If you left your house and rode a motorcycle to alaska or chile, what bike would you take?

Some of the questions and answers depend on which website or which magazine the information is sourced.

 

Yeah, I guess, but there hasn't been anything new out there about the bike for a couple of years. .....and there definitely won't be any more....

 

Don't let a couple of years put you off. I bet in your neck of the frozen woods there are maybe one or two at a dealership that you could do the vroom-vroom, lever pump tests on.

Best to go to those dealers early in the morning or wear a simple disguise so they won't see you coming.

 

I like the GS a lot. Have you ever put knobbies on it? The Dunlop 606 is a great dual use the is very capable off road.

 

That's always been my main thought about those huge bikes: picking it up by yourself could be a real chore. I've ridden dirt bikes enough to know that you always fall down, and things could go sour pretty quick if you can't pick your bike up.

 

VFR reliability is great. It's a Honda!
There are plenty of roads for the VFR up here, but the Alaska Highway is in a constant state of construction. Long stretches of crushed rock are common. The VFR isn't very good over those surfaces and I don't want rocks flying up and chipping the paint. Then if you want to, say, ride the Dalton Highway be prepared for gravel and mud, which is not the VFR's forte.

Any dual-sport would be adequate, but you see a lot of BMWs and Kawasaki 650 KLRs here.
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I figure that for a couple of thou, a VFR can be made into a good cow trailer. Somebody else's VFR, not mine.

 

Yeah, like the guy said when asked how far up that unimproved forest service road he could drive, "Your car or mine?".

 

There was a thread that was many pages long on this topic in the ADVRider forums. When I piped up that I had an XR 400 with lights, a much better stator wind, battery, signals, plates, a Cush drive, a pumper carb, a 440 kit and a few pieces of tubular steel welded in to strengthen the rear subframe for loading. Three people who had already done Fairbanks to Tierra Del Fuego started offering me many thousands of dollars for it. Stupid money for that bike. One of them PMd me saying, "It's perfect! It is THE world bike! No contest." Now, I've done a lot of things on that XR. Fairbanks to Tierra Del Fuego is not one of them. I can't even imagine such a trip. That XR is perfect though. Especially with the trials tires that are on it now.

 

That's totally interesting, because it tells me that it's not just the base bike, but how you equip it for the trip. Seeing that they don't make the XR400 any more, and there aren't that many used ones of them around, what bike is close enough to it, such that if you had to, you'd choose it instead of the XR400? And, of course, you'd make all of those mods for it as well.

 

What if some dudes already live in Alaska or Chile and ride Harleys?