Motorcycle Explorer August 2015 Issue 7 | Page 165

Tell me why you picked this bike . Off road capability , light weight but still powerful enough to carry me and my luggage across Europe at a reasonable pace – and being a KTM dealer means I got it at a good price ……..
Does your bike have a pet name ? Not yet – but maybe sometime in the future as we get to know one another better
What is one thing you would change about your bike ? Not sure – it ’ s pretty much just how I want it at the moment . Perhaps the only change would be to fit a proper ‘ Rally ’ type fairing or a remote preload adjuster for the rear shock .
Did you learn anything about yourself on your trip ? Before this trip I had limited offroad experience and was quite wary about doing big distances on unmade roads – by the end I found that I had both the ability and confidence to do it
What are two other places you ' d like to ride to ? Difficult one – there is so much of the world still to see ! The Elephant Rally is on the bucket list , and , one day , I ’ d love to ride from the UK to Capetown .
What was the best food you ate on your last trip ? Scandinavia , and Norway in particular , has a reputation for being expensive if you eat out or enjoy a beer or two so I took a fair amount of food with me from the UK and ate simple camp meals . However I can strongly recommend the Norwegian hot dogs wrapped in bacon that they seem to sell at most petrol stations !
What was the scariest thing to happen to you with your bike ? Nothing really scary but there was one occasion in Sweden where a gravel road turned into a rutted track , which turned into a narrow single track path , which shrunk to about 2 feet wide before running along the side of a lake with a sheer 10 foot drop into the lake on the left and a vertical rock face on the right . No room to turn around and a little tricky on an adventure bike with luggage ……,
What was the weirdest thing to happen to you with your bike ? The KTM has run faultlessly so far – but I ’ m sure some people will say that is weird for a KTM !
How many miles have you done on your bike to date ? 7,500 on this one – but I ’ ve only had it since May this year . I do have a few other bikes in the garage and riding time gets shared around amongst them
How would your bike describe the way you treat him / her / it . With care and respect . At the end of the day I am relying on the bike to get me to far away and remote places – and then get me back to civilisation so I don ’ t want to ride so hard that I end up crashing or breaking the bike ……
If you ' d like to feature in the next issue of MEM and tell us all about your bike then write in . newsdesk @ memrider . com with the title ' Me and My Bike '.
If you ' re selected we ' ll see about sending you some goodies from one of our partners ; o )