VENTURING SOUTH on DRZ's

Absolutely FANTASTIC! Glad you made it home and enjoy your home state of Oregon, it is beautiful there!

Hey Romanousky, I was lucky enough to stumble across this ride report just when you started off and have followed it religiously to now. I chimed in about 1/2 through asking if your riding partner minded your using his toothbrush to clean your bike .

Having done my own ride reports I can appreciate how much work you have put in to share this experience with us. People have no idea how much work these things are in being creative which you are in spades, taking the pictures, downloading them to a 3rd party site, even finding areas with wireless out on the adventure. Its a full time job, and your working in that much party is just flat our impressive.

My offer still stands, if you guys ever make an east coast Canadian bike run you have a place to crash and party .

I'll share a picture of your room mate while here. She is a bit of a pig but a real nice personality.

Ms. Goldie Hawg
<a href="http://s441.photobucket.com/user/HighSide05/media/Goldie%20Hawg/FujifilmOldies051.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/advrider-photobucket-images/images/H/HighSide05_Goldie%2520Hawg_FujifilmOldies051.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo FujifilmOldies051.jpg"/></a>

Thanks for an excellent ride report and I encourage everyone who reads this to give the lads a 5/5 report rating !

Thank you for taking us less fortunate with you!!! It's been one of the best trips I've never been on!!!!

Yosemite??? guess i read your reply too late!!!

Thanks again to all of you. Love the pig dude....I'm sure I'll make it out there one day. I have to admit though the first night Al and I got back together here we drank too much and looked at a map for about 2 hours debating weather to go from Spain to Magdalan, Spain to Indonesia, Magdalan to Indonesia, and on and on and on. These big adventures will change your life guys.....so if that's what you are looking for go get on the road.

Lets take a look at the gear.

Starting with the luggage you can all see that I used the Wolfman Expedition Saddle Bags and “Medium” sized duffel on the back. The Wolfman gear is built tough and with all my spills I didn’t even come close to putting a hole in it. They are obviously 100% waterproof and very lightweight. I am at odds with soft luggage. My biggest complaint is the fact that it is not lockable. Because of this we always parked the bikes in a visible area or had one or the other watching the gear while the other attended to whatever duty needed to be performed. Sure, maybe nothing would have been stolen but I couldn’t risk some of the irreplaceable supplies that I carry that could have affected the trip. It would be very nice if the whole bag was covered with a mesh cable netting that you could cinch up and put a lock on. I did like the way that the bag clipped onto the racks and it was very easy to install and remove. My other problem is that loading the bags are a pain in the ass because the rolled up top portion extended 8” above the bag and always has a tendency to close so one hand holds the bag open while the other tries to insert whatever item into its necessary location. Of course I got used to this but loading aluminum panniers would be far superior. But I do think that my racks and sub-frame tabs held up so well because the luggage was soft. I also used the Wolfman Bottle Holsters for a water bottle and a fuel bottle. I really like how they mount to the saddle bags and if I could do it over I would have 4 instead of just the 2 holsters.

Up front I used the Giant Loop tank bag and gave my wolfman one to Alex. I didn’t like the wolfman bag because it was too bulky and was in my way when trying to stand on the bike. The GL is much lower profile. It has less room but was perfect for what I wanted. I did have to cut the straps off the back and have them re-sewn into the correct location for a proper fit on the safari tank. The bag is not easily removable like the wolfman was but I didn’t care. I just left non-valuable things in it that I used frequently. Extra gloves, pens, tire guage, holds phone when charging, visor cleaning wipes, etc…. Well built product however the zippered side pockets are not completely waterproof. Other than that I am quite happy with it.

I had a Wolfman fender bag that held a front and a rear spare tube for the bike. This was a perfect use of storage space in a location that could be used for little else. Wouldn’t have done anything different here.

The two 3” ABS tubes on the back were just something that I made with a few home depot parts. One held the poles to the tent because I didn’t want them to get bent packing them every day. The other held parachute cord, compass, waterproof matches, electrical tape, electrical connectors, a few spare nuts and bolts, latex gloves, and a motion pro tire spoon with a hex bolt wrench on the other end that fit my front and rear axle nut (one of the best tools I brought). I really like having containers that are purpose made to house specific items. I wish that I had two more on the bike (one for the first aid kit and one for the rest of the other tools).

Next comes riding gear:

Boots: I’ve mentioned my Sidi boots that I acquired about 15 years ago from the local motocross shop. I don’t know what model they are but they are tough, durable, and fairly comfortable. They are not the least bit waterproof which would have been nice on a few occasions. There was very little fabric on the inside which means they dried very quickly and were not too hot in the humid environments (somehow my feet were rarely ever cold either). Bottom line a damn good product for how old and used they were but a nice new pair would have been good too. For all the rocks and pavement that these boots saw I am happy they I wore full MX boots rather than some street hybrid shoe.

I always rocked REI smartwool knee high socks. Very thin, kept me warm, dried in 20 minutes or less, didn’t carry odor like cotton does. Love the socks

Pants: KLIM Badlands. Not real enthusiastic about the pants. The good part is they are absolutely bulletproof. Very strong fabrics that look brand new after a quick wash. The pockets are of good size and in a good location for access to wallet when getting fuel etc…. The bad part is that they do not vent well at all. I would have to stand up if I wanted any real flow through the pants. I could also ask for some belt loops. They were a little big on me but wouldn’t stay up around my waist for the life of me. Could have used some suspenders. The pants are completely waterproof and strong as well but my biggest complaint is just that they don’t breath well at all. They are naturally a little baggy and fit well over the boots and I could easily fit long johns or even a pair of jeans on underneath them if it was real cold out.

I wore ExOfficio boxer briefs with antibacterial fabric. These work fantastic. You can wear them for a week sweating and they still don’t stink. Very impressive product in my opinion. They also dry very quickly.


Jacket: KLIM Badlands. I absolutely love this jacket. First, it is completely waterproof. Next, the pockets are in great position and I very much like the left chest pocket where I kept my Canon point and shoot SD1200 IS for quick photo snaps. The pads are all in perfect locations and never budged everytime that I fell. The kidney belt inside the jacket is priceless. It kept my posture more upright with my back straighter I would fatigue less quickly. The venting is supreme. As long as I was doing at least 30 mph I never got hot it just flows so much air. I can also open and close 6 of the 8 vents with the jacket on my body which was quite handy. I also like the pocket in the “skirt” of the jacket on the back that can hold all sorts of stuff. There is only one thing that I didn’t like about the jacket. There is like a fingerless glove that goes around your hand everytime you stick it through the sleeve. Every time I would just have to take it off and push it up into the sleeve before locking down the wrist cuffs but it became rather annoying. You could just cut this fabric out but for some reason I was afraid that other things might start unraveling. I do not know what the point of these things are but they suck. I would recommend this jacket too anyone.

Always wore Nike dry fit shirts underneath the jacket. Only where it was really cold did I use a down jacket underneath the riding jacket.


Helmet: Arai XD4. Good helmet, solid venting, sunglasses fit well underneath, my SENA headset mounted up and the speakers embedded very very well….perfect fit, the visor never came loose or rattled at all, the face shield locks in place very solid. A high quality helmet with a high quality fit. My one and only complaint is that the mouthpiece is very close to my mouth which inhibited my ability to drink from my camelback without removing the helmet. Other than that it was a good purchase.

Next post will be about the camping gear, electronics, tools, etc....

Hey this résumé looks nice!

What he said... (Except for the pig and Canada stuff). SW Ohio we got you covered though

At the bar where this all started only about 9 months earlier:

Great trip report! I read every page and got a real sense of your adventure. I like how you included the good stuff like blowing crap up and drinking gallons of cheap whiskey without worrying about the politically correct police attacking you.

Well done guys!!

I've been to Omar's,good times.

Hey Romanousky, how did you actually attach the ABS pipes to the bike? Did you ziptie them to your rear rack? Or maybe use pipe hangers somehow?

I've done something similar (though with a much smaller diameter abs tube) that's currently attached to my subframe tabs - not going to work if I eventually get luggage racks for this thing...

I won't speak for Andrew, but if you go to this link you can probably see how it was attached via clamps (and zipties on Alex's bike). looks like a nice, solid frame he built for stuff like that.

http://www.venturingsouth.com/the-bikes/

Thank you. And a special thanks to those politically correct police for not badgering me as I'm sure I gave you plenty of ammunition. I think next time I will really include EVERYTHING whether you like it or not. :eek1

Alex zip tied his to the bike and that last all of about 1500 miles at which point he resulted to duct taping it to the rear rack which surprisingly lasted quite a while.

I built a steel bracket to hold them. Basically took a piece of 1.5" x .125" flat bar about 15" long and then I wrapped each end halfway around a piece of 3" diameter steel bar (after heating of course). In the center section of this piece that is still flat I drilled two clearance holes and then welded nuts to the top side.



I slid this piece underneath the rear rack and then built another "Top Clamp" piece with thru holes for my hex head bolts to pass through into the bottom fabricated piece. tightening the bolts just clamps the whole setup to the rear rack. The split tubing on the ends of the top piece are matched to the angle of the rear rack so it is not possible for this thing to slide forward or back.



Then I JB-welded pieces of an old leather belt around the ABS tubes where my pipe clamps would rest. Needless to say they never came off. It was also nice to have this extra width in the back for more surface area for the duffel bag to rest on.

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Gotta keep the important stuff safe...

Gotta keep the important stuff safe...[/QUOTE]

I had a sip of your booze. That stuff was more dangerous than your dynamite.
In my continued travels, I am going to find something more powerful than Bolivian TNT and then blow something up in your honor

Very Kewl. Nice ride report. I enjoyed it.

Dug this one up from the RR grave...glad you enjoyed my nonsense

Looking forward to your next thread of "nonsense"!

I just had to read this report one more time.....