Preparations - kit

How to prepare a ten week motorcycle trip. Well, you need time, money and most of all - patience. And every piece of motorcycle equipment ever made.

What kit you need and what is just "nice to have"? The tinternet is full of answers to those questions and it takes patience to go through all that info and to figure out what you need because for every piece of kit you will find equally convincing arguments for and against it in different forums. You start off with a curious mind and this kind of excitement, but it soon turns into a nightmare as you want to find the best product for you for the best price. So you read reviews and try to decide. 

If you order your kit through the internet, you get ripped off with shipping costs, customs and VAT, and by various criminals in ebay who should be shot. 

If you go to your ye olde motorcycle shoppe, you have to deal with people who do not know anything about the shit they sell and have to order everything with 6-10 week delivery times. And in general just wait a lot for anything to happen. How these people stay in business never ceases to amaze me. The benefit with going to the shoppe is that A) you can in rare occasions see and even try out the product before you buy it, B) there could be a bargain bin with something good in it, and C) you have someone to shout at when nothing happens with your order for weeks and weeks.

In any case, I have persevered through all this and I am now fully equipped to tell stories about conquering the world in the corner pub. People with a bit of experience keep telling "less is more" and that bring half the stuff you think you need and double the money. I can't afford that, so I guess I have to learn the hard way.   

Basically I need cold and hot weather kit and I have opted to take two helmets with me. One for the beginning and the other for the rest of the trip. The cold weather kit and helmet can be posted back to Finland when we get to Eastern Europe or Turkey.  

Then there is navigation and mobile entertainment = a second hand Garmin navigation system and an ye olde ipod. And a book. A laptop and an ipad which could be absolutely pointless but it is handier for reading books and surfing, doing emails etc than the laptop. 

Medical supplies are probably quite well covered by this big "pro" first aid kit full of all sorts of stuff I do not know how to use. And a big box of pills as you tend to need medication when you least expect to need it.

Other things to consider in preparation are of course the vaccinations. I had to take about a dozen jabs all in all with up to four on the same day. This is not really that eventful unless you experience all sorts of fun side-effects from the jabs. I did not, but it still is literally a pain in the ass.