Having taken up much space in the 'newbies' area and the XT area with help to use it from a completely analogue starting point, I don't even have a smartphone, so I won't get the full features of the XT, but I am fine with that i will get what I can get.
Quick background to explain the mileage I used to rack up - i was a photographer for a motorcycling publisher and would do between 50,000 and 80,000 miles a year going to do feature shoots or just touring trips to satisfy an itch. There was one 5 year period for that publisher (Myatt McFarlane Publishing for those Brits who might recognise it) when I got 7 days off, not 7 days a year, 7 days in the 5 years. I am not complaining, when you enjoy your work you don't actually go to work. I viewed as being paid to ride my bike and take pictures! I still work for a couple of titles, Back Street heroes (BSH) here in the UK and Cafe Racer in the USA, but back in the day I worked for titles right across the world and was fully FIM accredited across all disciplines. Things have changed, I am now an old git with a couple of old bikes!
I had a Ducati 900ss (bevel drive) that I clocked over 90,000 miles on and she was pretty reliable. That was my fun bike at the time. Alongside I had a Morini 350 that I put 184,000 miles on then sold her to a student and she is still going strong and well known in the Morini Riders Club. No major worries and still on the original clutch when I sold her. I sold the pair of them to get a BMW R100RS, which I had some years and put 334,000 miles on, again she was still on the original wheel bearings, clutch, suspension...everything except consumables. I never had a single breakdown with her, but got persuaded to fulfil a dream: I was going for some service parts from Bluebell BMW in Crewe when I saw the first incarnation of the R1150GS Adventure in the showroom, complete with the panoramic, gatefold brochure shot in the Atacama... I still have that brochure somewhere. Anyway, there was no chance on earth I could afford a new one, but visiting a dealer with the Editor of Streetfighters they had one came in part exchange... Dave Manning was the editor at the time and he saw it and said: that's what you need, not that heap of junk you ride around on (the RS)... it was November and we were there to get some shots of Californian imports of bog standard bikes that he had Streetfighter versions of.. so this is the standard bike.. and this is what 'Joe Blogs' has turned it into type features. The salesman's radar must have been on short range! he was over in a flash and offered me a really good deal on it, as it only arrived in PX that day. I ended up in hock for 5 years for that throw away comment by Dave!
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I had that bike 13 years and put 225,000 miles on her, without incident. As it happened, another, 1 owner 1150Adv came up with only 24,000 miles on it. I hummed and haard for a bit and decided I could afford it, use the old one for winter and the new one for summer, gently. Well, I was on my way back from a job in Shoreham (next to Brighton on the South Coast) and got taken out on the M40 by a bloke driving whilst using his mobile phone... with two punctured lungs, the right one in two places, 17 borken ribs, with many in several places, broken sternum, browkn shoulder, scapula in 6 places and right collar bone in 5 places... I was lucky, there was an ambulance with two paramedics about 100 yards astern and they were working on me before anyone had even phoned (the Policeman who attended told me). I survived.... I even rebuilt the bike, which would be the 'new' 1150Adv wouldn't it, it couldn't have been the old knacker! It took me 2 years to recuperate but the bike was put back on the road and I went to Orkney on her...
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But that trip proved to me that she was too big. I had to have help each time to get her off and back on the stand... so she was sold.
I kept hold of the 1988 R80GS that we bought in 1991, and we still have her.
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For everyday use I needed lightweight, so I got an X Country, a unicorn of a bike. 158kgs fuelled with 53hp.. lightweight and pokey, great fun! this little bike I have put over 50,000 miles on her and she is brilliant. I love it, who needs a big bike? Picture to follow because I have reached my limit!
