: The sidestand-spring-holder. “What’s that?” you may ask. Even if I used the sidestand daily several times, a few hundred if not thousands of times in total, I wasn’t aware of this tiny little piece of metal before neither. And certainly didn’t have a spare with me. It broke on my last photo stop before Ridgecrest, the town I decided to stay short time before. The sidestand hung down like a dead goose. To temporarily fix it was easy, even for me. The fascinating part was now to get on and off the bike with tied up sidestand and the luggage on the back. To get on, I was balancing the vehicle with my longest two fingers of the left hand, than it took a Kung Fu kick to swing my right leg over the saddle height, simultaneously jumping forward to actually swing my ass on top, not squeezing my testicles and immediately secure the whole ride with the toes. Getting off was just the reverse of the above described process. Spectators threw coins to me when they saw this spectacle. But at the end I didn’t had to get on and off in this style very often. First I drove straight to the local motorcycle shop of the small town. The friendly staff couldn’t help me with a replacement part, because Honda has a different approach how to deal with the sidestand. But the manager was so friendly that he rang a welder and arranged an appointment for me. In five minutes. Ridgecrest is a small town close to the Death Valley National Park. And what can I say, it’s dual sports paradise on earth. Everyone who has a leg and an arm left rides dirt bikes here. Peter Thomas from Thomas Bros Welding was absolutely fantastic! Not only did he fix my part in seconds, as a dirt-bike rider, you’re part of the family immediately. Later in the evening, he picked me up in front of the motel and invited me for Sushi.