Take just what you need and know how to use it!

Preparing you and your motorcycle and carrying the kit you’ll need with a few recommendations for what to buy (and where) for ‘low-cost’, ‘regular use’ and ‘professional’ budgets.

Packing Lists – Beware the “Y’never know …” Syndrome

Before we begin, if you’re sitting next to a computer or have access to the internet through a mobile device, open a search engine and type in ‘motorcycle packing lists’.  I’ve just done it and was presented with 15.6m hits in less than a second! 

Pages and pages … and pages of ‘the best packing list for motorcycles’. Where do you start??
Let’s assume you can find the perfect packing list for your trip among the millions of websites, journals and online videos, which is best the model for your needs, where are you going to source all that gear, can you actually afford to buy it all … and, if you’re past those minor challenges, then you’ve got to pack it on your bike!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say “y’never know …” the prefix to a description of an incredible situation that “just might happen” and means you just have to take yet another piece of kit.

Well, each to their own, but our philosophy is less kit, carefully selected is always better.  

So, in the coming weeks, we’ll be explaining what to think about when planning your journey and the kit you’re going to need. We’ll also help you find the better available kit in the market to suit all budgets, as well as letting you know about the stuff we use.By the way, just for the avoidance of doubt, we do not in any way, receive a dime from any manufacturer or store we may recommend. Our recommendations are based on a genuine knowledge of the product(s) concerned and/or the same of highly trusted review sights by people we trust to know what they’re talking about! 

Getting started 

Let’s get started by making a couple of things clear about adventure motorcycling kit selection. 

First, there is no right answer, all you can do is ensure you’ve covered the things that will help you stay focussed on the road and not fretting about your kit.  Everyone will pack differently and that’s OK!  Whether you’re a ‘helmet, credit card and toothbrush’ or ‘all-weather-everything, open-heart-surgery first aid kit and clothes for anyoccasion’ kind of packer, the principles are the same. Think them through and you’ll seldom have that “Doh! Can’t believe I forgot my >insert missing kit here< …” or “Grrrr! Why did I bring sooo much stuff?” moments

Three simple questions

Whenever travelling there are 3 very simple and interconnected things to consider that will help you focus on what you need: where are you going and what time of year are you going there; how much support are you planning on using – for example, are you wild camping or staying in hostels; are you travelling alone or in a group?

Obviously, travelling to Croatia through Europe in July presents a different set of kit requirements to the Mongolian plains in winter (not recommended by the way!). Equally, if you are planning to hop from motel to motel you may want to back off the camping kit a touch. While travelling in a group offers options in terms of the type of kit you can carry by sharing the load: while all riders will have their ‘core load’ (see below), with more than one rider you may have the opportunity to take larger items where they can be broken down easily and shared across packing loads.

Three simple priorities

In survival training you are taught about the Rule of 3: you’ll last 3 minutes without Oxygen; 3 hours without Shelter; 3 days without Water; and 3 weeks without Food. OK, we’re not planning to put ourselves in a life-or-death survival situation; we’re planning an adventure, (hopefully not that adventurous) motorcycling trip. Nonetheless, when considering your kit requirements the survival rules can help clarify the difference between ‘core‘ or essential requirements, which you should always have readily available to you and then ‘non-core’ or desirable requirements where expected need demands and space allows.

From the Rule of 3, to ‘maintain oxygen’ we’re not talking about carrying an oxygen bottle and mask exactly, but we are talking about first aid and in extremis knowing how to deal with injury; we’ll need access to shelter and, depending where you are going and when, this need could vary considerably; and, obviously, we’ll need to stay hydrated and fed.  The latter 3 could all be readily available at the roadside and may not require anything to be carried at all, so why are you taking the water purification kit and 6-weeks’ supply of chocolate? … OK, maybe just 2 weeks of chocolate!

Coming weeks …

So, using nothing more than considerations around the 3 questions and 3 priorities we can not only build an appropriate core packing list for our journey, but we can also set off confident that we’ve got what we need, no more no less, of essential items and a plan to always have access to whatever we’re not carrying along the way.

In the coming weeks, we’ll work through a range of scenarios to help better explain how the questions and priorities can be used for kit selection. In addition, as mentioned earlier, we’ll also be offering a range of recommendations about kit to consider and why.

At the very least, we intend to leave you with a clear method of wading through the myriad of alternatives online and “great advice” from all your mates to know what might actually be useful to have on your motorcycle.