During the summer of 2005, while shuttling myself along the Appalachian Trail with a pick-up truck and a mountain bike in central Virginia, I happened to think of the possibility of using a small motorcycle for the purpose.
As time went on, I ended up buying three bikes and developing some ideas about what needs to be carried for motorcycle touring. These ideas are based on my ultralight hiking gear.
The need to be compact and light in motorcycle touring is almost as important as with backpacking.
It all began when I decided to purchase an inexpensive motorcycle, and the best one
available near my home was a 1982 Suzuki GS450. It needed a lot
of work. But with the purchase price I was not afraid to go
working on the bike. Within a few weeks I had sewn a new seat cover,
replaced the fork seals, replaced the fuel petcock, and taken one
carburetor apart.
Later in the fall, I found a very nicely painted 1982 Yamaha XJ550
and it came into my garage as well. This bike actually needed
more work than the Suzuki. It needed a new set of head bearings,
a full synchronization of its 4 carburetors, some new spark plug boots,
and the tank's interior needed to be stripped and coated to remove the
considerable rust that had accumulated there.
Somewhere along the line I began to think of the bike as not just a hiking tool, but a way to get around the country and see things I had not seen before. This led me to think about buying a much newer and hopefully more reliable shaft drive bike. Together, a friend of mine and I bought a pair of 2006 Kawasaki VN750s. This is a lot of motorcycle, but should be very reliable.
Here
is a photo of my VN750 set up with panniers, tank bag, and my
ultralight pack on a trip to Red River Gorge in Ap[ril 2006. This
photo was taken at the end of a 5 mile gravel road to revisit Chimney
Rock.
VROC :: Vulcan Riders and Owners Club
OEM (Stock) Parts at BikeBandit.com
One of the modifications I made immediately of the Vulcan was a throttle stopper. Here is a page about making your own throttle twist lock:
Another immediate change I made was to replace the stock battery with a maintenance free battery. I was glad I took the time to look into this... When I took the stock battery out, I discovered that the overflow hose was not attached to the battery and was coiled up in the battery box. Here is a photo of how that looked:
The view is from the right side toward the left side of the box (which resides under the seat). Perhaps you can see the clear plastic tube which snakes forward and then back toward the rear. The end of the hose was under the rear fender and touching the rear wheel.
With about 100 miles on the bike, I changed the oil, removing some flakes of plastic from the strainer inside the drain hole, and changed the final drive oil. It had only a few flakes of metal in it. I also pulled off the back wheel and the final drive to check the propeller shaft. It had a small amount of grease on it but the reservoir that is meant to contain about 17 cc of grease was empty of grease.
Such are the travails of a new bike. On the bright side, the bike is wonderfully responsive, has a nice mellow sound, and has a very comfortable riding position.
One additional project has been to install a windscreen to keep me warm in the winter and rain.