This weekend things have started to move on the Andes Moto Extreme website development. Walter Colebatch got in touch about his latest project and through mutual support of each others projects I am now following on from my work on Sibirsky Extreme to now focus my efforts on the new website.

Sherri Jo Wilkins has also joined the team and will be the base camp manager, photographer and videographer. Other members of the team include:

Walter Colebatch – Team Captain
Lukas Matzinger – Technical Director
Barton Churchill – The Mountain Man

The plan is to take a troika of Husaberg FE 570s to South America and make a world motorcycle altitude record attempt of 20,500′ 6,250m!

You can follow the prep here (www.andesmotoextreme.com) ready for a kick off in March 2012.

” The more a man carries over and above what he needs, the more careworn he becomes”.

Sibirsky Extreme Project DVD

Join prolific adventure motorcyclist and Siberia aficionado Walter Colebatch and his friends on a ride of discovery into Central Asia and the darkest depths of Siberia.

Sibirsky Extreme was the journey that pioneered new routes across Siberia, including the legendary BAM Road.

This journey also features the Tuva Track, Vilyuisky Trakt and the Road of Bones.

Full of interactions with locals, as well as stunning scenery. If you ever dreamt of exploring Siberia on two wheels, this is the DVD for you!

Enjoy the main feature and then feast on the fantastic extras that really give you a feel for life on the road (and off it) in some of the most remote parts of the World

Main Feature: 31min

Walter’s Extras (people, places, lots of river crossings, the ups, the downs and the girls!): 73min

NTSC Version For North American customers & PAL for Europe & the rest of the world

Click here to Buy PAL version or click here to but the NTSC version

I didn’t take much footage last Sunday on the climb up the Traunstein but I did have a handful of clips that capture the good weather and easy going mood of the whole day.

I started putting together the footage of the Lech trip. It soon became apparent that there was quite a bit and not all of it great either. Some of it was underexposed or show signs of interlacing. At the same time friends were asking where the video was. So to give a small taste of what were up to I put together a one and a half minute teaser while I work on the “big one”. At the same time I don’t want to big it up too much. It is just a home movie after all.

For the last 3 years I’ve done without a car. Spending my time riding bikes exclusively come rain or shine, snow or ice. This has been fine for me but there comes a time when even the most ardent rider needs 4 wheels. For me that time is now. I need to move some household items to Austria. I have moved stuff on my old 800 in the past, but if the act of overloading the bike with ski boots, DVD’s, cutlery, a copy of Marie Claire and ladies toiletries were not enough of a challenge I decided to ride the bike around the Arc de Triumphe just for shits and giggles.

After such smile inducing folly I realised that shifting a futon, books, crockery, ladies clothes and another copy of Marie Claire would be easier this time in the Red Baron. No not the Bi-plane but my old 250D Merc. I did a bit of a job on it so that I would have the same standard of gadgets and luxury as I’ve had on the bikes.

Crucially it has a tow hook. This is pivotal to my bike plans

Body work is in alright nick for a 17 year old motor

So this will be my office over the next few weeks.

Naturally there will be gremlins ready to raise their ugly heads. There always are with older cars. Always.

This has been in the pipeline for a while but 2011 is the year it all kicks off. I am very much looking forward to this.

I have not posted for a long time because there were a number of false starts and idea changes. My circumstances have changed quite a bit and after much thought I stopped compromising on the kind of bike I needed. I was considering a bike that would be a halfway house between going two up and adventure overlanding. Well to be frank that just ain’t going to work.

So for now the requirement has shifted to a significantly lighter 400cc bike that is cheap to run, easy to service and with parts easily available anywhere in the world. That bike is the Suzuki DRZ400SM. yes you read that right, the SM as in Super Moto. I need a bike I can use on the street once in a while and the SM is good for that… check the video below…

As you can see it fly’s pretty well too and I like flying! There will be many detractors on my choice. Some will say it is an old design, others will say it is too heavy (at 295 pounds / 133kg) even though I will be losing 100kg in comparison to my old BMW and some others will say it is too slow. yet more will say that compared to a 600 or 800cc bike the service intervals will be too frequent.

I have checked all the pro’s and cons and for my purposes this is THE perfect bike. It can be easily changed into a dirt bike, it is easy to work on, with limited electronics. Fuel range can be increased quite substantially and my luggage requirements these days are in the realm’s of Dave Lomax etherealness.

Will I be trudging the painfully boring expanses of Europe’s autoroutes, motorways and autobahn’s? No I won’t. I’ve done that, been there and to be honest it is a waste of time and effort. The real fun starts when you get to the perimeters of this continent of ours.

The bike you see below belongs to a friend of mine in Holland and he has very kindly offered to cast a fairing from the same design he has used on this bike.

I like his fuel setup here which is a 17L Safari tank. That said I’m toying with a 17L on the front and a 5L on the rear similar to this configuration.

While 22litres of fuel is more than enough in most places I have a riding style that means I like to keep stops to a minimum and keep on riding. Every fuel stop usually ends up with 30 minutes of faffing about especially if other people are involved. So I am thinking of doing a 28L on the front and a 5L on the rear. The only downside to this is weight if fully fueled up and the 28L suffers from having 5L of fuel you cannot utilize because it needs a vacuum pump to drag it up from the bottom of the tank. If I can sort the pump issues and have some degree of control with regard to the distribution of the fuel front and back then I will go with the bigger tank.

As far as spares and kit goes for the bike I have drawn up a list based on Dave Lomax’s advice after his numerous trips into the deserts and lonely places around the world on a DRZ400.

Take a look at my bike kit list here

if you are interested in my pack list for myself it currently looks like this…

For months I’ve ummed and ahhed over what the next adventure bike should be. I’ve read ride reports, I’ve posted photos on the blog, I’ve listened to friends and acquaintances and switched from twins to singles and back to twins again. From 1000CC’s to 400. I’ve thought about buying one stock or making it from the ground up. All of these have been largely pipe dreams since I’ve been out of work. It still is a pipe dream but with one difference. I now know that I will choose the XT660Z Tenere when I am back on my feet.

Unlike the Xmoto that I was going to modify this bike is a bit more of a compromise but more useful. From stock it comes with a 22 litre fuel tank and while it is as weighty as a BMW F800GS the excess weight can be removed. It is also using a tried and tested engine. Electronics are at a minimum and the bike is 80% user serviceable. It gets a lot of great write ups. Parts are cheap compared to BMW and widely available across the world.

In addition to this I fell out with BMW last year and I’m loathed to give them anymore money. Even indirectly as I would be buying used. I’m also tiring of the Ewan and Charley clones who think standing on the pegs of an R1200GS as they ride into the pub car park is off roading. I want to be around people that do amazing things on bikes and for sure you are more likely to see one of these machines in some sand dunes in a far off desert.

I decided to leave Lindsay and Delilah to do their own thing today as I’m sure they wanted to plan the next leg of the route, blog a little, have some rest etc. I had a chat with my friend Greg who is currently playing doctor to his girlfriend who has just come out of hospital after a gall bladder operation.

We met at the “shed”. Not in the British sense of a wooden structure at the end of a garden but a workshop full of manly, sharp and dangerous tools . Without burdening him too much I needed some of his skills in order to bash a few things into place after yesterdays spill. He also kindly made my muffler a bit more legal after initially making it sound very illegal LOL

With some flat black paint he also restored the bike back to it’s stealthy origins. So I have a lot to thank Greg for. He’s a good guy.

After some bashing, spraying and welding we got down to the important stuff of helping Lindsay and Delilah decide on where would be a good next stop before nightfall. Naturally all this planning was done on the saddle of an original XT500.

I rode with them out of town and had intended to ride with them to the lakes but my recent ailments and the increasingly persistent rain were telling me to save it for another day and head home. So with a wave and a thumbs up I bid farewell to these intrepid adventurers as they traversed Austria en route to Italy and ultimately Africa.