Sim and I are gear junkies, there is no denying it, but after having recently bought a house and 2 extra bikes, we have had to restrain ourselves for this trip. Lucky for us, we had most of the gear we needed already and only had to buy a few extra bits to get us by or cope with the different riding conditions. With the Groms being little bikes we tried to go the minimalist route wherever possible and keep things...
Whilst we were mostly happy with our bikes there were a couple of things we decided to change and add. We also wanted to make sure we knew our bikes inside out so gave them a thorough service also. It actually ended up being a bit of a long to do list and we took our time over the course of a couple of weeks to get it all done. We also made sure that we had plenty of time...
So we needed a crate to pack our little buddies into and safely ship them across the ocean. Since freight is usually worked out on a volumetric basis, it made sense to try and fit both bikes along with all of our gear into a single compact crate. Initially we thought we would go for a steel one as it's lightweight, doesn't need any special certifications and is usually free from friendly motorcycle dealerships. Kawasaki was our first point of call. We...
We (V and Sim) have another 4 weeks or so of agonizing waiting before we pick up our bikes in NY. We thought we might post a few things about pre trip preparation in the meantime. Who doesn’t love a good packing list right? It’s nice to keep a record of stuff somewhere. We will be posting updates of the trip on this website as well as on Facebook and on ADVRider as we go. At the end we hope...
Weeks ago we packed our bikes in a box , said Bon Voyage to our little buddies and sent them on their way to the US of A. According to the interwebs, our box of bikes is currently about ¾ of the way to San Fran. We will be seeing them again in New York City at the beginning of August. We are doing the TAT, the full TAT and nuthin’ but the TAT .. well maybe just a bit...
The Groms are on their way. Next stop, New York. Bon voyage little buddies!!...
Finally! It’s taken months of prep to get to this stage and the ADV Groms are now ready to ship. We’ll write up a full packing list at some point and there’s plenty of video for me to edit. The approx (bathroom scale) weight stats as follows;...
We just fitted the last farkles for the TAT...
This was a electrical / mechanical test. Gear is next. 240km around Banks Peninsula. We gave them a good thrashing on seal and gravel. Had to bail heading up the old Le Bons track.. it was starting to look like our Random Spur epic (https://youtu.be/zmScjbtcSwE?t=1m19s) just steeper, rockier and more slippery due to the wet clay. Would have been easier with knobby tires! We decided the goal was to 'Shake' not 'Break' the Groms so took a small detour. Only issues were...
