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I've made a little list of all the gear you would have to add onto your adventure bike before it's kind of offroad worthy. Let me know what else you would add! The adventure bike. Most adventure bikes are made for the occasional off-road path and track but are mainly designed to be a good tourer. That is why most bikes have ‘weak spots’ when it comes to adventure travel. Luckily there are loads of add- ons you can buy to guard your bike! Of course some adventure bikes are more equipped for the off-road segment than others. For example the BMW GS series are mostly designed to have some parts of the bike tucked away so you might need less add-ons on those bikes. But they come with a higher price tag than for example the Suzuki V-strom. Which would comparing apples to oranges though. Crash bars. Crash bars are perhaps the most basic protection upgrade you should make. Not only are they good to keep more room between the bike and your leg in a fall. They also protect the side of your bike for any damage. Crash bars are not only good to have off-road. I’ve used mine some pretty stupid tip-overs a few times before. Scratches on your crash bars hurt less than on your bike Engine guard. Riding thru an off-road track with some potholes or a waterhole with some unexpected stones. Both could be destructive on your engines underside, exhaust pipes or oil filter. A good engine guard will take the brunt of the force and make sure your engine survives most of the hits it gets. What are you looking for in a good engine guard? It has to have enough connection points to your bike to spread the blow on when it takes a hit. You don’t want to end up with a half loose engine guard out in the field. Look at the material and the thickness of the material the engine guard is made of. Check if this meets your needs on your travels. I don’t need to explain to you that you need an engine guard with some more meat when you hit the hard tracks. Radiator guard. Some bikes might not need this. My V-strom is not one of those. The radiator is quite exposed and vulnerable for sticks and stones to break its bones. I already have a few dings in it before I installed the guard. Your radiator could lose effectiveness and even leak, when it has too much dings. Also when you ride through the bush and you manage to ride through some brushes, the twigs might puncture your radiator. although that would be an extreme… its nice not to have it happen on a trip. Hand guards. I think that on 90% of the adventure bikes for sale today these are standard. And if not… get them! This could be the difference between a trip through the back roads and a trip to the E.R. Branches, trees, rocks everything that can crush your fingers are free to do so without these guards. Adjusted or upgraded suspension. It’s pretty hard for manufacturers to size up their average customer. That’s why they just put the suspension to what they think is their average rider. This is almost never the case. You will be riding with luggage, water, food and maybe a few pounds more than the average 80 kg of bodyweight. Because of this it is good to adjust your suspension to your own riding habit. Adjusting this isn’t something you do once and then can forget about. It is recommended to do this before every long trip you take. Unless your riding weight will be about the same. Curious how to set your preload? Check out this video for one of the options. Some bikes don’t have enough preload on them to give you the right amount for every ride. Or they just have crappy suspension. If this is the case it is a good idea to check out if you can upgrade your suspension by slamming a new one in there. Wider and rougher foot-pegs. My V-strom came equipped with sturdy, small, rubber lines pegs. These start to hurt after a while standing on them on an off-road track. Also they get slippery when wet or dirty. Not ideal if you’re tracking a bumpy road while standing on them. That’s why I replaced mine with wider and rougher total metal foot-pegs. Don't know how you replace foot-pegs? Just take a look here then. Auxiliary lights. Chances are that where you are heading, there are no streetlights. Still you want to look as far forward and as wide as you possibly can. This way you can anticipate to potholes, trees, branches, your fellow riders and critters. That’s why it could be very handy to mount some auxiliary lights like these 4XLED Supermini’s I mounted on my V-strom. I bought mine at: ALLROADMOTO Do you want to check out the review first? Click here to check out the full-review. Well this is again such a subject where everyone had their own preference. So let me know what your top 7 would be. More articles on: BEARDED_VSTROMRIDER

Hi Guys & girls, I've been having some issues with my Touratech IMO 100. Currently it's not displaying speed, which is not due to the IMO but because the electronic pickup is broken. I tried to change it out by a bolt-on unit from KOSO, but because the interval is different from the TT one (3 pulses per revelation instead of 1) the IMO won't display speed correctly. Dividing wheel size doesn't help either, because the IMO can't keep up with the pulses above 70kph and just displays 0kph instead. Other than above mentioned issue the IMO has been resetting itself lately, making me enter time, wheel size and some other parameters every other time I start up the bike. It might be related to the incompatible speedo pickup since that's when the problem started, so for now I've disconnected the pickup again. Will see if this helps. Getting somewhat ahead of myself with this issue I've been looking around for a replacement dashboard/rally computer. I could probably and quite simply replace the current unit with Touratech's latest offering. But at €350,- there are probably alternatives. For example, a Trailtech unit. Depending on the choosen unit this might end up being as expensive or even more expensive, but it will offer more functionality.And maybe there are other solutions as well, which I'm not aware of yet. So here's my question to you: any suggestions or insights on replacing the current IMO? I would like it to have at least the same functions as my current IMO (according to the TT website), but the speedo part of it all is obviously more important: Speedo mode with daily trip odometer Simultaneous display of: Speed Daily trip odometer Time of day Odometer Rallye computer mode Simultaneous display of: Total distance covered, can be edited via remote control in steps of 10m, 50m or 100m or be edited at IMO-100R50 Rallye directly using Partial distance (stage) can be reset via remote control or at IMO-100R50 Rallye directly Time of day Total distance covered or stage with large or small display Thanks!

Hi all, My name is Martijn, I'm from the Netherlands, and I've only recently stepped into the allroad/offroad life. About a year ago I bought a first generation Ducati Multistrada 1000DS which obviously isn't really built for offroad adventures but that didn't stop me (although it did supply me with some fun moments, for example when I arrived at an organized offroad event where they asked me if I was actually planning on riding the Multi, and after answering yes they automatically placed me in the beginners group). Anyways, the Duc was stolen last april just 2 weeks after some major maintenance including replacing the valveguides. Of course I also just put on all the farkles I wanted. Fortunately the bike was properly insured and the insurance expert was pretty realistic about the actual value of the bike, meaning I could now look for a new bike. I kept 2 lists of possible replacements for the Duc, one had some cheaper bikes (Honda Varadero, high mileage R1100GS, early model V-Strom) on it so I would have some budget for farkles, and the other had some bikes on it more at the top of my budget (R1150GS or high mileage R1200GS, Aprilia Caponord or BMW K1200S). Obviously I was fooling myself a bit there, because I ended up buying a bike from the second list and already received about 7 packages with parts and farkles in the first week after I bought the bike. So without further ado, my new bike: A 2002 R1150GS Adventure ABS in Touratech Revamp trim. For its age it's fairly low mileage, I think it's a tad bit lighter than the original, has the Xenon headlight and also came with a new customfit tankbag and Laser exhaust (original was mounted when I bought it so it's not in the pictures). I'll be servicing it this weekend as the previous owner didn't ride it much (he had a R1200GSA as well) and it probably won't be long before she gets some knobbies. By the way, the bike is a company motorcycle as I'm self-employed and I also use it to drive to clients. So that's where my nickname comes from (also on Facebook / Instragram / Twitter). When I grow up I'd like to make a living doing something with motorcycles though, and not just be the entrepreneur that rides a motorcycle. Cheers, Martijn